December 14th Advent day 18

Hmmmmm.  Interesting.  I'm watching a programme on CBBC where half a dozen British kids are taken to the Philippines to work in the same way that Philippino kids are expected to work.   They have just been trying to make jewellery - the sort of bright fashion beads that you can buy on every high street in the UK.  They are living with families, in conditions which are shocking to our sheltered teenagers.  No toilets.  Chickens running around - extreme poverty.  The Philippino kids are working to support their families, in hot workshops with little children standing next to their mothers because no one can afford childcare.   And they are doing this to supply me with necklaces and bracelets which I dont really need but which I dont give a second thought to buying if I see something I fancy.


There is something very wrong with our world.

But Im not sure that what is wrong is that children are working.  I think maybe what is wrong is that our children in the wealthy west ARENT working!!   We coddle and cosset and spoil and frankly ruin our children by buying them everything they don't need on demand and not expecting much of them in return.  This generation has to be one of the most spoiled in history.  Even my parents who were born at the end of the war, were brought up in the ' make do and mend' era.   They knew the value of things and did not take anything for granted.   Christmas for many was an orange and a sweet and perhaps a silver sixpence in a sock at the end of the bed.


As Dec 25th approaches I, like most parents I assume, am counting the cost of loads of presents and trying to make sure that everyone is getting pretty much what they want.   We are not extravagant.  Lots of presents this year have been bought on ebay.   But compared to the children in the Philippines my kids are unbelievably and outrageously well off.    The kids in the Philippines work to put themselves through school.   They work hard all day for £1.50 .  My kids spend more than that on a comic.  Without a second thought.


I am sure that Jesus worked hard as a child.  Alongside his Dad, learning the family business.  It was the culture of the day.  It was the norm as it still is today in many parts of the world.   We think we are progressive and sophisticated because we no longer send children up chimneys and down mines, and clearly there are things children should never have to do.  They do deserve a childhood.   But I wonder have we let the pendulum swing just a bit too far the other way?    Maybe after Christmas I shall start to encourage my kids to be entrepreneurial in some way or other.    They could maybe start be selling some of the Lego mountain!!!   


Lord, this Christmas please forgive us for over indulging our kids and ourselves.  For making the ' stuff' the most important thing.  For sometimes even putting ourselves into debt just so that they can have more things they don't need.  Help us to resist the pressure.  To show our children how to be thankful for all that they have and not to be greedy for things that they don't.   Help us to remember the people far across the sea who are slaving away for little pay in poor conditions to make the ' stuff' we don't really need or want.