Thursday, July 22, 2010

Over Generous

Can a person be over-generous? I think so.

My son's classmate X is one such person ... or rather X's parents.

At the end of term 2 when the class had a end-of term party, everyone was to contribute party food. Naturally, I did my share and sent in some snacks as requested by my son. But when my son came home from school, he told me what X's mum had sent to school for the party: 11 giant pizzas, MacDonald happy meals (chicken nuggets, hamburgers and fries), a few carton of drinks, a few cartons of potato chips as well as some home-made noodle dish for the teachers!! And in addition, she sent the maid along to cook the noodles for the teachers in the school!! I thought that was a little over-board. Naturally everything which anyone else brought paled in comparison, in the eyes of the children, especially if it was "healthy" snacks.

2 weeks ago, X invited the whole class and all teachers to a movie for X's birthday. My son was not able to attend that movie screening as he was playing in a soccer tournament. The very next week, an invitation was again extended to those who were unable to attend the birthday movie to watch another movie with X, with dinner thrown in. That was the one I mentioned in my previous post, which my son attended. However he chose not to stay for dinner which was supposed to have been at a Tonkatsu restaurant.

Yesterday, my son came home from school and said that X has now invited the WHOLE class to go to Universal studios on 8 August. Naturally the children in the class are all excited and want to go. My son was equally excited and was begging me to let him go. Initially I said "yes", but after thinking about it, I discussed the situation with my husband, and we are considering NOT letting him go.

Why? You see, I think X's parents are just too generous .... and we do not want to take advantage of it. We really cant let someone else pay for a $52 ticket for our son. And imagine how much that is going to cost the family if the whole class decides to go!! Some $2000!!

We are considering alternatives for him to have that same fun with his classmates - letting him go, but insisting that we pay for the ticket ourselves. But then, our family has not been to USS yet, and I am sure my other two children would want to go as well .... and it would be nice if we went as a family.

Also, we do not believe in over-indulging our children. Treats, parties, etc have to be earned .... not served on a silver platter every other week.

Sometimes I wish people werent THIS generous, then I wouldnt have this dilemma!

3 comments:

Stardust said...

Woah.. that's really generous of family X. It'll be really great if they make bigger contribution to the needies.

My husband is often indignant of my what he calls an ' over generous ' behaviour, while it's peanuts compared to X's. I never quite understood him, but better now.

doc said...

with due respect, i almost fell off the chair (an exaggeration, but you know what i mean!) when i read of such immense generosity offered esp. during these pressing times.

but i agree with you - this is way over the top & i do question the wisdom (& actual motive?) of such over-indulgence. the students & teachers may soon come to EXPECT that future events to be sponsored by X's family & may not appreciate it.

iml said...

Sorry for sounding sceptical, are they trying to score brownie points with classmates and teachers. I agree with your decision. It should be a family outing