Growing Rich in the Right Values.

Mm...if your father is a billionaire, how will you turn up in life? 

While some second generation are unabashed to show you that they are exceedingly wealthy, with the flaunting of assets and cash, others are much more circumspect. In an article on Sunday, Paige Parker wrote about “Growing rich in the right values.”

Who’s Paige Parker? 

Well, here’s a clue. She recently wrote a memoir, “Don’t Call Me Mrs Rogers”. Still clueless? Well, her husband is Jim Rogers. He is a billionaire investor. He’s cofounder of the Quantum Fund and the Soros Fund. He now runs his own investment firm, Rogers International Commodity Index. 

So, here’s the question: how has Paige been raising her two teenage daughters, Happy and Bee? She started her article with this, “The more you learn, the more you earn.” 

She said: “Learning goes way beyond the classroom in our minds, and earning includes monetary, intellectual and emotional fulfilment; yet the question we ponder, like so many parents, is how to ensure our daughters understand the necessity of hard work and “saving for a rainy day”, which my father constantly chanted when I was a child.””

In the article, she teaches Happy and Bee about working hard. Happy,16, has worked as a Mandarin tutor to two young girls, Ying and Xuan. “Our daughters do chores, helping with dinner, clearing table, keeping their rooms neat to “earn” their pocket money for school lunches.””

Paige also taught them budgeting. “We give two weeks of earned lunch money to Happy ($2 a day), and one week to Bee, in advance so they may budget for a short span of time.” 

When they overspent, which Bee did, they have to make do with lesser for the rest of the week, or go to their piggy bank for “overdraft”.

And on giving, Paige encouraged the girls to share their CNY hongbao with charity and their schools, while the rest goes to savings. On her own initiative, Paige recalled that Bee once donated a bit of her personal money to the theatre company Wild Rice. 

From reading her article, I can sense that her fear is this: “We try to encourage self-motivation, not monetary rewards...But I often wonder, is it enough? We all know the universal adage of “the first generation makes the money, the second generation maintains it and the third generation squanders it.””

Paige added: “I want my girls to be driven, to follow their passions and to work very, very hard to feed their hearts and souls.”

Lesson? Mm...It is good to know that however rich you are, some families are grounded, practical and others-centered. 

Paige quoted former US president John F Kennedy who once reminded us of this scripture: “Of those to whom much is given, much is required.”

She then concluded: “Whether our children are living in a Housing Board flat or a condominium, there is someone out there living on less. Teaching our children to extend a hand and help another is of utmost importance - and a life skill not covered at school. Helping others earns us a better world and learning to do that starts at home.”

Alas, I guess the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, but those who are richer may be rich in wealth but poor in values, and vice versa. Of course, there are also those who are short on both ends of the stick, that is, poor in wealth and in values. Both do deep damage to their family, especially their children, and society at large. 

Before reading Paige’s article, I have to admit that I have my bias or presuppositions. I thought about the widow’s two mites. 

In Luke 21, it reads: “And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”

Mm...between out of one’s abundance and out of one’s poverty, you can discern a person’s heart and true intention. 

But having read Paige’s thoughts and parenting style, I felt that I need to say this: it is not her fault that she is rich or has abundance. 

Most times, it is what we do with what we have (from a transformed heart) that truly enriches us. For the rich may grow richer, but at the same time, becomes poorer as a result. And the poor may be poorer and stays even poorer for reasons other than the lack of earthly possessions. 

The world measures one by his possessions and fame. But in Jesus’ observation of the rich and the poor widow, he looks at the heart.

You may say that between being rich and poor, who wouldn’t want to be rich? Isn’t that a no-brainer? 

Well, that is precisely the problem right? It is definitely a no-brainer, but it runs the risk of being a no-hearter too. 

I know of a couple who worked from ground up. Building up their businesses and moving from HDB to condo to two condos, with sports cars and all, but they still ended up in a lawyer’s office applying for divorce. Now, they can’t stand each other. 

One of them lamented and said this to me: “When we first started, we were so poor, but we were happy, and loved each other so deeply.”

So, have no delusions about riches, they change you. And have no delusions about poverty, they change you too. 

In the end, if your heart is changed by wealth for the worse, you are no better. Neither are you any richer.

And if your heart is changed by poverty for the worse, you will always be poor not because you have little, but because you will never be rich in Jesus’ observation even if one day, you would to come to overflowing material abundance.