I will let my children be rich second generation

Several weeks ago, I watched some movies like “high school musical” and “step up series” with my friends. We were enthralled by the dance movements and the wonderful songs in the movies. And my friends said, “if only I could learn to dance when I was young!” They did not have the chances to learn dancing for this or that reasons and now we think it is too late to do that. Among the several reasons, there was a common one, that is, their parents could not afford them to do that. And at last they said something that highly resonated with me. They said, “I will let my children be ‘rich second generation’ in the future!” their words reminded me of the same line in several TV programs in China.

In fact, “second rich generation” is not a good phrase, at first it is a phrase to describe those who were born in a family which became rich since their parents and received good education and enjoyed affluent resources in the society. But now it is used more to describe those who live extravagant life and enjoy some privileges just because their parents are wealthy rather than they have the ability to deserve it. Because of their wealthy parents, “rich second generation” can be in an invincible and dominant position in the peer competition. That is, they do not need to work hard to live a good life as most of people in their ages do. This makes people feel unfair but can do nothing about it. I treated my friends’ words as protest to this unfairness and also a jokingly way to express their desire to live a better life. Why “jokingly”?  Because no one wants their children to be black sheep as “rich second generation”, however, everyone wants their children to live a better life than they do.

There is no absolute fairness in the society; the only thing we can do is to work harder and harder to pursue our dream. I think most of time our feeling of unfairness comes from comparison or envy. We would complain that we do not have a wealthy family or we do not have the same opportunity to succeed. But we should be aware of the fact that we cannot change the place we were born, we cannot choose our family and we cannot change the whole environment that we live. Unless those “rich second generation” do illegal things to get some benefits, they are not to be blame.

Sometimes the only thing we should do is to be positive to life. We might not be born in a wealthy family, but we get the chance to experience the ordinary life and even a hard life to be strong to face challenges. We might not have the chance to do something in our childhood, but we can let our next generation do it, and that is a progress and an achievement for us. Just as my friends said, “I will let my children be ‘rich second generation’!”