The general belief is that the rich tend to pamper their children by buying them all sorts of ‘toys’, while the poorer peoples do not do this because they cannot afford to. It is usually presented in stories – especially movies – that rich children are a menace while those from the poorer families struggle all their lives. Consequently, it may be believed that children from rich families are happier than those from the poorer ones. This may be the case in some instances, but is definitely not always true.

Children can be happy whether they are from rich or poor families. We hear cases of where the poor families make all sorts of sacrifices so that their children – or one of them – can have a certain comfort. Fathers are known to work at extra jobs so that their children can have expensive toys for Christmas or for their birthdays. On the other hand, the children of the rich are not always given everything that they desire. Wealthy fathers have been known to make their children work for a living and earn their pocket money. Other fathers have refused to give their children expensive toys so that they will learn the value of hard work. Hence, it is not the riches of the parents that can make a child happy but how parents deal with their children.

Happiness can never be equated with having money or having rich and wealthy parents for that matter. It is possible that poor parents have a close relationship with their child. In this way the child has something far better; it has love. Having enough love, the child will be happy – at least much happier than if it did not receive love. On the other hand it is possible that the child of rich parents has everything she wants but does not get the love and concern that she needs. The parents of wealthy children are sometimes too busy spending their money and earning more. Often we hear stories of ‘poor little rich children’.

Sometime the parents of rich children believe that their child will be happy if he/she is provided with everything he/she needs. They try to substitute money for love and care. In such instances, the wealthy child can be very happy indeed. In addition, children brought up in this way tend to be poor in relationships. They do not know how to value things like friendships. Using money and surrounding him with all sorts of ‘toys’ the child is apt to grow up with a wrong sense of what true happiness really is. When the time comes for him to realize the fact that money cannot always buy happiness, he will not know which way to turn.

Therefore, children from rich or wealthy parents may not always be happier than those from poorer families. In fact both are capable of being happy, with or without money.

A casual look at the world reveals that there is competition everywhere. This is evident in every area of life – ranging from games to work, there seem to be one mad rush everywhere when we try to succeed. Often it does not matter to us who perishes while we succeed or win. It does not matter who loses as long as it is not we who lose. This mad rush in every area of life divides the world into winners and losers. One is prompted to ask: Is winning and losing really important? Is being a winner or a loser all that there is to life?

If we listen to stories of successful people, we see that not all of them consider themselves as winners. Frequently, there have been cases where people who have been labelled successful businessmen have lost their families through divorce; or have lost their health through over working to gather the wealth. Can we call such people winners? The people probably do not think so. One such person was Elvis Presley. In the world of pop music he was The King a definite winner; but alas, his personal life was far from being successful at all. He lost his family, his health and died miserably from a drug overdose. His end was pitiful, yet he has vast wealth at his disposal. One is sure that the King would have gladly traded all his wealth for a loving family life.

No one should be poor or a failure in life. It is of no credit to anyone if he were to live from hand to mouth, or be homeless or be sick or unsuccessful in family life. In fact with all the joy and happiness that we see in the world around us, it is an insult to humanity that there should be people who are poor or losers in life. However, the fact remains that not many people who consider themselves as losers actually are! Many people, who call themselves losers, only because they did not win what they set out to, are winners – if only they could take honest looks at their situations. For example, people who come in second place in Olympic events burst into tears – apparently because they did not become number one. Can they be considered as losers?

Recently there was an amusing advertisement. None of us have to be winners or losers. We should be happy enough to be ordinary humans in the beautiful world and find happiness in small things, like the smile of a child or the fragrance of a flower or the smoothness of a stone on the beach. Life is certainly not only for those considered as winners by popular standards; nor is life to be excluded for so-called losers. Life is for all of us. We do not have to follow the popular tendency to label people as winners and losers.