I'm 19 now. I used to give my best friends a three question mark book at school and I got a bar of chocolate from others. That was all in all.
My brother, 14, has very different values. When I tell him I gave my best friend a book, he laughs at me. The value of friendship seems to be measured in money today. My brother gets shoes worth over 200 euro (!) From a friend for his birthday. And the joys have not pooled! He gets an expensive Nike sweater from another friend.
My brother wanted to give his friend an XBox game for Easter for almost 100 euro. When we said that he shouldn't spend so much money, he looked very disappointed and said that he couldn't handle his best friend with "small things".
Why are so many children so material about this age? Where do they get taught that? And where do they have so much money anyway? At that age, I could never have afforded such expensive things and my friends would never have accepted them.
Is this perhaps also spread by Youtubers like Justin or Marc Gebauer, for whom even a Rolex is too cheap?
It is a vicious cycle. You have someone who has a lot of money (and therefore a completely different relation to it) and gives a gift to your brother. Of course, he wants to revise himself to the same extent, even if he has less money.
The question is actually: Where did your brother get all the money from? If he gets a lot of pocket money from his parents, they are responsible for making him lose his sense of money.
I couldn't have given anyone a gift for 100 euro during my childhood
This is not due to age, but to the environment. Even in my youth there were circles in which such gifts were common. Your brother only apparently has the problem that you are actually not financially as his friends.
I think that upbringing and circle of friends play a big role. If a friend gave me a gift for 200, I would almost have a guilty conscience if I didn't do the same to him. This creates something like a vicious circle.
However, these are different times and different methods. I personally would not get too excited about it.
It is very different here with us, because you donate almost nothing.
Perhaps a pack of sweets that everyone else except the birthday child is already feeding during the party. Here you concentrate more on being together. We then just spend the money on alcohol. However, we're probably older too.
Well, I would say that it's not just about money, it's also about work. If you know what it means to knit a sweater yourself instead of buying a ready-made one, the attitude towards money and life in general changes. You suddenly find out how much 5 euro are worth; what it takes to earn it or to make the "small stuff" first.
Of course, the media play a role here; Success comes across as something that can be acquired effortlessly - if you only know the right people and make the right contacts. "A dream body in just 7 days," are the words of many advisors. Everything is a question of technology, nothing a question of art, the unwritten law seems to be. And I have to honestly say that this attitude worries me too.
I'm sorry but I can't really believe all of this - your brother and you both seem to come from normal middle circumstances if the brother is even told that he can't give 100 euro gifts at Easter. But on the other hand does he get 200 euro of shoes for his birthday from friends and cost accordingly?
This is probably more common among wealthier families when the children get a generous pocket money - but such children are rarely so friends when they are 14 years old. So something is wrong with your statement.
I can only tell you that it is true. It doesn't always have to be pocket money. At 14, you can earn some extra money.
But in no way so much that you can give your friends a 100 euro gift, especially on Easter, is also unrealistic insofar as I have never heard that young people make such large, expensive gifts among themselves. May be that the parents sometimes had something with a special friend add, but not for everyone
if your brother really thinks like that, your parents did something wrong during the upbringing and you should talk to him about it!
That's exactly how it will be. It is then up to the parents to make it clear to the boy that you can't buy your friends
