Brazillionaires
“All my life I’ve felt like a second-class citizen,” writes a reader who requests anonymity. “My parents love me, but they lavish presents on my two brothers that I never received. When my brothers turned 18, they got cars! I am now taking my MBA in the US, and to my shock, some of my American friends said that it was the opposite with them. American daughters are supposedly more spoiled than sons. Is this a cultural difference? Or is it just my family? I am Filipino-Chinese.”
My reply
Your situation is intriguing, and for what it’s worth, I believe your parents love you as much as your brothers. Perhaps they believe that a car might not be appropriate (you don’t drive as much, or you have a driver).
Gender differences exist in child-rearing worldwide. Some Filipinos (and Chinese) tend to indulge boys more than girls, likely a holdover from tradition.
What about American parents? In a provocative article for “The Daily Telegraph,” UK writer Georgina Fuller admits to spending more on her daughter than her sons. Girls’ clothes are more expensive than boys’, for starters, and her daughter appreciates finer things more than her sons who are happy with the basics.
Fuller quotes parenting coach Elizabeth O’ Shea, director of Parent 4 Success, who discusses a special bond between mother and daughter early on.
“Mums in the West tend to hanker after a little girl, as opposed to mums in the East, who often want sons. Daughters are often considered friends for life and we can project our own hopes and aspirations on to them. So we tend to invest more in elaborate clothes and outfits for them.”
But whatever the reason, take heart in what Fuller concludes: “We may spend more [for our daughter], but she gets the same amount of time, love, and care as her brothers. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Brazillionaires
I shy away from discussing politics, whether in person or in print, but I have received several messages from readers after our historic elections, asking for enlightenment on questions such as: Why is corruption still endemic, despite the Philippines being a Catholic society that preaches simplicity and service?
I have no answer. But the book “Brazillionaires” by journalist Alex Cuadros reveals that we are not unique. Brazil, the host of the just-concluded Olympics, shares remarkable parallels with our country.
Like the Philippines, inequality is rife in Brazil, where multibillionaires thrive alongside favelas. Predominantly Catholic, many citizens are as fatalistic (or pragmatic) as we are. Politicians get re-elected despite shenanigans, with the excuse “rouba mas faz” which means “he may steal, but he gets things done.”
Cuadros illustrates this dictum with the rise of Paulo Maluf, former mayor of Sao Paulo, who provided infrastructure projects ostensibly for the people, but who pocketed hefty sums in the process. Maluf was a close friend of the past dictator, but even when the regime fell, he avoided jail, and even got re-elected.
Instead of hiding in shame, Maluf even went on a TV show where people criticized him publicly, after which he appeared out of a van to greet and embrace them. His name has become a verb (“malufar”) which means to use government funds for personal gain.
Even the current embattled president, Dilma Rouseff, who was imprisoned under the former dictatorship, appears to be no exception.
“Rouseff, far from holding a grudge against those who sponsored her torture, has carried on handing out cheap government loans to the same businesses, often having Brazil’s taxpayers carry the can when their megaprojects become white elephants,” says James Horner in a review of the book for “The Wall Street Journal.”
“Part of this was expedience: As Cuadros says of her predecessor and mentor, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva: ‘If he’d gotten hung up on who collaborated with the dictatorship, he’d have had few friends to work with in business or politics.’”
The book reads like a tabloid, but a heartbreaking one. The funniest yet most profound tidbit of them all might be the fact that when a remarkable man named Tiririca (Grumpy) ran for Congress, he bluntly told voters that he did not know what the job entails.
“But if you vote for me, I’ll find out for you.” Tiririca won by more than a million votes, the second largest total in the history of Brazilian politics.
Queena N. Lee-Chua is on the Board of Directors of the Ateneo de Manila’s Family Business Development Center. Get her book “Successful Family Businesses” at the University Press (email [email protected]). Email the author at [email protected].
