School holiday for Thai children (readers' submission)

Many Thai parents don't have a nail to scratch their ass with. Working 6 days a week, 7 hours a day. All their money is spent on paying off the many loans.

Let it be just those parents who leave their children to fend for themselves during the long school holidays. I know many examples in my immediate environment.

Do you really think that the families in question have the time and money for an amusement park visit, for a day at the sea or to organize an extensive BBQ every other night? No, maybe the richer Thai but the average families, forget it.

For many children it is a party when school opens again. Those long annoying holidays are not good for anyone, only the teaching staff rub their hands.

Berry the families I know are in the lower class to better middle class in the Isaan. At home usually a bunch of toys, with those who are better off also some more games lying around. But the tablet and smartphone are of course also popular pastimes. Every now and then they go out to something with water (reservoir, waterslide paradise, etc.) or the zoo, but parents or children have also seen that after numerous visits and people can't / don't want to go every day off. What do you do on days off? There's not really anything else to do is the answer.

Trips further afield? A weekend to another city or environment, that will still work for the parents who can afford it. But (if the money is already there) really on vacation, a week or more to the other side of the country, a country in the region or further away? Most parents work 5 or 6 days a week, and do not have an employer where you can take 1, 2 or 3 weeks off. So such trips are also ruled out.

As long as Thailand does not have the rights (days off, wages, dismissal protection, etc.) as we acquired them after the end of WW2, it will therefore not surprise me that the children, with or without a bunch of toys at home, just hang around while the parents work work work.

And speaking of “Modern upbringing”, the crazy helicopter parents aside, the message is: not every child can be pressured into a stereotype. Let girls do “boy things” and vice versa. Just sorting out their own interests, daughter who wants to fish with daddy? Fine. Son who prefers to play with glitter and may have a different sexuality later in life? Also okay. We have been learning about the environment for decades, nothing wrong with that. And the safe environment is often at home, some here come from the time when you could cross the highway with a blindfold... with today's traffic in Thailand and the Netherlands that is over. Letting a child of 6-7-8 kilometers with a classmate go out alone is therefore also quite tricky if you can be killed in so many places. Then playing outside quickly remains within the moobaan, and yes, with too many hours behind the screen while the parents work too many hours and have too little free time.

But isn't this the hypocrisy of the farang?

On various social media, including here on Thailand blog, you regularly get the question, I am European / American / Westerner, have / had a relationship with a Thai partner and we have a child or children.

Due to circumstances I am back in the Netherlands/Belgium/…, how much money per month should I send for the (ex) partner and children?

Also here on Thailand blog, you should read this question as, what is the minimum amount I have to send for the education of the children and intervention for the partner, so as not to be labeled as a miser.

All excuses are good to keep that amount as low as possible.

And then there are wonderful discussions, circular reasoning, how people cover each other with all possible reasons to donate the minimum. If person X only gives 10 THB per month, person Y will find it perfectly acceptable to give even 000k so that X also has an excuse because Y only gives 10k.

State schools are suddenly acceptable and private health insurance for the children and (ex) partner is suddenly no longer necessary.

Spending money on books and or comics, not sure of my euros.

Do you want to follow an English-taught program in a (private) school? Let them get free education in the state school.

Does the partner want to stay at home to take care of the children, outrageous, she can go to work!

In my calculations you end up with at least 1 Euros per month for a good upbringing and care based on our Western lifestyle. (A good private hospitalization insurance for partner and offspring is already a major expense)

And later we will respond that the Thais do not pay attention to their children and that there is no money for extracurricular activities or hobbies.