Children of rich families are automatically thought to be ‘playboys’ and bad students. However, a lot of students from rich families have been trying to prove that this is a misconception.

A lot of students take extra jobs

Ngan always takes part-time jobs at trade fairs, working as an interpreter, or an MC at parties, or a tour guide on weekends.

While Nga’s classmates, first-year students, spend time relaxing after taking exams, Nga does not have spare time to relax, as she spends all her time on extra jobs. She has to spend four hours every evening for extra jobs, and all day at the weekends.

Ngan related that her parents do not want her to do extra jobs because they can support her studies at university; therefore, Ngan has never told her parents about the extra work.

Ngan describes herself as ‘working as hard as a buffalo’ so she can earn a lot of money. However, she only spends a small sum of money on herself, while she deposits the rest for use later.

Dieu An, who was a student of the Hanoi-Amsterdam Gifted High School, and is now studying in the US, related that she has also been busy with extra jobs. Though her parents are rich and can afford regular trips to the US, An still tries to do extra work to get money for plane tickets to Hanoi.

An’s friends cannot understand why she still spends time on working instead of going to dance halls or bars on the weekend. An just smiles and keeps working on holidays.

“People think that the children from rich families are all playboys who have ‘limited’ learning capacity. However, I don’t think that all children from rich families are poor students,” said Le Tra My, a 12^th-class student at Nam Saigon International School.

My plans to go abroad studying, but she does not want to go with her parents’ money. Therefore, she has been trying to learn hard to get a scholarship.

“If I cannot go studying on a scholarship, I will have to go with my parents’ money. But I will have to take extra jobs to cover my needs. I don’t want to rely on my parents,” she said.

Lam Thuy, Director of VALA, a family consultancy service office, said that children in rural areas would purchase a fowl so that it can lay eggs which can be sold for money, if they were given VND100,000. However, children in cities would spend the sum of money on chatting and entertainment only.

Thuy said that parents should train children to spend money in their class, not their parents’ class. The young need to consider their capability of earning money to decide on their spending. “If they can afford a loaf of bread worth VND10,000, but they still want pho worth VND15,000, they will become burglars in the future to get money to satisfy their spending,” Thuy said.

She related that she has received a lot of parents at the office who complain that they have provided everything for their children but the children still do not study well.

Lan Huong