The old way vs the new way

First of all, happy mother's day to all mothers on this platform. We celebrated mother's day in my country two weeks ago and I was surprised to find out today is also mother's day (of which country exactly? 🤔). But mothers deserve to be celebrated every day, am I right? Of course I am

This topic wasn't what I planned for today but I was browsing through nairaland this evening and I came across a juicy topic and I was like "why not use this instead?". So yeah, I will just have to save the other article for a rainy day 😉 now let's go over to the main event, starting with the nairaland post.

Your salary is $120 while that of your wife is $80. Your family's total monthly income is $200. Your 17 years old daughter who's currently in her first year at the University is using iPhone 13, a phone worth over $800, your family's 4 months earning, but you didn't ask her how she got it.

You only call her to take pictures of you when going out because her phone's camera is just fantastic! When your son got admission into the University, you couldn't afford to send him to school but his 17 years old older sister took it up and paid off the $600 needed for his entrance fee, you thanked God and prayed for your daughter to continue helping the family.

When the extended family did a contribution, you asked her to help you out and she sent you $200. You thank her and praised her for being a strong pillar of the family. She's helping you out with some of the responsibilities in the family, What would you have done without her, right?

You ask her for money, she asks her boyfriend, and who is her boyfriend? An internet fraudster who makes a living from scamming people and defrauding them of their hard-earned money, and yet you're worried about the incessant case of internet fraudsters wreaking havoc on people's lives, maybe you need to look at yourself again.

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That is similar to the post I saw on nairaland and I can tell you one thing about it; it's very true! That's the reality of things in my country today, most of the modern-day parents have turned a blind eye to what their children are doing, as long as they are benefitting from it. And it does not only pertain to the girl child, it's the same for the male child as well. In fact, the males are even the ones that are more into it, they are the ones into internet frauds.

But I am not here to talk about the illegal ways some teenagers are now making money or their parents turning a blind eye to it, I want to talk about a counterargument someone raised in the comment section. The person said some of those youngsters might not necessarily be doing anything illegal to make money.

A very good graphics designer who gets lots of gigs online and charges around 10 to 30 dollars per contract can easily stack more than $500 monthly and can easily give his parents $200 if the need arises. A female blogger who posts make-up content on her TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram accounts can easily monetize them and can afford to pay off her brother's $600 University fee.

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I can clearly see the point he is trying to make and I agree with him, but at the same time he failed to grab the original point of the main post, and the point is that parents should always find out the source of their children's income. It's wrong to just assume they are working legitimately, collecting money and gifts from them is only encouraging and pressuring them to continue their illegal ways (if that's what they are doing).

There's a usual public sentiment that goes with youngsters using an iPhone, the society always labels them as fraudsters or girlfriends of fraudsters. iPhones (especially the latest ones) are very expensive, so the usual belief is that anybody using them is making money illegally, but that's definitely not true.

There are lots of ways to make money online that don't have to be illegal. The upsurge in the popularity of cryptocurrency has resulted in many people making millions out of it. There are youngsters in a lot of digital fields like vlogging, blogging, graphics designing, video editing, etc, and they are making lots of money from them.

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Gone are the days when people have to go out every day and work hard to make money, these days people do it from the comfort of their homes and make even more money! Technology has made things easy and convenient for us and most people are making use of that opportunity to enrich themselves legitimately.

But in my country, a lot of people still believe in the old ways. If you're working from home, own an iPhone, an expensive laptop, and a car, most people generally assume you're an internet fraudster. In fact, I have seen a lady that said she can't date nor marry people that claim they work from home because they are all internet fraudsters.

Most people need to understand that the new way of utilizing technology to make our life easier is the new trend and in a couple of years, the old ways will be obsolete. Artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly taking over most people's jobs and one day, most people will wake up and discover they no longer have a job out there, simply because AI has taken over.

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Be that as it may, parents should always try to find out what their children are doing. I don't believe a 17 years old girl will be making good money from TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and the parents won't know about it, I mean, didn't she start creating contents when she was back home with her parents?

If she doesn't have a good source of income and is up to no good, there are some certain red flags the parents will definitely notice and are worth asking questions, but they rather pretend everything is ok and continue reaping the benefits, but deep down they know all is not well, but sure, let's keep pretending 😉

Thanks for reading 💖💖💖

Sunday May 8, 2022