Children no longer spend holidays with grandparents

JAKARTA (JP): School holidays start this week, and parents can no longer simply send children off to grandparents in the ancestral village. A craving for recreation sites means parents worry how much money they must have on the verge of the month- long holiday, not to mention for the new school year.

Meanwhile holiday destinations such as Bali, Singapore and Australia are now frowned upon by wealthy families -- Europe and the United States of America are becoming "must" destinations.

Zumrotin K. Soesilo, an executive of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) said yesterday the change has become increasingly obvious since the 1980s.

"Children won't stand for a week at their grandparents' place," she said.

Even among the less wealthy, children only want to stay with grandparents for a few days and they demand to go to places which needs a lot of money.

"There are less children now who would be happy to go to ancestral villages and bathe in the river," she said.

Parents at a secondary school in South Jakarta discussed yesterday this year's destinations like Queensland, Australia, and Kansas, the United States. One parent who said her family may be going to Malang, East Java, was the odd one out.

Meanwhile Suwanti, a vendor in Bendungan Hilir, Central Jakarta, said it was difficult enough for her to spend Rp 15,000 (US$6.42) for her child to go on a school trip to the Ragunan Zoo, besides another Rp 30,000 to pay for examination attendance.

She said she and her husband are now seeking funds to pay at least Rp 150,000 for the child to enter a state junior school.

Zumrotin urged parents to seek out recreation sites which are relatively inexpensive.

A recent report of a survey on recreation behavior by the Indonesian Consumers Foundation suggested parents should seek out more information sources other than media commercials.

The survey found people respond to aggressive advertising by recreation sites, indicated by the flood of people heading to Lippo Supermal in Tangerang, while many attractive places which do not advertise cost much less.

"The collection of the Fresh Water Fish Museum in Taman Mini is not inferior to that of Seaworld in Ancol Dreamland," the report in the March edition of the foundation's publication said.

"For an almost similar level of satisfaction at the museum consumers only pay half the ticket price compared to Seaworld (Rp 11,000 on Sundays per person)," Warta Konsumen reported.

People are also irrational and take it for granted that recreation means high costs for snacks or meals, "while a little preparation at home could save much of your budget", the study reasoned.

Zumrotin said the preference for expensive sites cannot only be blamed on the companies which run them.

"Indonesians have yet to develop more appreciation of recreation sites which are educational or which expose children to nature," she said.

Among new educational centers are the Science and Technology Center for children at Taman Mini, and the Mekarsari Fruit Park in Bogor which charges Rp 2,500 per adult.

Cheap recreation sites such as the Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta and the Botanical Gardens in Bogor are considered to be for the lower class who have no other option.

Also, recreation centers such as Dreamland in Ancol should provide more access for the less well-off, Zumrotin said, although the centers do have cheaper tickets for students.

"A civil servant earning less than Rp 200,000 cannot take his family to Dreamland," Zumrotin said.

If children only want to go on the much-advertised Rama Sinta tunnel ride on Sundays, they must still pay Rp 22,000 per person which covers all facilities. (anr)