Rear-Seat Monitors: Should We Add Them?

When we were considering buying a Panamera, my husband casually asked:

“Should we put monitors in the back so the kids can watch TV from the rear seats?”

I answered without a moment’s hesitation:

No way!!

We shouldn’t spoil them like that. It’s not as if every rear seat comes with a monitor—this isn’t a seat on a super-comfortable Singapore Airlines flight. It’s better for them to face a little inconvenience: wanting to watch Anpanman but having only the front screen available while Mom and Dad need the navigation, or having to lean forward because the screen is hard to see from the back.

Rather than treating comfort as a given, or assuming everything should be handed to us, it’s better to face a little inconvenience, work through the snags, and figure things out for ourselves.

I once heard a story that really stayed with me.

One summer Saturday afternoon, the rain that had fallen that morning had stopped, and the sun was shining. On his way home from elementary school, a boy spotted a butterfly chrysalis in the grass. The butterfly was in the middle of emerging, trying to break out of its casing. Curious, he stopped to watch.
But 10 minutes passed, then 20, and the butterfly still hadn’t emerged.
Perhaps the casing was tough. The chrysalis struggled with all its might, but even after an hour, it still hadn’t made it out. The boy began to feel sorry for it. He reached into his schoolbag, took out a pair of scissors, and cut open the casing so the butterfly could get out.
“Now you won’t have to struggle. You can get out,” he said gently.
Just as he hoped, the butterfly emerged with ease. … But something was wrong.
It was supposed to be a butterfly, yet its wings were crumpled and shriveled, and its body was swollen and large enough to make him wonder, “Is this really a butterfly?” Its wings were too small for its oversized body, and it couldn’t even fly.
The butterfly fell to the ground and crawled away. The boy had wanted to help the chrysalis because he felt sorry for it.
So he cut open the casing, but that didn’t help the butterfly. It left it with a body that would never fly. They say a butterfly has to struggle as it emerges from its casing in order to become able to fly. The effort moves nutrients from its body into its wings, helping them grow.
The boy had taken that opportunity away.
Only by struggling inside the casing, shrinking its body and spreading its wings, can a butterfly finally take flight….

Helping Them Learn to Stand on Their Own

I don’t know whether this story is true, but I think it applies to raising children and developing people at work alike. If we truly care about someone, it’s important not to rush in and help, but to give them the strength to overcome challenges for themselves—even when things are inconvenient, uncomfortable, or don’t go smoothly. Every challenge they overcome becomes a success they can draw on: proof that they can do it. That builds confidence and resilience.

Of course, riding in a Panamera at two or three years old is already a pretty enviable level of spoiling… Still, I don’t want to spoil them any more than that.

These days, I find myself wanting to watch over them as a parent, so they can grow up with sound values, learn to overcome challenges through their own efforts, and become independent people. (Well, this has turned into a parenting piece rather than a car story.)