M’sian Parents Force Toddler To Beg On The Road To Pay Off Their Debts

Unfortunately for new parents, taking care of a child doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

So, you might screw up every now and then, because parenting is hard.

If there were an instruction manual, though the first three rules would probably be:

  1. Feed your child
  2. Love your child
  3. Do not make him or her beg on the road because you have debts you need to pay off

It seems like common sense, but we might have to start printing these handbooks out and handing them out to parents like the ones below.

M’sian Parents Force Toddler to Beg On The Road To Pay Off Their Debts

Facebook user Sonya Pilatus recently uploaded some photos of parenting so bad it deserves an award.

According to World of Buzz, the photos were taken in Uptown Perda, Penang. They show an innocent, unknowing toddler in a stroller on the road with a plastic donation box placed in front of him.

If that isn’t bad enough, it was also raining and the toddler didn’t have a blanket or jacket on.

Image: Facebook (UPDATE&INFO)

And to top it all off, his parents were nowhere near. You can see that the boy is clearly scared and confused.

Drowning in debt

So, why would this boy’s parents do such a thing?

Debt.

In her post, Sonya also included a screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation that reportedly came from a group of traders at the Perda City night market.

Image: Facebook (UPDATE&INFO)

According to this conversation, the toddler’s father was in debt to loan sharks and couldn’t afford to repay the RM38 (~S$12) daily repayment demanded by them.

Thus, he resorted to soliciting donations using his child.

The pictures in the WhatsApp conversation show the toddler’s father sitting in a car, but it’s unclear if these pictures were taken after he had retrieved the donations and his son from the night market.

Sonya, however, said that neither parent was watching over their son when he was collecting donations.

Image: Facebook (UPDATE&INFO)

Even if you’re in debt, there’s simply no excuse to do such a horrible thing to your own son.

We hope that the authorities find these parents before anything happens to the young child.