We're just gonna lead this one off with a quick heads up: if you're in a headspace where you're despondent about the state of the world and all the inequality in it, if stories of people recklessly spending money set you off into a spiral, and if seeing kids get extravagant gifts makes you tremble with envious rage ... find another story.
We've got a bunch. An old NBA player got a custom rocking chair as a retirement gift—that's lighthearted. Oh, DJ Khaled is doing some very DJ Khaled stuff with golfing—that's a laugh. And those wacky Royals are getting into some trouble again, which is always fun for everyone.
The point is you don't have to know anything more about 5-year-old getting gifted a luxury car. We're gonna write about it, but from this point forward, anything else you know about this will be because you actively chose to know about it. So you can't blame us for any holes you punch through your wall in a fit of incredulity.
So, what's the who, the where, and the why of this story? We've at least got answers to the first two.
As reported on Oddity Central, a Malaysian businesswoman Farhana Zahra has posted a set of TikToks that have had plenty of people buzzing. In her initial video, Zahra asks her five-year-old daughter Fatima what she wants for her birthday, and the daughter answers, "either a green Mercedes G Wagon or a BMW." And where most parents would go, "Okay, but what about a realistic gift?" Farhana instead "makes the girl promise that she will go to school if she gets what she wants and then they seal the deal with a pinky shake."
As it turns out, Farhana and her husband were trying to find a way to persuade their daughter to attend school, and rather than the old standby of, "Well, you're a kid and I'm an adult, so you do what I say." They opted for, "Will you do it for a car?"
And listen, say what you will about the Zahras—they keep their word. Because in a follow-up TikTok, Farhana showed Fatima being led to the big reveal: her desired green Mercedes G Wagon encased in a transparent gift box. Of Fatima's reaction, the captions reportedly say, "she was so excited about the car that she couldn’t stop holding the keys."
This story certainly gave us a lot to think about, and since we're dedicated to bringing you the best gifting advice, we wanted to find out: What is the best model of car to buy for your five-year-old in order to get them to go to school?
To find out, we asked our very own Parenting Editor, Cat Bowen, who simply stared at us for a moment, eye twitching, before shutting her laptop and walking away without a word. Her away message currently reads, "Have fallen into a fit of madness as though I'd just stared into the eyes of a Lovecraftian Great Old One. Nothing means anything."
We're sure she'll be fine.
Michael Natale is the news editor for Best Products, covering a wide range of topics like gifting, lifestyle, pop culture, and more. He has covered pop culture and commerce professionally for over a decade. His past journalistic writing can be found on sites such as Yahoo! and Comic Book Resources, his podcast appearances can be found wherever you get your podcasts, and his fiction can’t be found anywhere, because it’s not particularly good.
