I'm much more better off - financially speaking - than my parents were when I was growing up.  So my number one fear, for my own kids, has always been that they'll grow up spoiled brats, with no appreciation for everything they are lucky enough to enjoy. 

Maybe taking them on one of the growing number of organized slum tours - now available through the most tragically, poverty-stricken areas of India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa - would open their eyes.

Welcome to "poorism" - as its critics call it - where, for a small fee (Indian tours go for 300 rupees, or about $7.50) tourists get intimate with open sewars, exposed electrical wires and beggars.  For souvenirs, they get to snap photos of children digging through garbage dumps.  

If you're thinking, ick, you're not alone.  Many tourism professionals believe these excursions amount to little more than exploitation, a new way to give Westerners a smug sense of how great their lives are.  

To be fair, it seems the intentions of the tour operators are less mercenary than that.  Some hope to change general perception of these neighborhoods by showcasing work by local artists and inviting tourists to participate in festivals and other rituals.  Others stress the economic benefits the tours bring to the slums, by hiring locals as guides and allowing craftspeople to sell handiwork to tourists.  One Mexican tour requires participants to help make sandwiches and fill water bottles for the needy they visit.  It's all an attempt to humanize a problem that, whether we go and check it out in person or not, won't go away. 

Still, I can't see how my children would identify with a group of people they need to be taken by a tour guide to see, like animals on a safari.  It's a tough question:  how do you teach children to be grateful and generous, without feeling superior?