Its been a while since I wrote anything and its rare that I can find myself awake at this time with a 2nd pregnancy.
Now the government says that they would want to review the parenthood and marriage policies at this point to boost the declining birth rates in Singapore.
But having spoken with several parents some of the most common agreements are:
- Too expensive to raise a child in Singapore
- School systems do not allow you to not stress your child
- High cost of living
- Lack of work-life balance
1) Too expensive to raise a child in Singapore and School systems do not allow you to not stress your child
These 2 go hand in hand in the thought where if you want your child to do well then you have to send them to the best tuition schools, start them in the right childcare/preschool/early education, send them to the right enrichment programmes (or as many as possible). And all the above requires one to spend more money.
Parents have to ensure that the child gets good grades so that they can go get their degrees, earn more money when they working, have a good life. All these starts with good education.
From the moment they are born, parents work hard to provide good childcare, preschools, early education programmes or enrichment to ensure that they have the luxury or benefit to do or anything.
But I think the value is lost the why are they sent for all these.
A) Is it because the child cannot earn more money without a good education? (We all know Steve Jobs did not have his degree - but he saw an opportunity and he perserved towards his goals)
B)The child has to do many tuitions to do well in education have good results to achieve the goal of earning more money or find a good career that earns them alot of money?
C)Is because they need to learn many things to be multi talented so that they can be versatile and be praised for being Jack of All Trades?
D)Is is because by knowing alot of things they can become more talented?
I think all the above has lost the true meaning for what experiences is all about. A child wishes to learn and as parents we support that learning and encourage that interest in learning. But if the child has lost interest and with a valid reason, I think we have to accept and move on.
Education is a must in today's context but honestly, with the right values taught wouldn't the child cultivate the right attitude towards learning at the end of the day? Where hard work would pay with the right smarts and opportunities would create the ability to do well.
I was having this discussion today about how luck can be part human and part divine intervention.
Part Divine Intervention - Where an opportunity if provided for you
Part Human - Where you evaluate if its an good opportunity and make the call to use it and also work hard on treasuring this opportunity given to you to make it a success. And how this good opportunity turns out is the result of one's own evaluation and determination to make it suceed, along with creating good plans and decisions to make it work.
So to determine luck or good fortune, I would say that it is 20% luck and 80% sheer human determination and perseverance.
I digress simply because I want to point out that nothing comes without any work or proper thought process and evaluation. Sometimes it takes abit longer but I think it boils down to what we what to make out of our lives.
Such as our children, where children have immeasurable amounts of potential but its finding the right source to unleash this potential. Identifying their individual characteristics and making a point to say that you are right and you should try.
As I grow, I learn from opportunites given and I have a feeling that as I continue to grow (er hem.) wiser. I would be making better decisions and working on getting better at understanding each particular characteristics.After all each child is unique!
I know that I have not hit the core of the issue at hand but raising a child is not simply about money, but in Singapore, money is a real issue that even affects how we can raise a child well. No matter how we want to avoid the money issue, we cannot. Realistically, we have to face this issue that we have to work harder or more to provide for our children.
But we also must look at how we can achieve that work-life balance but honestly in Singapore to achieve that, its really hard when our children attend tuition or enrichment while parents spend time working. Work-life balance applies to our children too, not just the adults. Undoubtly it is true that we wish to have more time to spend with our kids, we should also recognise how we want to spend the time we have with them. I think having regular chit chats, understanding how we can know our children better is one of them especially when they grow up so fast. Time v.s Money v.s Value. But the equation can never be Time+Money=Value when we apply to our children.
