Parents, let's solve this problem for our kids

[BeContented]

verykiasu2010:

alng:

[quote=\"Way2GO\"]
I agree with u dat d \"Stop at Two\" policy was geared towards solving d job/employment problem at dat time.
However I do not concur d policy makers were short-sighted in their deliberations.
There is a series of 'population control' policies dat follow a general line of thought in eugenics.
'Have more if u can afford it'Graduate mother scheme.
It just didn't work out d way d policymakers planned it.

Scholars get-togethers.
dis one probably has some success.

I am not sure what incentives there were in place to encourage 'Have more if u can afford it' 30 years ago. What I do remember is my uncles and aunties complaining that they had problems enrolling their kids to primary schools. Looks like there were more penalties for 'having more than 2'.

used to have \"Special Tax Rebate\" that decreases with increasing age of child-bearing introduced in the 90s, etc etc just go google IRAS Procreation Tax Incentives, graduate mother scheme with priority in Pri 1 registration etc

some were introduced while the posters on \"2 is enough\" are still at the bus stops .... some tax law professors even joked to name their kids taxkid 1, taxkid 2, etc after the test kits showed positive..those were in the 80s

but as singaporeans get more and more affluent and preferred the lifestyle of 'dinkies' and continued to push back marriage and child bearing ....this we what we get but not unique to singapore[/quote]Agree. While the older generation might have responded to the policy......the younger generation prefer a 'free-er' lifestyle. I know many who either didn't want to get married or refused to have kids (or stop at 1) citing freedom, career, want more $ to enjoy life/travel/branded stuff etc. Many are no longer willing to give up their lifestyle to accommodate kids.....
IMO, those policies probably have speed up the process a little....but Singapore WILL reach this stage naturally.......

[SilentHermit]

I read those papers published by PMO and the data is frigthening. No wonder LKY say have more babies, if not we will have to fold up. Drastic actions are needed, wonder will this government live up to it.


I have some ideas, wonder if it would work. Have published them in my blog. Hope can think of more solutions soon....

http://silent-hermit.blogspot.sg/
http://silenthermit2.blogspot.sg/

(If its wrong to post links here to send people to my blog, pls let me know. Just that too much text involved, dont know if I should post them here too).

[Laura02]

But if you look at this from a global perspective, the population of the world is growing exponentially. We are using up our natural resources faster than we conserve them. How are we going to meet the basic needs of everyone, much less meet the growing expectation of each succeeding generation. The rich-poor divide is growing, and will eventually destabilize society as we know it now.

The options on the table now are : import people to make up the numbers or encourage more SC to have babies. Neither seem palatable to the majority of SC. If we import children … As in allow and encourage adoption …

[3Boys]

Excellent thread SH. We do indeed need to work hard at this problem of procreation. As much as I hate to admit it, part of the answer may be in the liberalising of concepts of what a traditional family unit is. So support for single parent families may need to come to the fore. Better work life balance, certainly.


Also, we need to encourage our children to have kids earlier. Seeing so many couples struggle with sub-fertility when they reach mid-30s and beyond before trying for children, is really heartbreaking. It is real, but many couples don’t think it will happen to them.

Last, all the finger pointing at failed g’ment policies is unhelpful. Yes, they made a big boo-boo, the policies, and amateurish clumsy attempts at eugenics plainly inequitable and derisory. But its in the past, no point crying over spilt milk. The g’ment have plainly recanted their past policies, so lets not use that as an excuse not to have children, just to spite the PAP.

[3Boys]

VERY nice blog, by the way.

[pirate]

I seriously doubt that "Stop at Two" had got anything to do with the problem at hand. I refuse to have babies because mom and pop had to stop at two 30 years ago? Seriously. It’s just a lame excuse used by PAP bashers.


What Singapore has to decide really is, do we want more babies or do we want more dual income families? Sure, some dual income families do fine with babies. But given the stress that comes with trying to juggle all the various roles, how many make more than two? Most of the families I know with more than 2 kids have one working parent and one stay-at-home parent.

Now, what does our 30 years of statistical research say about that?

[verykiasu2010]

pirate:

I seriously doubt that \"Stop at Two\" had got anything to do with the problem at hand. I refuse to have babies because mom and pop had to stop at two 30 years ago? Seriously. It's just a lame excuse used by PAP bashers.

and I found myself agreeing with a pirate ! :evil:

[3Boys]

verykiasu2010:

pirate:

I seriously doubt that \"Stop at Two\" had got anything to do with the problem at hand. I refuse to have babies because mom and pop had to stop at two 30 years ago? Seriously. It's just a lame excuse used by PAP bashers.

and I found myself agreeing with a pirate ! :evil:

Ahem...me too :evil:

[SilentHermit]

I am very glad some people have visited my blog. I thank everyone for their comments. I am really an amateur blogger and I am even having a hard time trying to figure out dashboard controls. Anyway, that’s besides the point.


I am seriously putting up a proposal to the authorities. Any feedback about the topics would be very valuable for me and help me do a better job.

I understand that this issue is a big one, but like I said before, if only all of us speak up a little here and there, it will help. I thought putting up a blog would create some responses, however, although I clock a hundred page views a day, comments, suggestions and ideas are not forthcoming. I receive zero emails till date. I do not care if the blog page sucks or my English is broken, all I care about is to gather enough information to put a comprehensive proposal together. So, guys, please flood me with your thoughts.

I promise this is what I will do:
1) Gather all the views, organize them into readable format
2) Upon compilation, send it to the respective authorities with credits saying this are info from myself, as well as public domains, esp KSP forum
3) I will publish my proposal online

Hope to hear more from everyone
Cheers

SH

[beanbear]

Hi SilentHermit,


It’s commendable of you to do this. I’ve 4 kids and the only comment I’ve had from many people who know meet me is "You’re so brave", not "How wonderful!." That’s the reality of Singapore. It takes courage to have babies in Singapore because the perception is that life is tough here. Every child I’ve had given birth to, I’ve had little help from the government. My first child born 12 years ago came at a cost of $20,000 from our savings in order to pay for fertility treatments.

We’ve been blessed to have 3 more without any interventions. Praise God.

Because I’ve had the experience of knowing how difficult it can be to conceive, I’ve on my own accord, spoken with colleagues, friends who delay having babies, because they think they are not ready. They don’t even think they may have a problem if they choose to have one later.

My suggestions would be:

1. the government should make fertility treatments financially affordable because this is the group that have so much desire to have babies and would love to have multiples after that. Give this group a leg up. Give lots of subsidy please.

2. Publicize more inspiring stories of family life. Build communities of people with good family life built on solid values & commitment to their children. Promote activities that bring families together frequently, not just eat the cursory "eat with your family" campaign, or father or mother’s day celebration. In my community of friends, we all have at least 3 children. We celebrate our children’s existence and we have a great time taking our kids on holidays and outings together. We need more stories celebrating family life, stories of large families. The reality show on "The Duggars family", a family with 19 children is a great example of America celebrating a large family. Maybe we could have a Singapore reality show celebrating large Singapore families.

3. Government needs to be more sincere about helping people with lots of children. it’s a lot of money trying to bring up kids, from childcare to maids. People put off having children when they don’t feel confident about their supporting structure. I know many friends who don’t have more kids because they don’t have extended families to help them with childcare and they rely on maids to help. Nowadays there’s higher barriers to getting maids. Support families by offering them first priority in having maids, much higher subsidies for maid levy, painless school registration, etc. The baby bonus they give out pale in comparison to the flat grant they give to first-timers. They can give an outright $40k for housing grant but they give out baby bonus in piecemeal sums. Please. There’s got to be more sincerity than that. If babies are that important, show me some sincerity when dishing out the bonuses.