Does NS make our men grow up?

This was a topic that has come up a few times over the last couple of days as we were having this discussion on Singaporean men. The question raised was whether or not the experience of national services helps nurture and mature Singaporean men - turning them from boys at the time of enlistment into adult men by the time they ORD. Is this true? The jury seems to be out on this, so Limpeh will look at both sides of the argument.

Singaporean men used to have to serve up to 2 years 6 months of national service in my time - this has been reduced to just 22 or 24 months in 2004. As I enlisted in 1995, I served a total of 2 years 4 months (ie. 2 years 6 months less 2 months for NAPFA gold/silver) - yes, Limpeh has paid his dues and served NS too. Whilst Singaporean men are often accused of being pampered by their parents because they continue to live with their parents into adulthood (and often only move out when they get married), they would use their NS experience as prove that they are far tougher than their counterparts from other countries without conscription.

There is the received wisdom that of 良药苦口("the bitter medicine is good for you") and Nietzsche's famous quote, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - well Limpeh begs to differ. No one is denying the fact that NS can be a difficult and challenging, even painful and traumatic experience - but are all unpleasant experiences beneficial? Are we to assume that good must come out of NS just because it can be difficult?

However, NS does fall into a rather grey area - I think different people take away different experiences from NS. Some learn a lot from the experience, others don't and everyone's experience is different. Let me share with you some of the key lessons I have learnt during my time in the army from January 1995 to May 1997 - I have actually written these out in full in an earlier post but here is a bullet point summary.

1. Be humble, keep your mouth shut, keep your head down.
2. Learn to hide your feelings from those around you.
3. Learn to utilize your free time by doing something useful.
4. Do not trust those in authority, be careful with authority.
5. Always watch your back if you don't trust others around you.

Is there anything about NS that encourages one to grow up? No, there isn't. But before I explain that, we need to talk about what it means to grow up - after all, I have accused Singaporean men of growing old without growing up, so what does growing up entail?

Let's look at the key difference between an adult and a child (dependent on his parents). Forgive me if you have already heard this story but I will use it again. When I was 8, our family was going to an outdoor event. I dressed myself and put on my jeans - my mother overruled me. "It's outdoors, it'll be too hot for jeans, go put on your shorts instead." 

My mum was right, Singapore is way too hot for jeans!

To my mother's credit, she was right. I would've been too hot in jeans for that event - but note that she didn't allow me to make that mistake and learn my lesson the hard way. An adult could've easily made the same mistake and likewise, a parent could in fact choose to allow the child to make that mistake in order for the child to learn his lesson the hard way too. However, in the army, one is not allowed to make mistakes. Oh no, if you make a mistake - you will be at best reprimanded, at worst punished. 

The SAF is not there to be your parent - it can be a real shock to the system for some as they pretty much expect you to function like a professional soldier, being able to fit into their system and do things their way. They are not really interested in giving you the chance to grow or develop your character - hell no, you should've done all that before you enlisted, after all the young men enlist at the age of 18, not 12. You're expected to have already grown up by 18 and pretty much function like an adult.

Conscripts are pretty much treated like 8 year olds in the sense that they are told exactly what to wear, how to wear it, what time to sleep, what time to wake up - they have no say whatsoever in the activities they do. They eat when it is time to eat and often they don't even have any choice to decide what they to eat. Instead of having a domineering mother micromanaging her son's life, you have an officer who barks orders at you, telling you exactly what he wants you to do and takes any decision making out of your life altogether.

Sir, what do you want me to do next sir? 

Of course, the officers have a job to do - but these are often tasks that involve an entire unit or battalion rather than trying to micromanage individual soldiers. So they give order to those lower down the food chain who are then expected to carry out their instructions without questioning if those actions are educational, fun or interesting - no, it is not for a soldier to question orders like that. The activities of a soldier therefore are not designed to develop or nurture any kind of skills or develop certain aspects of his character - no, they are solely dictated by the needs of the SAF and not the individual soldiers. And if the soldier gets something out of the process, then it's a bonus really. Don't forget - you are there to serve your country in the military and perform a job, the military is not there to educate or nurture you.

The system in Singapore is very flawed anyway as the SAF enlists the young men from the age of 18 - usually after their A levels (or poly diploma) but before they have completed a degree. That means that they have no professional skills as they have not completed their formal education. Imagine if the SAF enlisted men after they have completed their degrees - think of what they can achieve with an NUS graduate with a degree in engineering as opposed to a kid with just A levels. With that engineering graduate, they could assign him a vocation that would provide him valuable work experience that would be directly relevant to his career and in return, he would be able to offer the SAF so much more with his engineering skills: a win-win situation!

But no, instead the SAF are not interested whatsoever in what you wanna do - hell no. They don't give a shit about you, they will take you and they will put you in where they need bodies. The fact is, most of us are not interested in a career in the military at all - so the SAF is not going to sit down with us to try to work out what vocations we're willing to accept, because nobody would want to do any combat vocation with no relevance to the civilian world. So the process has to be far more brutal - they decide what you will do and put you on a course to train you up for that vocation whether you like it or not and you get no say in the process. And if you don't do precisely what they want you t do, then you will be punished severely.

One doesn't get any say over one's vocation as a conscript. 

With this in mind, they do have to treat you like an 8 year old because it is clear they are not interested in asking you what you would like to do with your NS stint. It does feel that they are deliberately infantilizing the soldiers by giving them the message that they don't get a say, their opinion doesn't matter and they have to do as they're told. Give the soldiers too much credence and they will start asking questions like, "why do we have to do this today? What is the point of us doing this? Why can't we do something more interesting?"

Whilst I am not saying that one learns nothing during national service, I would argue that this infantilization of soldiers, reverting them to this 8 year old state where they have no say whatsoever and have to simply do as they're told actually does quite the opposite in trying to turn a boy into a man. After all, they get an 18 year old and they treat him like he's 8 years old - how's that supposed to turn a boy into a man? To be fair to the SAF, it's really not their job to turn boys into men - that's something each man has to do for himself, possibly with the help of his parents.

Is this a bad thing? I think the problem arises because of this mismatch of expectations because many Singaporean men expect too much from the whole NS experience. Why? Because it is a bloody big sacrifice - it is an awfully long time and when you make such a big sacrifice, you want it to mean something. There is definitely an element of wishful thinking of the part of men who have served NS. They want to tell the world (notably HR managers and potential girlfriends) that this experience has done wonders for them, that it has made them much better people and yes, they claim it has made them mature, braver, macho, more independent etc. Gosh, I remember doing exactly that when I first graduated and was looking for work, I tried to make such a big deal about the things I did in the army to make myself look more attractive to potential employers. Nowadays, I don't even mention it at all. Hell no. It was such a total fucking waste of time - I know it, so why pretend otherwise? Who am I trying to kid?

Did you do anything interesting or useful during your NS?

But just because they want it to be true doesn't make it true - because the SAF is treating their soldiers like 8 year olds rather than encouraging them to be mature and independent. There is a big gulf between reality and what Singaporean men would like to get out of NS. Having said that, the SAF is very similar to some big corporations where there is a well-established corporate culture - everyone is told exactly how to behave, how to relate to their colleagues, how to conduct themselves, how many hours to work, what time to have lunch, what to wear to work etc. Some companies are indeed like that and you are expected to leave your personality at the door and do things their way when you work there. Such companies wouldn't have a problem with employing someone who is child-like who would then be treated like an 8-year old. On the contrary, it could cause far more problems to treat a mature, independent adult like an 8-year old! So yes, there is hope for those Singaporean men who remain childlike and immature - for there are jobs out there with certain companies who will welcome employees like them.

Of course, this only represents one kind of company out there - someone who runs his own business would have a totally different experience. If you're the boss, you run the show - there is no one to tell you what to do, how to conduct your business and some people love having that kind of control over their working lives. These are people who value their independence and may struggle with taking direction from a manager - they'll be like "please get out of my face, just trust me to get on with it and I'll let you know when it's done". Whereas other more immature employees do need that kind of supervision from a manager to hold their hand and guide them through the project - it all boils down to whether or not the individual is capable of functioning independently in a mature way.

"Leave me alone, I'll get it done my way!"

But I hear you ask me, Limpeh, so how does one attain this elusive independent maturity? The crux of this lies in the word responsibility: a mature adult is entrusted with responsibility for himself to begin with and then possibly for others say in his family or at work (eg. a teacher being responsible for his students). He could also be responsible for the running of a project or a pool of money (eg. a marketing budget) and if anything goes wrong, then the buck would stop with him. He would be the person responsible for dealing with the consequences.

An 8 year old kid has no responsibilities - his parents provide him with everything he needs: clothes, food, education, a roof over his head, medical care when he is ill. Heck, even if he does badly at school, one would tend to blame the teacher for not doing his job properly rather than blame the 8 year old kid for not studying hard enough! Whereas a man like Barrack Obama has so many responsibilities, for his country, his government, his family, his community, heck for the whole world as the leader of the world's most powerful nation. So when we talk about maturity, we're talking about that process of getting from that 8 year old kid to being like Obama.

Young children have virtually no responsibilities.

Now at this point, I hear the Singaporean men protesting, "Hey Limpeh, it's not like I had no responsibilities during NS! I was responsible for ABC and XYZ - I was very busy everyday and everything had to be done correctly, it was hard work!" Let me assure you I was no less busy myself during my time in the army - but allow me to demonstrate how one could be extremely busy whilst still having little or no responsibilities.

Imagine an 8 year old Singaporean boy with pushy parents - his mother would drive him to school in the morning, then pick him up after school. In the afternoon, he would have a variety of activities: tuition, swimming lessons, Kumon, piano lessons, Japanese lessons and more tuition. The poor kid barely has 15 mins for a lunch break and 15 mins for a mid-afternoon break and adheres to a very tight time-table run by his mother planned down to the last minute. From the moment the child leaves the school, he is kept busy up till dinner time through a series of planned activities and his mother is there to drive him from the school to the tuition teacher's house to the swimming pool to the Kumon centre to the piano teacher's house. Oh and even after dinner, she makes sure he is studying or doing his homework and it is bed time at 10 pm sharp because he has yet another long day ahead the next day.

In this situation, the kid doesn't have to think - he simply follows his mother's orders. His mother would bark orders like, "Hurry up, we need to go for swimming lessons, check if I have put your swimming trunks in your bag." The mother would scold the child if the child makes a mistake, like, "Aiyah! It is Thursday! You have piano lessons today, not Japanese! Why did you bring your Japanese textbook with you today? You go for Japanese lessons on Friday! Since you have it, you may as well revise your Japanese in the car. Keep your books properly okay? I don't want you to tell me that you can't find your Japanese textbook tomorrow because you've left it in the car or at the piano teacher's house. Hurry up, I don't want you to be late for your piano lesson!"

Did he want to do this or was his his parents' choice?

You get the idea, the kid is super busy but doesn't need to take responsibility for anything since his mother is he one running the show and all he has to do is follow orders. She may chastise him, even punish him if he makes a mistake within this rigid routine, but it doesn't change the fact that he is not taking any initiative at all, he doesn't make any decisions, it is not as if he has any say as to how this regime is constructed. His mother doesn't trust him as an 8 year old to make such strategic decisions and as an adult and has his mother, she makes those decision on his behalf.

Now how is this any different from a conscript who is kept busy every waking hour, because his officer has given him a very long list of things to do? Now there are some instances where some conscripts do get a say in what they want to do and are consequently rewarded for their original ideas - but such instances are rare to say the least. Such is the nature of the military experience! Certainly, there are some officers who do get to make strategic decisions which do require some degree of originality and creativity, but these people are at the very top of the food chain and have worked their way up a regime which stresses conformity and obeying the rules. The fact is your average conscript would not have a rank high enough to make any independent decisions.

How many decisions did they get to make eh?

Now, I can just hear some Singaporean men protest yet again. "What do you mean I don't have responsibilities? I was responsible for so many things, like ABC and XYZ. If I made a mistake with ABC or XYZ, I would get into trouble. I had responsibilities indeed." Well, my response is this: how is that any different from a mother who nags at her son, "You must finish your homework before you get to watch TV. If you don't finish your homework, then no TV for you tonight! I don't care if it is your favourite programme! Do as you're told or else I will punish you!"

The acid test of course, if whether or not that same boy can be trusted to finish his homework if his mother didn't nag at him and threaten him like this. I say the student is truly mature if he is able to make such judgements on his own without the guidance of an adult. "Yes my favourite TV programme is on in 5 minutes, but I really need to finish my homework and that is far more important, so I shall miss the TV programme tonight." Wow. When a child can make that kind of judgement without any parental supervision, then I wanna shake your hand and congratulate you. You've raised a mature and responsible child!

Students: do you even know why you are studying so hard?

For me, the litmus test of maturity is self-motivation. Let's compare and contrast the motivations of two different students, both of whom are studying hard for their exams. Student A says, "If I don't study hard and get good results, my mother will punish me. She will not let me go out with my friends, she won't let me surf the web, she will even beat me if the results are very bad. I am very scared of being punished if I don't do what my mother expects of me and that is why I am studying hard now."

Student B says, "If I don't study hard and get good results, then I will not have a bright future - I want to be able to get a good job in the future and I need to be able to get a decent education for that to happen. I don't want to let myself down. I don't want to look back 20 years from now and have regrets about having been playful or lazy. I know what I need to do to achieve the goals I want in life." Now imagine if both students suddenly lost their parents through a tragic accident - I know that student B will still go on working hard, I'm not so sure about student A though.

How many conscripts in the SAF would actually do their jobs to the same kind of standards without the constant threat of punishment if they didn't obey orders and do exactly as they are told? Can we rely on this burning sense of patriotism on the part of the conscripts to deliver excellence in the SAF? No, clearly, we can't - that is why we have conscription (rather than a volunteer force, like the Territorial Army in the UK) and there are such strict punishments for those who dare to defy orders. How is that any different from the mother who knows that her immature, naughty son will not do his maths homework unless she threatens to beat him with a cane?

"Get these sums right or you will taste my cane!" 

So no, clearly, the SAF is not set up to be some kind of maturity boot camp to turn immature kids into responsible men. Hell no. It is designed to create a defence force using mainly conscripts. Of course, Singaporean men can still seek other experiences to become this independent, mature man who is capable of getting things done without the help of an older person (be it a teacher, parent or army officer). The most direct way for a man to experience that is to move abroad and be several time zones away for his parents so he has to be responsible for every aspect of his life with no help from his parents. But one can achieve the same thing in Singapore, as long as the parents are willing to take a step back and allow the child to make his own mistakes and learn lessons the hard way.

Going back to that incident when I was 8 and wanted to wear jeans to an outdoor event. How many mothers in Singapore would've been happy to let me make that mistake? How many would intervene and overrule my bad judgement? My gut instinct is that the vast majority of Singaporean mothers would've intervened - but each time you intervene, you are taking responsibility away from the child by imposing your authority. Parents, let your children's confidence grow by allowing them to manage their own projects with no input at all from you. For example, you can get your child a dog - but make the child responsible for all aspects of the dog's well-being. So the child has to take the dog for a walk everyday, if the dog makes a mess than the child must clean up after the dog. If the dog is not well, then the child must take the dog to the vet. The child will be entirely responsible for tasks like feeding and bathing the dog. The parents have to completely take a step back and do absolutely nothing when it comes to the dog; unless of course, the child is doing something so wrong that it is jeopardizing the poor dog's well being.

A pet is a great way to teach a child responsibility.

Finally, is this such a bad thing? Not necessarily. Okay, so the guys who did NS may not get everything they've hoped for out of the NS experience, but being an immature adult dependent on instruction and supervision will merely mean that you will never become a self-employed entrepreneurial genius. That person will probably make a rather good worker-ant type character in a company which demands conformity and routine from their employees and there are plenty of companies out there like that.

When it comes to love and relationships, such men would easily succumb to a dominant woman who will provide them with the kind of structure and instruction they crave in life. So you replace the pushy mother and the demanding army officer with a domineering wife - it works. The wife gets to call the shots, "I want to go to the movies to see the new Bond film on Wednesday, then on Thursday I want to you to pick me up from my yoga class at 8 pm and take me to my favourite Japanese restaurant for sashimi. And by the way, I need you to take leave for next month because I want to go to Australia for a holiday - I've just read all about Tasmania and it sounds glorious."

"Take me to my favourite Japanese restaurant tonight!" 

Ladies, I put this to you - is it such a bad thing to have a yes man for a husband, who will simply say, "yes dear, if you want to go to Tasmania, that's great, we'll go there." Of course, you may need to nag at him and be his motivator/career advisor as such a man will lack the will to take any kind of initiative for himself unless someone forces him to do so - but that's all part of the same package. Does that appeal to you ladies? Or do you prefer a man who is far more independent, mature, self-motivated and capable of taking initiative? Could you deal with a man like that if he disagrees with you? ("No way! Tasmania sucks, it's boring, it's a long way to go and it is not cheap, let's do something far more adventurous like trekking in Nepal instead.")

As usual, please let me know what you think, leave a comment. Thanks everyone!