A Singaporean recipe for disaster

Now I love it when my blog posts generate a lively debate and I certainly got one with my most recent post on ten observations I made when I was in Singapore recently. It was a list of ten bullet points - so I can hardly do each bullet point justice in that format, so here I am giving one of the bullet points the full treatment. I have had some disagreements from my readers on my observation that "Singaporean kids are very badly behaved", so allow me to deal with that today in a bit more detail.

Allow me to define my observation: I was making two comparisons which led me to that conclusion. Firstly, I compared what I observed to my own childhood, as a child growing up in Singapore in the 1980s. Secondly, I compared it to what I observe of children in Europe. By both accounts, I found the behaviour of Singaporean children today much worse than back in the 1980s and also compared to their counterparts in Europe. These are conclusions based on observing children in public (restaurants, MRT, malls etc) as well as discussions I have had with my various Singaporean friends and some interaction with relatives. These are not conclusions based on just one or two specific cases (please lah, don't accuse me of that okay), but it is a general impression I have gleamed on this trip.

Now, feel free to disagree with me if you want to - I love nothing more than a healthy debate on the issue, but allow me to present you my case as to why this is a Singaporean recipe for disaster. After all, these badly behaved kids today are going to grow up to be the adults of Singapore tomorrow, the people who are going to grow up to form the next generation of working adults, to lead Singapore into the future. Let me explain to you why I think the situation in Singapore is particularly bad compared to the West.

Singaporean parents work much longer hours than their counterparts in the West

I refer you to this study that has been circulating on social media today. According to this study, Singaporeans worked on average about 2300 hours a year compared to Americans who worked 1700 hours a year and the Germans who work only about 1400 hours a year. South Koreans and Hong Kongers work just as hard as their Singaporean counterparts, making Americans and Europeans look remarkably lazy in comparison. Sure, this is not news - we all know how hard Singaporeans (and other East Asians) work and this has been covered in my previous posts. With Singaporeans working 1.64 times harder than their French counterparts at 900 more hours a year, that means more time in the office, less time spent at home with one's children.

More time at work = less time at home with the kids

It's not like French parents are all working part time jobs - no, rather, they tend to stick to more regular office hours, 9 am to 5:30 pm and they take much longer summer holidays. Most of France simply shuts down over the whole of August as families head for the gîte in the countryside, the beaches, the mountains or increasingly, to more exotic holiday destinations abroad. So where do Singaporean parents find this extra 900 hours a year then to spend in the office over their French or American counterparts?

It's simple - they stay in the office later, leaving at 9 or 10 pm instead of 5:30 pm, they work weekends when the French rarely do, they take far fewer holidays than the French. Even by law, Singaporean employees get 14 days (statutory holiday entitlement) only compared to 25 days in France. French parents enjoy far more privileges and support from the government, for example, in terms of maternity leave entitlement, French mothers get up to 26 weeks whilst Singapore caps it at 16 weeks and French fathers are entitled to far more time off ('paternity leave') compared to their Singaporean counterparts. Some Singaporeans have argued that Singaporeans kids today are no better or worse than their counterparts in the West - well I beg to differ. Children in the West get to see a lot more of their parents than those in Singapore, so whilst the parenting methods may be different because of cultural factors, the children in the West enjoy far more parenting than their Singaporean counterparts.

"We'll deal with this tomorrow, I have to go home to my kids now."

Is money the solution?

One thing that Singaporean parents do have is more money - given how hard they work, that is hardly a surprise and yes, Singapore is the third richest country in the world. Singaporean parents are far more generous with their children in terms of money, they can't spend time with their children but they can buy them expensive gifts like computer games and fancy mobile phones. Their money can also buy them the services of professionals from nannies to tuition teachers to sports coaches to maids - don't get me wrong, it's great that children today have access to these opportunities that money can buy, but is it any substitute for quality time spent with parents?

Is parenting something you can outsource then, like cooking? If you have no time to cook because you're working so hard, no problem! You can go to a restaurant or hire a cook - you can still enjoy delicious meals at the end of the day as long as you can pay for it. But can the same principle be applied to parenting?

No time to cook? No worries, just go to a restaurant... outsource your cooking!

Who is doing the parenting then?

Hence if Singaporean parents are spending all that time working so hard, a lot of the time the parenting is left to either paid help (nannies, tuition teachers, sports coaches, music teachers maids etc) or grandparents. Now at the risk of sounding ageist, I don't think grandparents should be the ones expected to take over from the parents - it is not a viable substitute IMHO. Grandparents should be allowed to enjoy a fun relationship with their grandchildren, rather than take on the role of disciplinarian (or tuition teacher). What should the role(s) of the grandparent extend to? Sure there are some grandparents who are more than apt at fulfilling any kind of role thrown at them, but many Singaporean grandparents are totally out of touch with the modern world.

Take my parents for example - they are retired teachers in their 70s and they are spending a lot of time caring for my nephew for is ten. They are extremely concerned about the content he is accessing on the internet and is concerned that he is accessing content that isn't appropriate for his age - however, they have no idea how to control his access to the internet and my father just gives me a blank look when I mention the word Wifi (yup, they don't have Wifi in their home). Yet they gladly allow my nephew to have an internet enabled mobile phone and iPad because my nephew likes to play games on them. I have expressed my reservations and concerns as well, but being just the uncle who doesn't even live in Singapore, there is little I can do to change the situation. This is just one of many situations where my parents are simply unable to deal with on the basis of their age and lack of knowledge of the internet. There is also a huge language barrier where my father is concerned as he doesn't speak English.

In loco parentis?

When you outsource parenting to a third party, such as a nanny or a tuition teacher (heck, Singaporean kids spend so much time with their tuition teachers these days), they may have an in loco parentis status, but they are not going to start to deal with the child's morals and values. Take for example, a disruptive child who fights with others in the school - the teacher who catches the child behaving has the responsibility to stop the child from behaving like that in the school environment, but dealing with the root of the problem lies with the parent, not the teacher and it would be unfair and unrealistic to expect the teacher to step in and solve the problems that poor parenting have created in the first place. Many such professionals (from teachers to nannies to coaches) will simply say, "that's not my job to deal with the child's morals and values" and they're right. That is the parents' job.

One could argue that parenting should not be viewed in traditional, old fashioned ways, such as reading a child a bedtime story. Many modern parents can argue that they communicate with their children through Facebook, text messages and mobile phones but you can't argue with the figures - if Singaporean parents are working 2300 hours a year compared to French parents who work 1400 hours a year, then something has got to give.

Disciplining a naughty child is a dirty job but someone has got to do it - it is often too easy for someone like a teacher, uncle or a maid to turn a blind eye to a child's bad behaviour because they would rather not get into a confrontational situation with the child (and possibly with the parents later). In the case of my cousin who has a really badly behaved son, even I would shy away from trying to deal with this problem child because he is not my problem at the end of the day - he is my cousin's problem. If I were to scold him, I am not sure how my cousin might react if he were to go crying to her - let's not even go there. I am but a distant relative, I may bitch about the child's behaviour on my blog, but I am certainly not going to attempt to do anything about it. As we say in Singlish, "jangan kaypoh lah, other people's problem don't kacau-kacau!" (Don't be a busy body, don't go and meddle when it is not your problem.) By that token, this dirty job of having to discipline and punish the child has got to be done by the parents - the buck stops there. What do you think is going to happen if parents have no time to take responsibility for their child's behaviour?

Is it a question of values?

Many Singaporeans are blind to the fact that Singaporean parents see so much less of their children than their European and American  counterparts. Some Singaporeans prefer to look at the difference in terms of moral values and would point out that Singaporean society is very different from European societies - so it would be hard to make a fair comparison given circumstances, "it would be like comparing rambutans and peaches," I was told by a local. I was even told that Singaporean parents are showing by example, how to become hardworking, valued members of society. Well, I beg to differ. One can indeed make a comparison in this case.

Regardless of whatever cultural or religious values you may hold close to your hearts, the fact remains that if you do not spend enough time with your children, you simply are not in a position to impart any of those values to your children. Your children's values would come from elsewhere, from the internet or their peers instead and you are effectively relinquishing control over that aspect of your children's morality. So you can preach about Asian or Chinese values all you like, there's no such thing as 'passive parenting' at the end of the day. No, parenting has got to be 'active' - you can't expect a child to simply observe you and follow by example. Nurturing a young mind takes a lot more effort and time than that, if you take shortcuts then you will pay a high price for it.

Academic performance trumps everything?

There is also a fundamental flaw in Singaporean parenting - there is this crazy obsession with trying to make every single child in Singapore a straight A scholar, despite the fact that we know that this simply isn't going to happen (I refer you to the famous IQ distribution chart). Singaporean parents have become obsessed with their children's academic performance and Singaporean children are subjected to many hours of tuition regardless of whether they are doing well at school or not. This is something I have discussed previously on my blog.

What is it about this Asian obsession with academic performance?

Studying has become the destination, rather than journey to get you somewhere. In the West, one studies to gain a qualification that will enable you to get a job. In Singapore, the act of studying is being seen as an act of noble self-denial - because if you are sitting at the desk revising for your exam, you are denying yourself the pleasure of doing something fun, such as playing with your friends. By that token, Singaporean parents seem to allow their children to get away with anything as long as they do study hard and produce good results at school - nothing else matters. I refer you to the child of my cousin who has been incredibly rude to my sister and my parents over the years, do you know what bothers me the most about this situation? It is the attitude of the adults. "But he is doing really well in his studies," seems to be the 'reason' that all the adults in the family use to 'excuse' his appallingly bad behaviour. So as long as he turns in straight As at school, nobody seems to mind if he is turning out to be an obnoxious nightmare. What kind of values (Asian or otherwise) can possibly justify this kind of thinking? Needless to say, I find it deeply disturbing.

So what has changed in the last few decades then?

There have been two main changes in the last few decades - firstly, Singaporeans are having far fewer children than back in the 1980s. The fertility rate when I was born (in 1976) was at 2.11 - this plunged to a record low of 1.15 in 2010 (one of the lowest in the world). Secondly, Singaporeans are working much harder, putting in much longer hours than they did back in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus when you put those two changes together, you create a generation of 'little emperors' who are spoilt rotten by doting grandparents (since the parents are too busy working to care for their own children). Contrast this to the West where birthrates are actually higher - children in the West are far more likely to have siblings than Singaporean children by that token and reap the associated benefits.

Most Singaporean families only have one child today.

I was lucky to have been brought up in a family where I had two older siblings - I have two older sisters and they are wonderful. There have been so many lessons they taught me along the way about getting along with my peers, they explained things in a way that my parents were never going to be able to given the generation gap. For those of you who have brothers and sisters, take a moment and reflect on just how lucky you are to have siblings. Yes you may fight with your siblings but you learn a lot from the experience of having to get along with them under the same roof.

By that token, I feel sorry for my nephew for he is (like so many Singaporean children today) an only child and he is missing out on that experience of growing up with siblings and learning from his siblings. Sure he has peers at school, but there isn't any kind of substitute for the nurturing power of a caring, older sibling. Us adults can try our best at providing a conducive, nurturing environment for him - but we can never replicate the kind of interaction he can get with his peers. I remember when I played with my sisters and cousins as a child - I would often lose at the games we played as they were all older than me, but that taught me an important lesson about following rules, listening to others and working as a team. With my nephew, we would often simply let him win when we play any kind of games as it meant that much to him. I would sigh and say, "hor yi yia loh" (Hokkien: just let him win) whenever we engage him in any kind of games as I really wasn't going to get competitive with a ten year old kid. Am I doing him a disservice by deliberately letting him win all the time? Probably - but all the other adults in my family seem to be doing it and I didn't want to come across as a bully by not letting him win. Oh what is one to do...?

Should I be always letting my nephew win at games?

Do I have any solutions?

Boy, it is easy to talk about problems but do I have any solutions? If I were to advocate one thing, just one thing, it would be for parents to spend more time with their children. Sure you have to work, but you can also try to be more flexible with work. For example, my sister would make a genuine effort to have dinner with her son and spend some quality time with him at night. After she puts him to bed, she would then turn on her laptop and work late into the night - sometimes until one or two in the morning. Yikes. I don't know how she does it but I admire the way she is so disciplined in her desire to spend time with her son and still not compromise in her work output. The more time she spends with her son, the more opportunities she has to be a parent and influence his behaviour in a positive way.

I think I speak on behalf of many Singaporeans of my generation (I am 37) who have had a very strict upbringing and would argue that our parents could have been a bit less strict (and we would have all still turned out fine anyway) - but I do feel that the balance has swung way too far the other way. There aren't any parents in the world who set out deliberately to mess their kids up vindictively - no, I am sure many of the parents with messed up kids have the best of intentions but they still screwed up along the way as parents. Then again, good intentions do not guarantee good results and it is up to the parents to take responsibility for their children's behaviour before it becomes too late to rectify the situation. Parenting goes a lot further than merely educating your kids - but it seems that many Singaporeans are oblivious to that fact. Come on people, it isn't rocket science.

Ultimately, I default to stepping back and looking the other way when I see a messed up kid (mai kaypoh lah)- but if their own parents are not interested in doing anything about the situation, then I fear that as a nation, we're sleepwalking into a massive problem that will come back to haunt us in about 20 years when these kids grow up and become adults. What are we going to do then? Import more foreigners because we've raised a generation of hopeless, inept Singaporeans? Oh dear. Aiyoh.

So what do you think about the issue? Perhaps you are a parent in Singapore and are concerned about the situation? Perhaps you disagree with me and have a different take on the issue? Either way, do let me know what you think and leave a comment below. Remember, I really don't mind if you disagree with me as long as we can have an interesting and lively debate on the issue. Thanks for reading.