On the issue of rising childlessness in Singapore

I have read a piece on the rise of childlessness in Singapore and I would like to respond to one of the blog posts on this issue - given the brief nature of the piece, the blogger did not go into any details to justify his/her stance that not having any children will 'lead to sadness' and that somehow having children will guarantee one's happiness. I remember how some blogger friends of mine became the victims of hate mail when they dared to write a piece justifying their choice not to have children (despite being a happily married heterosexual couple). I am effectively poking a hornets' nest by blogging about this topic, but let's start on this ironic note: the rhetoric on Singaporean social media contradicts the cold hard facts that the statistics present. On social media, there is a strong pro-family, pro-children stance - heck, if you just read the opinions expressed on social media, you could almost imagine that Singaporeans love children so much, that most families are having five or six children. But the facts reveal that birth rates have plunged to an all time low (lower than Japan and South Korea) and Singaporean families are doing the exact opposite: they are NOT having babies or simply having only one. Why do the facts contradict the rhetoric then?

Why is the birth rate in Singapore so very low?

Firstly, you have to start with the culture - there is a huge gulf between the realities of having babies and what the Asian culture dictates about the 'responsibility' of adults to provide their parents with grandchildren. The problem with this expectation is that it is based entirely on a highly idealized ideal of beautiful, healthy, well-behaved grandchildren playing with grandparents. The reality of having children in Singapore today is quite different from this rose-tinted image: parents get imperfect children who have all kinds of problems. Perhaps some are struggling at school, others have behavioural issues, whilst others may have some kind of disability - but here's the worst part of the Singaporean situation. Parents (and grandparents) refuse to accept these imperfections: take a child who is but mediocre in his studies. The family refuses to accept the situation, so the poor kid is subject to endless hours of tuition in a desperate bid to turn him into a straight-A student - they will probably get his C grade up to a B grade eventually, but will totally ruin the poor child's childhood in the process. I do feel so sorry for such children.

I have a nephew who is autistic and has Asperger's syndrome. His behaviour is challenging at the best of times and unless you have a child (or a family member) who is going through the same thing, no you will not understand what my family has gone through. What well and truly pisses me off is the way ignorant people would rather see our situation through rose-tinted lenses than actually listen to what the hell I am saying. This older Catholic woman I know claimed that, "Autistic children are so cute and I adore all disabled children - especially those in wheelchairs." My guess is that her very religious upbringing has tainted her views of having children and that her way of coping with the issue of disability is to ignore it altogether - she talks about disabled children as if they are some kind of endangered animals in the zoo, something you can dismiss as different but cute. Looking more deeply at the issue would probably challenge her views of the issue - so she chooses to take a very superficial stance. You'll be amazed the kinds of lies people would tell themselves to justify not having to change their views of the world, just so they can sleep better at night.

Even when you take disability out of the equation, you'll be amazed how many families are dysfunctional. When I look at my own parents, I just think, "thanks for showing me the misery of parenthood, I'm definitely not having children." When I look back at my childhood, my parents had absolutely no idea what I got up to most of the time, they made zero effort to get to know me better. They had expected me to make the effort to understand them, but never the other way around. (That's Asian parenting for you.)  For many years, I never got along with them anyway and as a child, I preferred if they just left me to my own devices. But now in hindsight, as I look at other peers who actually had a good relationship with their parents, there's a part of me that feels insanely jealous of them.

The concept of actually taking an interest in your children, of becoming friends with your children by getting to know them at all was simply totally foreign to my parents. I can only assume that this reflected their own experience, for they were from a different era: both my parents have six siblings each and they probably received very little attention from their parents when they were children. Perhaps I am the one with the idealized image of how a parent-child relationship should be, but I really don't see the point of having children and then not really bothering to get to know them at all as they grow up. Desiring a quality relationship with your child(ren) should be one of the key reasons why you want to become a parent - I wonder how many people simply conform by getting married and having children just because society dictates that you should do so, do they genuinely desire to have children, to become parents?

What kind of relationship do you want with your children?

When I was in Singapore last month, I talked about the popularity of my blog and she remarked, "when you were in primary school, your English was very good, always get good marks for composition one." And I'm like, erm - you haven't really taken any notice of what else I have done with my writing since primary school, have you? Never mind the fact that I had won numerous competitions and awards since my NS days, you probably last took any interest in anything I did when I was in primary school. And no, it was not a remark to reminisce about my childhood - she really doesn't have a clue what I have been doing with my life since I was about 12. Being the youngest child, I think she has gotten well and truly sick of parenting and had gone for the 'do what you want, I don't really care anymore' approach. 

I have talked about how I had tried to spite my parents (in a passive-aggressive way) by rejecting their culture, by pretending I have forgotten how to speak Chinese, by being as white as I can - but that plan has well and truly failed for one simple reason. They just don't give a shit either way, whether I am Westernized or Asian, whether I can still speak Chinese or not, whether I have children or not, it just isn't important to them. You can't spite someone who doesn't give a shit what the outcome is. Ironically, the joke is on me - I spend ages trying to spite them, only for them to spite me in return by refusing to notice my efforts to spite them. But passive-aggressive we are. Whether you like it or not, that's part of our Asian culture - we may shy away from open confrontation, but we still experience resentment and harbour grudges. These fester under the surface and only emerge via passive-aggressive expressions. Some may say that there's a sense of hypocrisy here - when your actions contradict your words, I say it is just the way Singaporeans deal with the older generation. We may nod in agreement, we may say nothing, we do not contradict our parents, we are not looking for a fight, we may keep the peace - but we go on and do the complete opposite.

Beware of Asian parents...

Is my experience unique? I don't think so. I am part of the generation that has experienced the biggest generation gap - I live in the modern world dominated by social media whilst my parents can remember getting their first refrigerator. My first language is English and my second language is French - my father's first language is Hakka and second language is Mandarin. This language barrier means I have great difficulty in expressing myself with my father. When I speak in English, I know he doesn't understand but when I try to speak Mandarin, I realize my Chinese sucks. Thus my attitudes on all social issues are going to be radically different from that of my parents and is it any wonder that many of my generation have rejected their ideals and concepts of parenthood?

I'd like to talk about a case I know to give you some insight into this 'maternal instinct' that we hear so much about. Let's call this woman Emma - she is a step sister of a good friend of mine. Emma is someone you would describe as emotionally needy, she had a difficult childhood as her parents got divorced when she was about 6 and both parents remarried. Thus even as a young child, she was competing with a new spouse for her parents' attention and let's just say, once you factor in a few step siblings, she often lost in that battle. Emma had always felt that something was missing in her life - that cheated of her parents' love and attention. The moment she became old enough to start dating in her teens, she then decided that the way to fill that gap in her life was to get a boyfriend who would shower her with love, but she was so desperate and needy that she often drove guys away. Emma stumbled from one relationship to another throughout her university days but none worked out - by the time she reached her 20s, she was on a hunt for a husband, but again, she scared all of the guys she dated off by talking about marriage way too early.

Emma was looking for love.

As Emma reached her late 20s, she realized, I want a baby. That's what I need. Who needs a husband when I can have a baby. Emma managed to get pregnant through a one night stand, didn't even tell the father of the baby about the pregnancy - she just wanted to have a baby as quickly as possible. Her logic was simple: adult relationships were too complicated, but a mother and child relationship was so much simpler. She would be the perfect mother to her daughter Fiona, she would be the mother she never had and her daughter would adore her, love her, shower her with the love she never got. In return, her daughter would not just love her, but be in awe of mummy. In the first few years of her daughter's life, the plan seemed to work - Emma would spend practically every waking hour with her baby, showering her with love and taking so much joy in motherhood. Emma had a young daughter who was completely dependent on her for everything... then Fiona grew up and things didn't quite go according to plan.

Because Emma gave her daughter Fiona everything she wanted and more, Fiona became a classic spoiled brat. Fiona was incapable of offering Emma any love - in fact, Fiona had very little respect for her mother and what semblance of a relationship was based on mutual needs. Fiona needed her mother's money and Emma needed motherhood to plug a gap in her life. Children are not good at giving love - when was the last time a child actually asked you, "how are you?" No, children are extremely self-centered. I've come to expect nothing less from children - immediately after I had eye surgery, my nephew wanted to tell me about his computer games, there wasn't even a simple question like, "uncle Alex, how do your eyes feel? Are you okay?" Nope, he couldn't be less interested (well having Asperger's Syndrome doesn't help), but is his reaction unusual? No, because all children are extremely selfish people. We do figure out that if we remain so selfish throughout our lives, we will have no friends, no lovers; so we change, we start caring about others when we realize we don't want to be alone, that we want people to like us.

When do we start caring about others around us?

As Fiona became a teenager, it was clear that Emma's plan of using motherhood to fill her life with love had clearly gone very wrong. Instead of love, all she got was frustration and disappointment from her daughter but hindsight is 2020. Fiona is going to university next year and Emma can't wait for her daughter to move out. Emma has given up trying to extract any love out of her daughter - in fact, she has ended up in exactly the same position as my mother did years ago and has defaulted to the, "sigh, do what the hell you want, I really don't care what you do anymore." Emma has learnt her lesson. She has gotten herself a few dogs - the kind of unconditional love she gets from her pets is a lot simpler, it isn't as complicated as human relationships. In a strange sort of way, Emma has finally found what she has been looking for all these years in the place where she least expected it - such is life. Emma's parents failed her, but in trying to be the perfect mother to her own daughter, she too failed albeit in a different way.

What does the ironic experience of Emma tell us about parenting? It goes to show that even with the best intentions, parenting can go very wrong and you can still end up practically estranged from your child(ren) like Emma. All too often, bad parents are portrayed to be deeply flawed, which leads them to be neglectful or abusive. Emma tried her very best but still somehow ended up woefully ineffective. Such is the challenge of parenting - the previous generation simply assumed that it was their duty to have children regardless of whether it was what they wanted but our generation are pausing for a moment and thinking, "wait, is this really right for me, is this what I want?" And there's absolutely nothing wrong with having those thoughts - many do go on to become parents anyway but some decide against parenthood after having thought it through. It is simply not for anyone to judge those who arrive at different decisions on this matter, and after all, it is an individual's right to decide how many (if any) children they wish to have.

Is Emma's experience unique? Not really. She is just a mother who had high expectations of the parenthood experience and ended up very disappointed. We are dealing with a generation who have grown up watching older siblings, cousins and friends having children - we are observing their experiences at close quarters and witnessing both their joys and disappointments. Most of all, we're also able to compare and contrast the experiences of those adults who have chosen not to have children.  Those without children are able to dedicate themselves to their work without worrying about neglecting their children. Indeed, those without children are able to focus far more on themselves - be it professionally or personally Most of all, parenthood means having to take responsibility for your children all the time - not having that responsibility means being able to think about yourself, rather than your child.

Of course, it seems quite un-PC to criticize anyone who does go down the road of parenthood. Hey, it's a free world, if having children will make you happy, then please go ahead - just don't end up like Emma. And for the sake of balance, Emma is just one example of a disappointed mother. there are plenty of other parents out there who are wonderfully happy with their children. But here's the thing - not all families are happy, not all parents are satisfied and so much of that boils down to the quality of parenting: you want to have great kids, then start by being a good parent. But when we see bad parents out there who have raised horrible kids, we usually refrain from criticizing as our first instinct is to think, ooh that's really none of my business, I don't want to cause any offence. That's why we do not hear many people arguing against parenthood - those who do not wish to have children simply keep quiet because it is a personal decision; bizarrely, those who wish to have children seem to feel the need to preach to others, "hey look at me, you should do what I do." This goes a very long way to explain the discrepancy between the rhetoric and the statistics.

What if I am childless but happier than everyone else?

So that's it from me on this rather thorny, divisive issue. I know I cannot do it justice, so it is just to kick start a conversation with my readers: how do you feel about this issue? Would you want to have children? Do you already have children? What are your motivations on the issue of parenthood? Would you prefer to not have any children at all, and if so, why not? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think, let's talk about it. Thanks for reading.