When scrolling through my phone, I often come across short videos of new parents caring for their babies. Seeing the ever-expanding range of parenting products in these videos, I cannot help thinking how much easier life would have been had these tools been available when my children were little.
This brings to mind a paradox. We live in what is arguably an age when parenting knowledge is more abundant and accessible than ever. Yet advances in knowledge and technology seem to have done little for fertility rates. Instead, they appear to have reinforced the perception that having children is too costly.
In recent years, alarmingly low fertility rates have become a familiar problem around the world. Singapore’s total fertility rate also fell to a record low of 0.87 last year. Against this backdrop, discussions about reversing the decline have largely centred on lowering the barriers to having children.
At this year’s National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong unveiled the first set of recommendations from the Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup. These included more childcare leave, financial support, and measures on care and housing, all aimed at better supporting Singaporeans in starting families.
But if we become accustomed to placing almost all our hopes for addressing low fertility on “lowering costs”, might we overlook the fact that having children is a life choice whose risks can never be entirely eliminated and whose outcome cannot be controlled in advance?
From a rational and responsible perspective, the hardest part of having children is often not bringing them into the world, but raising them well. There is a reason for the Chinese saying that parents worry about their children for almost as long as they live.
For most people, raising the next generation is no longer simply a matter of putting food on the table. Shifts in global politics and the economy, the climate crisis, artificial intelligence’s impact on jobs and the continuing rise in prices inevitably leave people feeling increasingly insecure about the future. Together, these anxieties make parenthood all the more daunting.
Yet city dwellers, accustomed to convenient and orderly lives, can easily forget that the world humans inhabit has always been fraught with danger. We do not necessarily live in a world with more risks, but we certainly live in one where risks are more readily seen, circulated and amplified. As information technology advances, these pressures are likely only to grow.
No matter how much support and how many subsidies governments and employers provide, the responsibility for raising children ultimately rests with parents. Being a parent means being there as children grow up, dealing with their rebelliousness, worrying about their future and continuing to love them even when we are utterly exhausted.
The task involves more than coping with these pressures. In an age when seemingly everything can be calculated, the greatest cost of parenthood is that a child’s arrival disrupts established routines and plans, forcing us to make trade-offs. Completing this long journey ultimately takes personal resolve and conviction.
So, alongside considering what other practical help society can offer the younger generation, we should give equal attention to helping them develop a positive attitude towards uncertainty. They need to understand that life’s choices always involve gains and losses, and develop both the willingness and the ability to shoulder responsibility. This will allow them gradually to move from being cared for to becoming people who are both able and willing to care for others.
We should also create more opportunities for young people of different ages to spend time with young children, nurturing affection for them from an early age and building confidence in caring for them.
Ultimately, whether to become a parent is a personal choice. Sometimes I ask myself why I chose to have children. If I could turn back the clock, would I make the same decision?
As a career woman with three children, I have to admit that I live in a constant state of tension. At work, I can strive for perfection, but what happens with my children is often beyond anything I can anticipate. Sometimes they bring surprises, sometimes worry, and sometimes challenges I never saw coming.
Yet it is precisely because I can neither predict nor control what happens that the experience holds so much meaning I never could have imagined. So if I had to do it all over again, my choice would be the same.
(The author is editor-in-chief of the youth audience group and editor of HeyKaki.)
