“We have so many plans for Singapore, in terms of new industries, new businesses, new schools, new opportunities, new towns to live in, new parks — a new society to be built for the next generation. And what we need are new people — our children,” says PM Lee. But lets look at what he's doing to stop us from actually having children.
Rising costs in Singapore. Can we really afford to have a child nowadays? Everything is so expensive and only getting more expensive thanks to them. Not everybody might have the capacity to pay for a child in their life together with saving for rainy days, paying bills, supporting their lifestyle. Many people are also not as lucky as those white horses earning millions a year.
PM Lee mentioned having a good infrastructure in infant care, preschool and day care so that mothers can return to their careers in a couple of months after childbirth. But did he think about how these mothers would like to be able to stay home with their children too? Every mother would like to stay at home and look after their child, watch them grow up, nurture them. But because of how everything is so expensive, mothers are not able to afford not going back to work. What's a point of having a child if you don't even get to spend time with them? Not to mention, these infrastructures like infant care need money as well. Who can afford?
The number of FTs coming to take our jobs. Mother's also can't be away for too long in fear of FTs stealing their "lunch". They also feel like they can't slack off at work in fear of getting replaced. If they have to concentrate on working hard for their career, where got time and energy to make baby??
Let's talk about the small space to have sex issue (she claims it was a joke btw). We need a space to have sex. Like it or not. The same space could also be used to bring the child up. Yup, I'm talking about BTOs. With the rising costs of BTOs, everybody is working harder and longer to be able to afford them. And who wants a small house? We all need our own space for our own lives. Having a small space is not good enough for most of us.
They think they are doing all the right things in trying to get the birth rate of Singaporeans up. But they're actually not. They simply do not understand what all of us are going through.
