7/26/2008

Instant baby solution

Why is the govt struggling with the baby problem? Our baby growth rate may be lower, but why is there a need for more babies? We are not producing enough babies to keep the pyramid game going? Or is it that we are still chasing the 6.5 mil target? More incentives and more money will be considered to make parents start to reproduce again. The question is, reproduce for what? To keep the economy going, to keep the social and family structure viable? To keep the main core of the population local Singaporeans? Having more babies should not be just a simple case of economic consideration. It used to be a natural thing, get married and keep mating and producing babies. Today, having babies bring along a life long series of problems of maintenance and making sure that the babies are going to get a reasonable life when they grow up. The rich have accumulated wealth, bought houses in advance, to make sure that their progeny will have a comfortable life. What about the poor who are struggling to even feed themselves? Is it responsible to ask them to go ahead and produce recklessly without much thought of their children's well being? Many from the lower income homes will grow up handicap, unable to compete with the more materially well endowed children. Many will start life with a ball chained to their legs. Is this a good thing, producing cannon fodders? What about a promising future, a brighter future of hope and happiness? Many at the lower rungs of society will only continue to perpetuate their pathetic life of deprivation by bringing more children into this competitive and highly stressed country. It is very difficult for them to break free from the poverty trap they are in. If they so choose to have a couple of children, that is a choice that they have made for themselves in their given circumstances. But to push that choice into a non thinking quest just to produce more cogs for the economy, that may be quite tragic. We have done it for many years. Instant trees, instant population, and why not instant babies? Are we having second thoughts on the consequences of having instant babies that may lead to more instant problems when they grow up? Would such questions be unnecessary as we claimed that we are all migrants and having more migrants is only a natural thing, a good thing? We can have a more migrant and vibrant people in the future. And they shall be the new Singaporeans and they shall decide what kind of Singapore they want. No need to sweat the small stuff and coming out with more and more costly options. We have created a system that technically is fair to all but in reality put those in the lower income group in a very disadvantageous position. Why are we making things so hard, so expensive to raise a family by pushing up cost of living without a second thought of how it will impact the people and change their lives and expectations? Did someone say we create our own problems only to find superficial solutions for them?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

沙发,well written

Mockingbird said...

Making babies is for replacing the ageing and dying population.

The gahmen only encourages those who can afford it to have more babies. They are not exactly keen on having to give handouts to poor families in coping with the rising costs of living and costs of bringing up babies and children.

Mockingbird said...

Even though the gahmen may not make it plain obvious, their policies to encourage the well-to-do to make more babies, is more implicit rather than explicit.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

we need to be reasonable as far as making babies are concerned. with the cost of bringing up a baby, leave it to those who can afford or need a little govt help.

unless we tweak the whole economic system to make raising a child more affordable. otherwise, an unqualified message of go forth and multiply can lead to more tragedies ahead. wicked actually.