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Would you have kids because of the baby bonus?


The government has recently announced increases to the baby bonus scheme.  The scheme (!) is of course to encourage Singaporeans to have more children.  The current population replacement rate is 1.2.  I was initially mistaken that a replacement rate greater than 1 is pretty good.  Apparently the ratio is calculated using the number of female Singaporeans as the denominator.  That means we need a minimum replacement rate of 2 to maintain our population size.  In other words, the number of Singaporeans with pink ICs is dwindling and we are in desperate need of Singaporean babies.

Perhaps the fundamental question to ask is 'why are people not having children'?  Why are the cash incentives not doing much to save the situation?

I personally have chosen the dink path because I'm really not particularly fond of children.  I do think they're cute, but they are time-consuming and boy, do they take a long time to grow up, all 18 years in fact.  My dog Chewy was toilet-trained in a matter of months, she's so smart.  A child?  It'll take years before they outgrow their diapers.  You can't abandon or return the kid, you live with whatever God's given you.  You can't over-discipline the child, it's abuse.  Yet you cannot let them be, because they'll become a menace to society.  You can't properly develop your career because you have to take childcare leave and leave work at a respectable hour, yet you can't tell your kid how much you've chosen to give up because they'll retort that they never chose to be born.  You can't go on holidays on a whim.  You can't feel disappointed that they don't live up to your expectations.  You fall ill regularly because you get germs from their daycare or if they're not in daycare, you're constantly worried the maid is going to drop them on the floor.

No parent ever dared to vouch that raising a kid isn't backbreaking work, because it most definitely is.  Repeating the process several times does not make it any easier  so no economies there.

For now, I am selfishly hanging on to my freedom.  Let's revisit this topic when I hit 40.


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