So, the Child LifeSG will have money credited. This is just a short-term relief that does not solve the long-term payments that rearing a child will have. Assuming that with just the common cold and common health challenges one will face in life, parent(s) will need to support the child until the child lands a job at the age of probably 20 for girls and 23 for boys. Now, I call them girls and boys because they have not matured yet.
There will be a number of children who are entrepreneurial in their thinking and start to earn money from the age of 15 or 18, depending on the circumstances. For the first 20 years of one’s life, one has to depend on the parent(s) to survive. Other costs do not include the parent(s) paying for the transport; this cost is ever-changing based on the PTC‘s review. It can increase (high percentage) and decrease (small percentage) at any time.
So, depending on where the child is posted when the child has completed PSLE, this will include the transport fares. Currently, my child is incurring the cost of $40 every 4 weeks. It’s $9 shy of the monthly concession pass for hybrid transport rides (bus and train) as of this writing. This monthly concession pass is unlimited rides for both trains and buses. A value for money pass to buy if the child is incurring more than this amount every 4 weeks. The Child LifeSG credits will probably cover this cost for about 10 months, considering only that the money goes for the school terms transport usage.
So, how do the parent(s) cover the other costs for other things like buying school books, school shoes, school excursions (EduSave mostly as long as the money is not used up yet), doctors’ trips and other things? Parent(s) will use their salary (take home pay) to pay for all those. For those who can afford to do this, they will do so without much complaint. But what about those who can’t afford it? For those who can’ts if they qualify for the FAS, they can pay the subsidized amount.
What about those who don’t qualify for the FAS and other welfare funds just because of the gross household income? They scrape by just to cover the costs because when the schools are unable to use the Edusave for the subscriptions that don’t qualify for the Edusave usage.
Besides these costs, we need to take a look at the childcare leave. Personally, I find that sharing the childcare leave between 2 and more children is really terrible. The childcare leaves entitlement also stop when the youngest is aged 8. This is based on what assumption? I’m guessing that by this age, the child would be healthy and vaccinated and really healthy to block all sorts of illnesses. How does the limited amount of childcare leave to be used across the number of children be used when chicken pox can take 2 weeks to recover from? Why is the number of childcare leaves still fixed at 6 days per calendar year and citizens are expected to procreate more? Tell me which minister has more than 2 children and is able to use them meaningfully?
Ministers have more annual leaves and their leaves can be accumulated till the next year, so, even they have fully utilised the childcare leaves, they can still use the annual leaves. Companies do not allow accumulation of the leaves for business continuity reasons. Some allow the employees to accumulate based on the business policy.
So, if the TFR has dropped to 0.87 as of 2026, what makes it this low? What are the root causes? I am doing purely guess work here. It could be due to fertility issues. It could be due to financial issues. It could due to the lack of support from the employers who have to ensure the business is still running. The stars definitely do not align here despite what the encouragement from the government gives. It is ultimately mouth work on telling the people to procreate.
Procreation needs planning, support and the mental capability to handle the stress from working full time and caring for the young child. It is not a single family’s problem to rear a child. There is a reason why some choose to have only 1 child.
The next issue that I have been facing is from the schools. Every time, the teachers will use ClassDojo to tell the parents to bond with the child. With all sorts of paper talk on how to encourage the child, make the child learn spelling, comprehension, use analytical thinking, create videos of making something, grow mushrooms, grow bean sprouts, rear mealworms (they didn’t survive and evolve, I’m so sorry, wormies) and many other things that as a full time working mother who does not have time to do such things. I’m already working on weekdays, spending 12 hours outside the home (daylight) including travelling time and by the time I reach home, I am not able to even bother cooking and much less spend time ensuring that my child has finished the homework and learned the spelling.
What makes the teachers think that parent(s) can actually still have the mental capacity to do school work after working the whole day? Parent(s) have to be able to do all the subjects while the teachers are in charge of 2 subjects. Teachers have to do CCA duties, I know. So? You think parent(s) don’t have a million things to do at work?
I have struggled to raise my children. So. I will not force mine to go have kids just because I am worried if they will have a family to look after them when they are old. I am worried that my children will not be able to handle the workforce as I am not able to support them because I don’t own a business so that they can be nepo kids.
If the new team led by Indranee Singh were to be successful in increasing the TFR within the next 2 – 5 years, the team needs to be deep thinking, really go through the process of family planning, rearing children, understand the challenges of having children, push for all companies to accept working mothers do have to bear the most/full brunt being away from work in order to look after the children, push for more days of childcare leaves or allowing the childcare leaves to be tied to per child until the age of 18 (especially when the child has completed secondary school, their wings are more or less hardened), accepting that work from home is a necessity if the number of leaves are to be kept at the current MOM regulations and think about whether they want face time with the employees who will continue to have employee mentality (pay me this amount, I give my efforts for this amount) or they want the results from the employees.
It is not a simple word from the Indranee led team that just say “reset” as if the whole problem is like a computer and pressing a button will solve everything. Having children is a huge decision. Not just give birth and the child can run free after being born.
