STI: Kids? But I'm still a kid

Mar 9, 2004

Girl Talk

Kids? But I'm still a kid
by Clarissa Oon

RECENTLY, two of my female colleagues unburdened themselves to me over dinner.

Both are sassy singles who, despite their angelic looks, are capable of drinking any man under the table. Neither of them, like me, is a day over 29.

But the sight of plump-cheeked, gurgling babies was getting them all weak-kneed of late. They had been hit by that biological Cupid's arrow known as the Maternal Instinct.

One of them spoke, not without pathos, of how she felt especially broody at strategic moments during her monthly menstrual cycle and confessed to feeling all teary and helpless at not yet being able to procreate.

But before the Government's pro-baby teamsters get all excited, it must be said, for one, that biology is not on their side when it comes to the men.

As an older colleague lamented, the male of the species is certainly in no hurry when it comes to being productive with its sperm - after all, even an 80-year-old could technically sire a child.

Mismatches in reproductive urges aside, I think there is another important reason for the baby deficit, one almost as significant as oft-discussed factors, such as stress at work or the financial cost of bringing up Baby.

The fact is, whether children are an object of desire or a completely alien concept, many Singaporeans in their 20s and 30s still feel too much like kids themselves from years of living under their parents' roof to take on the responsibility of parenthood.

It could be the conditioning of so-called Asian values or growing up in a congested dot on the world map where it would cost you an arm and a leg to live footloose and fancy free on your own chunk of real estate.

The magic age for singles is 35, the age where you are eligible to apply on your own, sans parents, for more affordable public housing.

Is it any wonder, then, that many singles simply take the path of least resistance and live with their parents until they get married?

As a swinging single, my head is currently filled with images - not of babies - but of housing ads and showflat brochures.

My sister and future brother-in-law are in the midst of getting themselves their own pad, and so I am looking into the possibility of moving with my ageing parents to a smaller, newer flat.

What is often overlooked in the current debate on the plummeting birth rate is that its flip side is a greying population.

Elderly parents are a reality for many working Singaporean adults who no longer have the luxury of an army of siblings to help shoulder the responsibility.

Married couples who have to care for ailing parents whose faculties have slowed may find themselves torn in two directions if they also have to contend with one or two shrieking, hyperactive toddlers.

If your parents are thankfully able-bodied, then the irony of living with them, whether you are single or married, means that you will continue to be treated as a child, their minds frozen in time to when you were 13 or 14.

You may be nagged at for not taking your vitamins, interrogated over what time you came home last night or return home one day to find the contents of your messy room rearranged.

By and large, single 20-something Singaporeans are a generation of arrested developers, cosseted by a retinue of parents and foreign maids, compared to peers in other countries who have long moved out to live on their own.

I have seemingly worldly-wise friends who have never fried an egg in their lives or laid eyes on a utilities bill.

Their parents or maid pack for them before their jet-setting overseas trips, and upon their return, shed their clothes into a laundry basket for others to wash.

One newly-married friend describes the process of tying the knot and getting a nest of her own as finally learning how to be an adult. She reckons it would take her at least three years before she can graduate to being a parent.

If in a similar situation, I too would wait until either myself or my husband could afford to leave our jobs for a spell, ensuring that at least one parent will be at home to look after the kid.

The last thing I want would be to have a child when I am still one at heart, consigning the kid to the daily care of my parents, in-laws and/or a maid - and hence perpetuating the same unhealthy cycle of dependency.