Having Babies....

Did you watch / listen / read what PM Lee said during the National Day Rally?

One of the issues he addressed was the birthrate of Singaporeans. In case you're not aware, the birthrate of Singaporeans is around 1.29 per person. That's pretty low, isn't it? So, the government is trying their best to encourage more couples to have babies, through incentives such as (increasing) baby bonus, ang bao for first-time parents, more childcare leave, etc.

A colleague has been mulling over registering her firstborn in a primary school for the coming year. As I realised, this is one of those stages that as parents, you tear your hair off and crack your brains and have sleepless nights. Yes, it's the P1 registration. The dilemma of deciding which school to register your child in, the agony of the 3-day waiting period to see if the school of your choice / registration has to go through balloting due to overwhelming response, and so on, so forth. She has difficulties in planning childcare arrangement too. So, when I heard the PM talking about helping the parents with the various challenges, I instantly SMS her. We continued with this topic in the office today. At the end of our conversation / discussion, she said this "Those who want to have children, will do so with or without the incentives. Those who do not want to have children, will not, even with these incentives. Having these incentives as the dangling carrot does not help at all."

Hmm... well, I thought at least the incentives are a positive factor in the decision process.... Or are they not? Parents, married couples with no children yet, what say you?