Tackling our baby blues

WITH NG WAN CHING
The New Paper - Nov 11, 1999

CALL me liberal.

I leave people alone and often wish they'll leave me alone.

I enjoy different points of views, as long as mine gets heard as well.

So to me, whether a couple want to have children or not is their decision - and theirs only.

As with most things wrong in this world, it's not that there is not enough of this or that, but that no one is steering the boatload of riches and plenty.

Or in this case, the boatload of babies.

The way I figure it, if timing and distribution are off the mark, then trouble follows.

Which brings me to Singapore's baby shortage.

The authorities now have a problem of trying to make things match: Ensuring enough people to keep the economy going.

This problem stems in part from the policy of 30 years ago, when each family was urged to have two children at most.

Then, it seemed like a good idea to curb the population growth so that it could match economic growth.

The Government then did not want to have a situation where it could not provide for too many mouths.

But economic growth has taken off spectacularly.

Now, we need more people to sustain it and push it to further heights.

I've often wondered: Why couldn't the two-child policy have been refined in its time?

For example, if one woman had not wanted her quota, couldn't another woman have taken it up?

Policies can only do so much, I feel.

The artificial calibration which tries to instruct the course of nature and human relationships to meet a certain objective seems to me to be fraught with dangers.

I understand when US chief banker Alan Greenspan has to adjust interest rates to fight off inflationary dangers.

I understand that governments everywhere have to do something when there's shortage or wastage.

But should governments adjust people's personal preferences?

Now, we have a shortage of babies. Should we run a campaign exhorting everyone to have four or more?

There's no way the Kellys of this world will change their minds about not wanting to have babies.

And there's no way the Thios and Lees (Later article) of this world would have kept to two babies per couple.

So why not take from the excess of the rest of the world to make Singapore Inc work?

Think foreign talent.

Or encourage those who want babies to have more by giving them the practical help to do so.

It's a matter of distribution and timing.

(For the record, I have two children and am thinking of having a third.)