Yet another effort for babies.

Baby-making: Get on board earlier, says woman MP
Straights Time Nov 11, 2007

AS people look set to live and work for longer, women ought to consider putting their career on hold to have children as they will a lot of time to focus on work later, said a woman MP.

Making the pitch to young couples on Sunday, MP Josephine Teo (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) urged them to include both work and family in their lives.

Mrs Teo, who has a son aged nine and twin daughters aged seven, was responding to PAP members who raised concerns during a dialogue with PAP leaders about the low birth rate, despite national efforts to boost it.

The efforts have included a slew of cash and tax incentives - including a parenthood package of $575 million in 2005.

But the increase in the birthrate has been small: there were 400 more babies in 2005 than the year before. Last year, 36,200 babies were registered, 700 more than those in 2005.

Mrs Teo urged young couples to relook the conventional approach of putting career before children, as lifespans stretch.

'If we think of...85 and beyond being a likelihood, what is the hurry to do the things that can be done later?'

'I would arrange my life so that I have more children, start a family earlier, start it sooner, and then when the children are a little bit older, I can put my heart back to work,' said Mrs Teo, a human resources director with the labour movement.

But putting children as a top priority was no easy decision, she conceded.

In fact, she and her husband, had made a tough call to give up careers in Suzhou, China, to return to Singapore, so Mrs Teo could tap on their families to care for the babies.


Once again we see yet another articles of our government trying to con (encourage) Singapore couple to product babies.

Why are they so eager? Again in all boiled down to workforce replacement. So the gahment will still have enough people to tax tax tax and tax.

Again I like to stress that if a couple really want kids, they will just have it no matter what the government says. Infact, I think these constant efforts from our government will only backfired sometime.

I already am sick of these millionaires trying to convince the peasants (people) to have babies.

Look how careful they select the right MP to give the speech. Josephine is a good “role model”, with a successful career and 3 kids.

Note these following female MPs are single or have no kids.

Indranee Thurai Rajah, Single, 44
Ellen Lee Geck Hoon, Married no kids, 50
Sylvia Lim, Single, 42
Low Penny, Single, 40
Ng Phek Hoong Irene, Married no kids, 44
Eunice Elizabeth Olsen, Single, 31
Thio Li-ann, Single,39

So my point is, we all choose the way we want in life. Not all people love children or like to be near one. So the “carrots” our gahment are dangling will only attract a small portions of those couple that are still deciding whether they want to have babies or not.

If the gahment truly wants Singaporean to have more babies the I urge them to seriously do something about it.

Some things my non-million dollar brain can think of:

1) 6 months maternal and paternal leaves.
2) Free childcare
3) Free basic medical for pregnant women.
4) Childcare center open 24 hours.
5) Companies which sacked pregnant women are to be fined.

Also I also try to come up with some reason why couple are not having babies:

1) High cost of living.
2) Need to plan for retirement.
3) Lousy child-care.
4) Lousy education system.
5) Not family orientated workplace.
6) Freedom – Couple with no kid and just go oversea tomorrow. Try to do that if you have kids.