Survival Of The Weakest

Singapore will not find itself climbing out of its fertility rut for a while. I'll tell you one of the reasons for this: our species has become too weak.

By "species", I am referring to the Kiasu Singaporean. We Singaporeans need no introduction or explication of the infamous term, but for those in doubt, click on the link. 

Before I proceed, let me qualify that I am not saying that there are not many reasons for the global phenomena of falling birthrates. I am only pointing out that there is one glaring symptom among Singaporeans of a certain creed...that acts like an antibiotic that has become ineffective to fighting a virus. 

In an NHK broadcast on September 28 which reported on Prime Minister Lee's speech in his National Day Rally on the lack of babies being born on our high-functioning island, the reporter interviewed one 33 year old Charmaine Ho, her occupation:  "reporter for a fashion magazine". The reporter described CHarmaine as someone who "wants her career but also to give her children the best possible education". Balancing those goals won't be easy, it went on because Ms Ho is adamant that she wants to have kids but she doesn't like how "competitive Simaporean society has become".

Ms Ho said to the camera, "Having kids...is very expensive, we don't mean it in a monetary way, we mean...the kind of sacrifices you have to make [...] Maybe you have 1000 kids trying to get into the same university where there's only like...100. You're fighting with the whole nation."

Watch the clip here.

Let me pause for a moment to take in the news. Wow, this is the first time I've heard someone equating competition with a few million people with a reason NOT to have children. It's a wonder Singapore's population hasn't gone under decades ago like the sinking city of Venice.  

Yes, it's not news that we are and have been a nation of complainers (which advanced, insecure, non-G8 member country isn't?). We're also notoriously protective of our offspring and we suffer from a pathological obligation to ENSURE that their childhoods culminate in illustrious professional careers in medicine, law, or at the very least, a position in the upper echelons of the civil and administrative service. Better yet if they can get their hands on a tax-payer-funded Ivy League college education, since those degrees are worth a lot more than others. 

I get it, parents want the best for their kids. I have one, so I feel your angst, Ms Ho. But somehow, the kind of parents that echo Ms Ho's sentiment is the sort that goes beyond the boundaries of typical parental concern. Singaporean parents want a guarantee that their kids will do well, and by "well", I mean head and shoulders above the rest, even if it means they have to get there kicking, shoving and pushing others aside for their kids. And this is precisely what Ms Ho does not want to do, or at least is loathe to do. But she will do it, if she eventually succumbs to the biological and evolutionary urge to procreate. 

What I think is this: the spirit of competition is not dead. But it has evolved into an ugly, narrowminded, class war between those who have and those who have more. It's the new middle class against everyone else: the less well-off, who seek to compete with their children for the same things, and the more well-off, whose privileges it seeks to replicate and gain.

Those who have some, aspire to have more, and they will do everything it takes to ensure that their children come out ahead of the rest, no matter the cost to the children. Those who have more, will use all their resources to keep it that way for their children. Failure is never an option for those who feel that what they have achieved could be snatched away at a moment's notice. Their children's success or lack of it reflect their own worst fears and insecurities. We are a generation that has come to fear competition, maybe because those of us who have reaped the fruits of our own struggles, cannot bear to lose the privileges of the new middle class. Our children are a reflection of ourselves, even though this is a seriously warped view. Their failure becomes our failure, and their success becomes our imaginary trophies and the chimera that we are safe and secure in all that we have achieved.

As a result, the strongest don't come out of this system to re-populate the nation (and workforce), the weak that have the social capital of middle-class parents and networks do. But this isn't new, is it? It happened to Venice, and it will happen to Singapore if the class warfare in our education continues unabated. Immigration might actually be a good thing, if it brings in people of another ilk, with a taste for competition as it really is in the jungle. But is our system robust and open enough to accomodate all kinds of talent? From the economy to the government, from schools to the home, there is still only a very narrowly-defined idea of a productive, able and valued member of society. So I will wait and see if we go the way of Venice, or perhaps we will be something else altogether.