Just thought of this today - you know all that talk going on about Singapore's replacement rate.. or rather, non-replacement? It's pretty much on a macro level, i.e. fewer young Singaporeans to support the older generation a couple of decades down the road. That is surely a concern, but unfortunately, not something that I personally can do much about.
BUT I can do something on the micro level! Yes my children will have to pay more taxes like all the other Singaporeans of their generation in order to support people of my generation. Bo bian, no complaints. But at least there will be 3 (or more) of them to share the 'burden' of caring for hubby and me!
If the age gap is big, there might also be additional burden of having to take care of the youngest sibling. My sister is 9 years younger than me, and before she graduated this year, I often thought about having to support her financially before she completed her studies, should anything untowards happen to my parents. I would be very willing to take care of her, but it's definitely something that weighed on my mind, even when I was considering to resign from my job and become income-less.
Money is just one aspect. Having only one child to care for the aged parents in future, can be justified by the (huge) amounts of savings now, as additional children will of course increase the parents' current expenditure. But what about, for example, taking leave to accompany the parent for medical appointments/physiotherapy/checkups etc? Or when there is no problem, just a routine weekend visit... If the one child is not free to visit, will he/she feel more pressure about neglecting the poor, lonely parents? Hmm, I for one definitely feel like skipping visits to my parents or my in-laws occasionally, and I do not feel much guilt because I know they still have their other children visiting them. Urmm, do you also feel like skipping visits to your in-laws at times? Do you feel guilty if your spouse is an only child? :p
The other reason I can think of for now, is a very important one to me, because of our circumstances, i.e. homeschooling at least for the preschool years. Frankly speaking, I am getting very little done with Jiale now, and I am very lazy. It is impossible to do much with him while Didi is awake, cos Didi is a destroyer and recently, started to be very unreasonable. (At the moment, I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Pitch black.) Although by right, I should have quite a lot of time (at least 1-2 hours) to do learning stuff with Jiale after Didi goes for his nap since Didi usually takes quite long naps. But I have two major problems:
Firstly, if I don't send Jiale in to bed at the same time, he might wake Didi up with his whining when I do send him in. If Didi has already napped 1-2 hours then, he might not return to sleep after being awakened. Urmm, the alternative is sending Jiale to nap after Didi wakes up naturally, but there are 3 sub-problems to this: It will be very late by the time Jiale wakes up (Didi naps from 1pm to 3.30pm, Jiale naps from 3.30pm to 5pm) and we can't have any outings. It is more difficult for Jiale to fall asleep when he knows Didi is playing outside, and Didi loves to go and
Secondly, by the time I send Didi in to nap, I am usually exhausted. Thus it is very tempting for me to take advantage of Jiale's superior ability to play independently for very long.. while I just stone. I have definitely given in to this temptation many many times : /
Luckily, I am a believer of play play play for young children. Discussed this with hubby before, and we agree that there is definitely no need to worry or stress the kids before they are at least 5 years old, or maybe even 7 years old. If our plans go well, Jiale will be about 4 years old when the 3rd baby arrives. Thus, when the baby reaches the age of reasonableness of 2 years (and hopefully, independent play, going by Jiale's standards), Jiale will be at most 6 years old. And I can start proper seatwork kind of homeschooling with him then! (this is the latest, worst estimate la. Hopefully I can solve my laziness problem earlier.) So, no need to worry for now! : )
Project this a few more years down the road - when Jiale is taking his PSLE, the youngest will be already about 8 years old. I can focus on helping him with exam preparations, no need to take care of small baby! :p
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