Kids or No Kids?

I have no wish to have children. It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I don’t want.

People tell me that children are good for many reasons: they brighten up our lives, take care of us when we are old and our hopes can be pinned on them. The older ones say that children continue our family lines. The religious ones say that children are the essence of life and the continuation of an almighty creation. Even the government has something to say, telling us that children are needed for the country’s growth and progress.

I have issues with these reasons individually, but first, my own deep-seated convictions why I don’t desire children of my own.

In life, there are happy emotions and sad emotions. Happy ones include love, surprise and humour; unhappy ones include fear, jealousy and anger. We live life for the happy emotions and hope that the unhappy ones will be offset by the happy ones.

But on balance, we go through more unhappy emotions than happy ones in life. Even as I write the preceding paragraph, the unhappy emotions came to mind far more readily. (If the reader thinks this is but a symptom of my own personality type and prejudices, have a go at churning out the two lists).

With this outlook of life, if given the option to be re-born, I won’t take it – why go through something that will cause me more pain than joy? And if I think this way, wouldn’t I be selfish to bring life into this world? Put in another way, if the new child had known that life would be more unhappy than happy, would he necessarily choose to be born?

Parts of these have to do with the tensions and struggles we go through in Singapore. The choice in our society is between allowing mediocrity, thus a low self-esteem, or pushing to be achievers, often in more than one field, thus a stressful existence. I blame the Singapore society because our insecurity as a country transmits into an insecure people, which fuels the tensions and struggles we have no choice but to cope with.

Then there are the selfish motivations. Perhaps my disciplined and regulated childhood has spurned a longing for the reverse, and I now crave for freedom to do anything I want anytime. I’ve become averse to anything that constrains my freedom – be it a low-paying job, heavy job responsibilities, unreasonable parents, a possessive partner, or of course, children. I want to live life for none other than myself and the ones I love.

I am also tired of responsibility and commitment. Having children will only add to my list of commitments – family, girlfriend, dogs, friends, football, work and colleagues – and drain my financial resources.

Now, my contention about the reasons that others have cited for having children. Yes, children brighten up our lives, but only for the first ten years or so, and it comes with much trouble and effort anyway. That they take care of us when we are old – this is something best not to assume. And while we can pin our hopes on them, whether it ends in heartache depends mainly on things beyond our control. In the past, parents have most influence over their child’s values and growth; today, with working parents, long hours in school, media and internet influence, the ones with the most influence are teachers, friends and maids. Since whom the child gets as his teachers, friends and maids is only fractionally within our control, it is essentially down to luck how the child turns out.

Moreover, aren’t each of these reasons self-serving, and would I not be selfish, even immoral, to have children for these reasons, especially given my perspective of life in the first place?

As for the arguments that children continue our family lines, the life cycle, and Singapore’s progress, I would reply thus: I am neither a traditional Chinese, hence my family line can be discontinued; nor religious, hence the life cycle is irrelevant; nor an extreme patriot, hence I won’t have kids just for the sake of my country.

Well, these are my views today. I concede that I may well wake up one day and decide that I want children and then start to reason why children are good to have. Let’s just hope that if and when this day comes, it won’t be too late. After all I’ve said, this is the weightiest counter-argument against my no-kids decision today.