2. I think this is the worst thing I've ever heard.
THat a child's life is to live up to the nurture and expectation
pinned on him. So is a human's life nothing more than just a
long term investment with expected high ROI. What kinda value
system is it that we have here that we consider our children to be
just the bearer of or nurture and xpectations? Every Child is a
Unique individual, with his own dreams and aspirations. You
crush those hopes and dreams when you talk about him as just an
"investment."
Its not getting easier being a kid in Singapore. You've
got a stressful education system with so much foreign
competition. You've got parents with materialistic value
systems that devalues the child to just an investment. When the
child fails to see himself as another unique individual, entitled
to his own dreams and his own future, what is there to live
for? To be just another piece of meat for others to
consume?
For a person to be treated as an investment by his own parents
has gotta be the worst value system a society can have.
cca decision-making might be important because it shows whether
the parents enforce their decision on the child or give the child
the go-ahead, however, compared to the importance of life, cca, or
even many other matters, getting into the school of dream, or
similar seem absolutely trivial. there are many more things you can
do with you life.
a child is definitely not just an investment, of course by
parents care and nurture their children because they truly love
their children. i did not say that children are only
investments, although there is a certain element of it. but the
main issue goes back to the parents' love, as you mentioned for the
child. by taking his own life, his parents will be heartbroken
because deep down in their hearts, regardless of the arguments they
had with him, they still truly love him and to lose a son because
of a reckless decision he made, they feel crestfallen as if some
part of their life died down.
of course the love for the child plays the most crucial and
significant aspect of the parents' feelings. however, there is a
small aspect which is the investment part. the chinese saying goes
"yin shui si yuan". repay the elders as they have once nurtured and
raised you.
also, pressure for singaporean children is nothing compared to
those in korea, china and japan. because of the limited number of
university places in these countries and the vast numbers of people
applying, children there are given more stress as the entrance
ratios in cases are 100:1, but more often 30:1.
in singapore, 30% of each cohort gets the opportunity
to get to university. it is a 5:4ratio, 5 people
competing for 4 places, considering only those who applied for
university. there is so much less challenge in getting a place in
that secondary school, JC or university of choice because the odds
are so high. and every parent is definitely guided by 1) love. but
you should never count out the investment bit which plays a 20%
role at least in raising of children
