Birthrate Increase Social Engineering Plan

Poh Ah Pak SG

xtreyier, more people, more cars, more ERPs, higher COEs, how?

xtreyier SG

If you are talking about surrogate services.. it's already available.

Private surrogate services unfortunately comes with a social stigma and a high price of costs and emotional tangle many couples get entrap with.

When the State ( our society ) steps in to give it an official status and prevent scams and scalping, regulate it, chances are, more will be favourable towards such a concept.

Foreigners had called Singapore a 'Nanny State'. It is true and i personally agree to it. If we don't take care of ourselves and others within our society, who else will take care of us and others? I am sure our neigbours would like to see us sink, and the western world is too preoccupied to worry about a small little red dot.

Pro family plans are easy to preach, but let us be realistic. The cost to a middle class family of 3 of $3000/mth is hideous. We taxpayers can provide as much as possible to help, but we cannot afford everything - free healthcare, housing, education, transport, etc. If you divide up our reserves, it is nothing more than a few thousand per person, and within months nothing will be left.

No matter how much we taxpayers can provide, it will not be enough or sustainable for a lower income group family of more than 2 to enjoy. They themselves would have to sacrifice very very much. It is salutory of them, and i would give them fullest respect, but there has to be another way. My BISEP plan is one, but not the only one. IF you have a better one, lets hear it.

jojobeach SG

Private surrogate services unfortunately comes with a social stigma and a high price of costs and emotional tangle many couples get entrap with.

When the State ( our society ) steps in to give it an official status and prevent scams and scalping, regulate it, chances are, more will be favourable towards such a concept.

So you are only interested to protect the well to do couples ?

Have you given a thought to the poor couples who has to give up their child ?

jojobeach SG

Private surrogate services unfortunately comes with a social stigma and a high price of costs and emotional tangle many couples get entrap with.

When the State ( our society ) steps in to give it an official status and prevent scams and scalping, regulate it, chances are, more will be favourable towards such a concept.

All you are proposing is a different financial flow.

Why not we turn the tables around instead.

Let the rich and childless give voluntarily to poor family with children.

Also known as Sponsorship program for the well to do to help impoverised children.

An example of such program ...NYOF

This practice is very common .. maybe just not in Singapore.

Poh Ah Pak SG

xtreyier, more people, more cars, more ERPs, higher COEs, how?

White_SoulReaper SG

This topic is sick!

xtreyier SG

All you are proposing is a different financial flow.

Why not we turn the tables around instead.

Let the rich and childless give voluntarily to poor family with children.

Also known as Sponsorship program for the well to do to help impoverised children.

This practice is very common .. maybe just not in Singapore.

I am glad you brought up this point. I do agree with you that perhaps the rich and well to do help impoverished children.

But you may not be aware of how much the rich and well to do had been helping them through the years in Singapore.

It is even not the rich and well to do had been helping, even the middle classes, such as a few of my friends, had been sponsoring Spore and even overseas children on their education, the escape from poverty trap. You may not be aware of it, but it is because most of these humble people do not want to named or recognised for charity works.

Please, please, do not think that my fellow citizens whom are well off are not contributing. Some do so publically, but many and most do it silently without funfare.

Furthermore, money alone cannot ensure the child would be brought up properly. They need a conducive and stable environment to grow. I am not alluding the poor and lower middle classes provide bad environment, for i had known some of our scholars came from such environment. They are our best, for the beat the odds. But is that the norm or a few exceptions? We as a society will always help our poor the best we can through our donations and taxes, but we do have limitations as a middle class society.

Again i do apologise if anyone find this topic sickening. It is truth and fact we will eventually have to face up to, rather than to live a deluded fantasy world and be in denial.

Poh Ah Pak SG

xtreyier, more people, more cars, more ERPs, higher COEs, how?

Melbournite SG

They have to be more creative than this:

Someone suggest NS duty rebate for fathers. Thats a good idea if it comes about. Not only does it save money for SAF but also rids the burden of fathers having to serve NS duty and concentrating more on their career. But leave them still liable to be called up for war.

I belive this trade off is worth it as having children is a form of NS duty itself. A nation's psyche starts from the family at home. Then comes NS.

jojobeach SG

I am glad you brought up this point. I do agree with you that perhaps the rich and well to do help impoverished children.

But you may not be aware of how much the rich and well to do had been helping them through the years in Singapore.

Please, please, do not think that my citizens whom are well off are not contributing. Some do so publically, but many and most do it silently without funfare.

Sometimes the kids from the rich are the worst of the lot.

Most times kids from adverse backgrounds learn perseverance and gained humility ..much needed qualities the affluent batch can hardly attain.

I look at it as a blessing in disguise.

You are very lucky you're not born in India where the caste system is still prevalent.

In a equal world.. it doesn't matter where you come from or what you are... but what matters is what you can become.

alwaysdisturbed SG

Again i do apologise if anyone find this topic sickening. It is truth and fact we will eventually have to face up to, rather than to live a deluded fantasy world and be in denial.

you sound like somebody telling us to brace, brace and brace.

to you, it may be a well painted solution but by thinking it'll do more good to us than bad is wrong. the possible social problems consequence from this plan will not be trivial. it may eventually cost us even more.

pearlie27 SG

This will be a totally new and radical concept to increase our national birthrate, and may offend both conservative and liberal elements within our society. But then, an idea is better than to have no ideas, and a discussion is to objectively look into the concept and tweak it to make it better or perhaps offer another better alternative. For better or for worse, here it goes.

1. Many Sporean men feel disadvantaged that they are the only ones to serve the nation while the women do not, in the interest of sexual equality, together with the sacrifices men have to make in their careers right up till they are 45 years old.

2. There are successful career couples who love to have more children but are infertile, or fear giving birth, and not so well off couples who are fertile, but fear the cost of having more children, as well as successful middle aged career single women who fear giving birth or could not find the right man in time, missing on their biological urge and clock to have children and yet would love to have children as companion to share love and concern to old age.

So how are we to reconcile such concerns and turn in to a benefit to the continuation of our society?

Birthrate Increase Social Engineering Plan

Aim: To increase our national birthrate

Timeframe: 7 years experimental project.(renewable if necessary)

Stage1

Couples whom are not so well off will be encouraged to have more children. They will get existing benefits and on top of all, they will be given a $1200 rebate on tax on each birth ( Equivalent salary of our NSmen)

All medical expenses, including supplements, will be borned by the State (we the taxpayers). Once the child is borned, they will be given, free of encumberances to the State. These mothers must NEVER ever seek to find out whom these children are, espacially after these children had grown up, and the State (we the citizens) will not acknowledge such claims. Such terms will be strictly volunteerily done before they are placed on this programme. If they do not agree to the terms, they need not be placed on this track.

Stage 2

The State will then qualify career couples and single women whom wants children and assign the child to them for adoption. THIS IS NOT SELLING OF CHILDREN! There will be no money involved. Only qualified and children loving parents will be assigned to children. These parents will then look after these children and love them as their own, and contribute an additional tax of $1,200 a year till the child turns 18 years old, purpose being to offset taxpayers contribution for the biological mother's medical expenses.

Stage 2A

Should there be more children leftover without adoptive parents, they will become children of the State, and they will take on the sirname of our head of state, whom will protect and look after them using our funds(tax).

They will be treated equally, with no social stigma, for their 'parents' are our head of state, and given full equal opportunity in all, shelter, food, clothes, medical attention, education.

By age of 18 ( or 21 for Ugrads), they will then serve our country for a period of 7 years, in military, civilian or civil service, to return a debt of honour of which we taxpayers had borned during their development. Afterwhich, they will be free to stay or leave our country, which we will not interfere with their lives.

I know this is a radical plan, and had sought to balance out the duties between child, parents and the State(taxpayers). With such a plan, perhaps there may be an increase in our birth rates, and a continuiaty of our national group amongst the race of humans.

PS: There may be some belief in Eugenics. It is total utter nonsense, believed by no academics of repute. Most of us early singaporeans came from middle classed and poor families, and made Spore great. It is Nurture, and not Nature, that makes well rounded and intelligent children. And such children, more often than not, DO need a good home environment to be nurtured, sadly a fact most not so well off parents would agree if they have more than 2 children.

Brilliant plan! Submit it to the PAP govt, you maybe still in time to get the National Day Award. Or they may beg you to join their party for you're as cold as them.

Poh Ah Pak SG

The proper reason for couples to have children should be that they love children.

They like children.

They like to be parents.

Not because of serving some state goal or interests of PAP.

To Lee Kuan Yew, we are only digits, resources to be used.

You want to have children to serve the interests of Lee Kuan Yew?

Wise words from the great leader Lee Kuan Yew:

"Mine is a very matter-of-fact approach to the problem. If you can select a population and they're educated and they're properly brought up, then you don't have to use too much of the stick because they would already have been trained. It's like with dogs. You train it in a proper way from small. It will know that it's got to leave, go outside to pee and to defecate. No, we are not that kind of society. We had to train adult dogs who even today deliberately urinate in the lifts." - Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore society, The Man & His Ideas, 1997

"I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind - an inability to chart a course whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. You are not a leader." - SM Lee Kuan Yew, Success Stories, 2002

"If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it." - Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew evoking the ghost of Deng Xiaoping whilst endorsing the Tiananmen Square massacre, Straits Times, Aug 17, 2004

"At the end of the day, we are so many digits in the machine. The point is – are these digits stronger than the competitors' digits?" - MM Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore workers, History of Singapore, 2005

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew

HyperFocal SG

... each and every baby, is Taxes Receivable...

... this is more likely the equation...

xtreyier SG

The neccessity, aims, financing, reasons and logic provided is true and valid, an issue our society will face if we are to survive as a nation, espacially for those who cannot leave the country, should our country sinks (IF), no matter which political party is ruling over us. However, there is a fatal flaw in the whole design - the biological mother. The simple post by Elindra fired the arrow.

As i am an adopted child, i believe that some mothers would give away their children easily, as was my case. There are even reports annually of parents ill-treating their child, some killing their children, some giving them away, some neglecting them, not only amongst the poor, but even the rich.

Thus, why not let these women, rich or poor, serve a higher calling, the way we all sporean men served to protect and defend our nation, to provide children for those whom are capable and whom wants them?

But perhaps, as Elindra had pointed out, there may be some women who will develope a bond with the baby inside her. Giving it up may rent an emotional scar in her being. She is also a human, a fellow citizen, do our society have the heart to do such a seemingly heartless thing to her, even if she is the only one amongst many who don't mind?

I don't know. It may be a bad concept plan. Perhaps someone can come up with a better solution to our low birth rate, leading to an aging population and higher taxes extracted from our next generation?

Would forsaking our flag be an option, as recommended by our neighbours who would love to see Singapore sink, as well as those ex-singaporeans who would love nothing better than to be proven right in their decision to abandon Singapore?

Poh Ah Pak SG

Thus, why not let these women, rich or poor, serve a higher calling,

I do not agree with that.

Having children should be that the parents themselves want children, not to serve the agenda of others.

Beautiful951 SG

A higher calling? I hate higher callings. How can people's joy, in this case their children be offered against their will to serve a "higher calling"? Do you understand what you are saying? You are saying that these parents who are poor have to give birth to children and watch as their children is given to others. "Children of the state"? Singapore is a democratic country, japan is facing these problems too. But are not coming out with all these things.

Therefore, on point

1. Singapore is not quite so desprate yet as to use these solutions.

2. Children are not to be used as a commodity. Lets take the example of the women. They were once being used as commodity. But they fought. By using children, we are exploiting them in the worst case ever. For children are too powerless to fight for what they want.

3. Japan is also at a stage of ageing population, they are not yet thinking of such things.

4. This is a democratic country. Therefore, people have freedom of choice over their own children.

5. Do not even dream that we will agree with you on this. Even if you are able to argue your points so well we cannot argue back, on a moral level, we will not agree to such things.

6. As soon as this is implemented, fewer people will want to give birth. Parents love for their children are such that they do not want their children to suffer. Even before birth, the love is still there. And because of it, your plan will not work out. In the worst possible situation, there will be very few people giving birth.

ivebeenhad SG

there is alot of hate and objection in this thread. he did mention at the beginning that some of you might find it offensive. Im just going to agree that yes this plan is good without an extended national slavery for these kids and they should be given a fair chance without being born with dept, but this idea is still far from being accepted by current social mindset, maybe in a hundred years time where values change. and by then we dont really need a solution anymore, the original singaporeans will become a minority group.

xtreyier SG

Therefore, on point

1. Singapore is not quite so desprate yet as to use these solutions.

3. Japan is also at a stage of ageing population, they are not yet thinking of such things.

4. This is a democratic country. Therefore, people have freedom of choice over their own children.

5. Do not even dream that we will agree with you on this. Even if you are able to argue your points so well we cannot argue back, on a moral level, we will not agree to such things.

Dear 951,

Thank you for your post. I fully deserved your emotional outburst directed towards me, even if some of the points i raised you had misunderstood, for we are dealing with a fully emotionally charged subject, a bitter truth that we all will have to face up to eventually.

However, i do take issue with your use of the word 'commodity' on children to support your indignation.

Children are never a commodity or slave. Eversince the dawn of civilisation, mankind had realised they represent our future on this beautiful planet we live in, and had strive to protect them and even give their lives to let them inherit a better world than the one they lived.

It is only a minority of human that see children as commodity and slaves, such as farming communities that had problems getting labour, and nomadic cultures that sees children as a means of living in comfort, having several of them through numerous wives.

But in Singapore, we treasure and cherish our children, sporean men ready to give up their lives to protect them, parents giving them the gift of life and having the fullest intention to let them inherit a better world, as evident in our social and education spending, even as some of them forsake our society eventually by leaving our shores. Thus the charge that we treat children as 'commodity' or 'slaves' is an unworthy, contemptible and heartrending accusation of our society.

But there are some mothers who would readily give up their children, one way or another.

I personally encountered a foundling under a HDB block. The less than a year old baby was swathed in quilt and cushions in a basket, with a note seeking someone to take good care of her. She was a lovely fair skinned chubby baby.

I reached down to her to pull her quilt cover down as it was a hot morning, and her chubby tiny fingers reach up to grasp my finger and gave me the sweetest smile i had ever experienced in my life, and looked so trustingly to me. I look around, but there was no one around, except for this baby abandoned under the stairs. I called the police and let them handle the affair.

I am only human. I couldn't help but wondered why such a sweet and lovely child could be abandoned. Which mother could be so heartless? Even no matter how poor, our society will always help, even if limited. That night, i went to a coffeeshop when it was about to close and ordered several bottles of beer, to get myself drunk to forget the iniquity and unfairness others inflict on a child, and the life of this poor innocent baby. My beer tasted exceedingly salty that night....

Sorry that i had digress. Whatever the agreements or disagreements to the BISEP plan when fully understood, it would had been food for thought.

jojobeach SG

Dear 951,

However, i do take issue with your use of the word 'commodity' on children to support your indignation.

But there are some mothers who would readily give up their children, one way or another.

Sorry that i had digress. Whatever the agreements or disagreements to the BISEP plan when fully understood, it would had been food for thought.

If our society isn't so harsh to single mothers or teen pregnancy.. the baby may still be in the arms of his/her mother. Or, that help had indeed reached her outstretched hands.. will she not decide on this painful parting ?

If she had not wanted the baby.. she could have just aborted it.

To go through 9 months of discomfort and the pain of giving birth.. tells you how much she had loved her unborn child.

The guilt of giving up her child ... will be her most painful punishment for life.

Our culture of shame and penalties.. has it's ill effects.

No parents should have to part with his/her own children just so to serve another's purpose.. nor should any parents be made to bury their young.

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