You do not need much space to have sex.
That was the feisty rejoinder from Senior Minister of
State Josephine Teo, who oversees the National Population and
Talent Division, to a question on whether young people are not
getting their flats early enough to have children.
The suggestion was that this could be a chicken-and-egg
problem. To qualify for the Parenthood Priority Scheme, which gives
first- time married couples first dibs on getting a flat, they must
be expecting or have a citizen child below 16.
But to have a child, some say they need to have a flat
first.
With a straight face, Mrs Teo declared: "You need a
very small space to have sex."
Known for her candid blog posts on dating and marriage,
Mrs Teo does not mince her words - think "menstruation" and "cysts"
- when it comes to urging young people to look for love and settle
down early.
In an interview on marriage and parenthood issues last
week, the mother of three teenage children tackled issues ranging
from infertility to why the Government should not be "too kaypoh"
(Hokkien for busybody).
She noted that the Singaporean love story has a
different arc from that of countries in the West. "In our case, man
meets woman, man falls in love with woman, man proposes to woman,
they then plan the wedding and do the house," she said.
"In France, in the UK, in the Nordic countries, man
meets woman, tonight they can make a baby already. They love each
other. Both of them partly have their own family, so it is a matter
of living in yours or living in mine, and they also don't have to
worry about marriage - that comes later," she added.
So how about having a couple declare that they wish to
have a child in two years and get the flat first?
"What if they can't conceive? Take back the flat from
them? How do you know they really tried to conceive? Can we check
whether they use contraceptives? Cannot, right?" she replied,
amused.
Instead of having the Government poke its nose into the
bedroom, Mrs Teo relied instead on persuasion. She urged women to
have babies early as they would not know if they are fertile or
not.
"You never really know that you're not fertile until
you try. Unfortunately, it is one of those things. There is no
fertility indicator. As a woman you will know, if you have regular
menstruation, okay, (there is a) likelihood. But maybe you have a
major cyst and how would you know until you attempt to conceive,
only to realise that you can't?"
The search for love is also not something to be left to
chance, she said. "When I meet young people and ask if they go and
look for upgrading opportunities, they said 'yes'. I said, 'What
about love? Do you go and look for love?' They said 'no'. I said,
'Why not?' They said, 'If it happens, it happens'.
"I said, 'You don't think that upgrading and a good
job, if it happens it happens, right? So why is it that you would
apply that thinking to your career and your own education, but you
don't apply it to your personal life?' "
However, the minister was quick to point out that there
is a need to respect personal choice when it comes to marriage and
children.
She said: "In this day and age, it is not possible for
us to say that you are somehow bad, you are not doing your part for
society.
"No, there are many reasons why people remain single.
Sometimes, (for) very good reasons. Why should we pass judgment on
them?"
ST
