Recently, it hit me. I must take personal responsibility for the
rising tide of xenophobia in Singapore. My life choices have led to
the massive influx of foreigners here, which has in turn, resulted
in growing anger from locals fearful that they are being squeezed
out of their own country. I need to wo-man up and take the
blame. Selfish, self-absorbed me. How on earth could I
have not realised this? I am nearly 40. And yet I’ve not bothered
to get married, let alone reproduce. I’m not doing anything to help
boost Singapore’s birthrate. What a waste of an educated,
Chinese womb. Women like me have given my government no
choice but to resort to desperate measures to salvage what is
clearly a dire situation.
“If we go on like this,” warned former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan
Yew, “this place will fold up, because there’ll be no original
citizens left to form the majority, and we cannot have new
citizens, new PRs to settle our social ethos, our social spirit,
our social norms.”
Oh, the pressure. Oh, the shame. What’s a girl to do? I’ve
always believed my ovaries belonged to me and only me. Never
thought they’d ever be expected to perform any sort of national
service. Never ever imagined that decisions on procreation would
ever be anything other than private. After all, LKY himself has an
unmarried daughter. Surely he would understand that some
of us don’t want to have it all?
