Go easy on perfection? Offer 2nd chance
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I REFER to last Wednesday's report (Don't wait to have kids, says DPM Teo). It is true that we are a perfection- obsessed society.
The quest for perfection has been deeply ingrained in our psyche right from childhood. It starts at the end of Primary3, when the selection exam for the Gifted Education Programme is held, and continues during the whole of one's academic life, and then follows one in his work.
It is not very easy to forgo that instinct which you have been having since childhood - that too for such an important thing as having children.
One problem in this regard is the scarcity of second chances in life in our competitive society. If a woman takes a two-year career break to care for her newborn child, which is quite common in Western societies, it is next to impossible for her to get a decent job again.
This absence of second chances also weighs on the minds of young couples when they are planning ahead. So definitely a woman would like to delay her pregnancy as far as possible to get the best for her child.
Everyone loves children and everyone wants them - it is just that every parent wants the best for his child. If a parent has been brought up in a perfection- obsessed society, he will stop at nothing short of perfection for the child too.
Rather than telling couples to have children, encourage them in other ways. Get companies to improve the work-life balance of employees. Get them to enhance flexible work arrangements. Cap the maximum number of hours a person can work in a week and in a day.
Get people to feel confident that they can get a second chance in life.
Once all these are in place, there won't be any need to urge people to bear more children. It will just happen.
Kunwar Bir Singh
-- ST Forum
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Scam.
If you really witness the accident than you should inform the police
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makes no sense? what are you replying to? edited by?
