Just read the newspaper this morning, and saw that the government is coming out with a help package in the hope to boosting birth rates. They have set the birth rate target to be 1.5 and hope that with this package, it would help couples to want to give birth to more children.

Sometime I wonder, are we giving birth to children because we love children or because we love money? Aren’t children supposed to be the product of love? If yes, then why must we be entice to give birth by using perks? Raising children is never a cheap thing, and especially more so if the parents want to give the child so many many things like branded kids clothes, to branded photos graphs, to bring them to enjoy overseas holidays when they are barely one year old (I wondered if the child would remember anything) to going for tons and tons of enrichment courses. But I think that are this are not a necessity. If the parents themselves choose to give their child a life of luxury, then how can we say that raising a child is expensive? There are also many parents who raised kids in a simple way without all these luxury yet the child grew up to be a better man/woman.

I think raising a kid is because as husband and wife, we choose to bring a life into this world. It is not just about bringing a child into a life of enjoyment and luxury. It is really more of bringing the child up reasonably well and teaching him the right things of the world. And more important because the couple wants to have a child. For those that really wants to have a child, such incentive is a bonus, its not how much it is. But for those who do not want to have a child, such incentives would not help them at all. It might help tip those sitting on the fence, but ultimately, such incentives would run out and the cost would be there, it is thus more important to have a reasonable standard of living and not a unrealistically high one.