down sizing

Subscriber exclusiveCan’t bear to downsize your home? Think of it as rightsizingAngela TanFollow topic:ST InvestMePublished 15 hours agoUpdated 5 hours agoListenSign up for ST InvestMe and unlock full access to exclusive insights and financial literacy courses today.SINGAPORE – It all started over a get-together of old friends and empty nesters whose children are grown up and have moved out of the family home.Patrick Chan and his wife Julie have lived in the same detached house for more than 30 years. It is where Julie grew up and, after she got married, raised her children and watched her family grow. Today, things are different.Their sons are married and have their own homes, and their daughter is working overseas. Their rooms have become storage rooms.On most days, it is just Patrick and Julie and their helper.One evening over dinner, Patrick casually wondered if they should sell the house and downsize to a smaller place.It was a simple question, but it sparked an angry outburst from his wife, who viewed the proposition as a downgrade in lifestyle and status.“I can’t talk to her about money or downsizing. She gets so emotional,” says Patrick with a sigh. “Our current place was last renovated before we moved in with her parents. We added another floor.“Every day feels like a military operation – I have to plan my movements to avoid climbing up and down the stairs multiple times,” he adds.Bothered lately by his cranky knees, he figured it might be more convenient to move to a more compact home with newer fittings that could be cheaper to maintain, easier to clean and better suited to this stage of life. Doing so would also allow the couple to unlock the money tied up in the house Julie inherited when her parents passed away. This could give them more financial freedom to enjoy retirement, including spending on travel, healthcare, hobbies and other things they value, without constantly worrying about money. Unfortunately, Julie does not feel the same way. She is emotionally attached to the place and the neighbourhood, though in her heart she knows Patrick is just being practical.See more onST InvestMeInvestSingapore propertyRetirement planningTop storiesExplore top stories from all sections in one placeSingaporeSingaporeSingaporeSingaporeFitness chains tout incentives to lure members affected by True Fitness, True Yoga closuresIn an uncertain world with many problems, Singaporeans must help each other: SM LeeWorker dies after being struck by hose at Jurong Port Road construction site; MOM investigatingInclusive festival lets visitors experience life through the eyes of disabled artists

retire with 20 years or more

Subscriber exclusiveWhy it’s important to know how to spend time meaningfully after retirementBrian J. O’ConnorFollow topic:InvestPublished Sep 4, 2026, 5:00 AMUpdated Sep 4, 2026, 4:42 PMListen“They’re stressed, they’re done, they retire, and at some point they’re recharged and they come back to work, especially the more educated group, where there’s not a physical component to the job.”Work that is physically demanding and low-wage jobs extend inequality in the labour force to inequality in retirement, too, denying the benefits of a lengthier retirement to many older Americans, Sanzenbacher added. Black and Hispanic Americans, or people who live in multi-generational households where they support parents or children and grandchildren, are among the groups most likely to keep working well past retirement age.More on this topicFinancial freedom is being able to pay for all expenses, not how much you have How you can do better than having $600,000 in your bank account Envisioning a long retirementA retirement of 20 years or longer can cover three phases: an active, healthy phase right after leaving work, followed by a period of less activity, and a final period when retirees settle into a lifestyle with little activity near the end of life.•Phase one: If they have the resources, this is when retirees should travel, before illnesses or ailments show up. Conventional wisdom once held that spending dropped after you left work, but later, research found that spending actually increased as retirees took up new hobbies, travelled, relocated and pursued other long-delayed plans.•Phase two: After 10 to 15 active years, physical reality catches up with 75- or 80-year-old retirees. Those who were working part-time have typically finished but still have time for family, friends and social activities. Spending tapers off.•Phase three: After an additional five to 10 years, retirees typically stay closer to home with less activity and may develop more serious health issues that can lead to large medical bills. As at 2025, the median cost for non-medical caregiver services at home was US$80,000 a year (assuming 44 hours a week), assisted living was just over US$74,000, and a private nursing home room cost about US$130,000.Like all retirement decisions, though, lifestyle comes down to money. Check with a planner to see whether your finances will support your goals, and don’t ignore inflation.At the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 per cent annual inflation, a retiree living on US$5,000 a month in 2026 would spend more than US$7,400 per month 20 years from now to cover their expenses. But inflation doesn’t stick to the average – the rate for June was 3.5 per cent, nearly twice as high as the Fed’s target.“Most people haven’t thought through what their life will be like in retirement,” Crews said. “They’ll say, ‘I’ll figure it out. I’m going to go to Yellowstone, I’ll go on cruises.’ They need to consider the work benefits that don’t involve a pay cheque – friendships, solving problems and feeling like you play a significant role. The question is, ‘Where are you going to find purpose?’ And it’s not going to be on a cruise ship.” NYTIMES•This article originally appeared in The New York Times.See more onMore on this topicInvestRetirementLearn how to manage your money better at InvestMe event on Sept 17Retirement planningHobbiesFinancial literacyRetire with more money? Learn how to grow $1m in your CPF from the first InvestMe event videoTop storiesExplore top stories from all sections in one placeSingaporeSingaporeSingaporeSingaporeFitness chains tout incentives to lure members affected by True Fitness, True Yoga closuresIn an uncertain world with many problems, Singaporeans must help each other: SM LeeWorker dies after being struck by hose at Jurong Port Road construction site; MOM investigatingInclusive festival lets visitors experience life through the eyes of disabled artists

why e rich feel anxious about not having enough money

Subscriber exclusiveEven rich people feel anxious about moneyAngela TanFollow topic:InvestPublished 1 hour agoUpdated 1 hour agoListenMany assume financial anxiety disappears once people become wealthy. That is further from the truth. You earn $100,000 per year and think you would stop losing sleep if you earned double that.Or you might have reached a net worth of $2 million but think you would feel safer with $3 million. You continually shift the goalposts on what would give you peace of mind. While this might seem like a “nice problem” to have, any issue that causes distress is worth trying to address. Unwarranted money anxiety is essentially the same as other forms of anxieties. You feel more anxious than the hard numbers would suggest you need to be, and it consumes your thinking, gets in the way of your relationships, or holds you back from doing activities that reflect your values.“Even the rich feel anxious,” Teo says.Wealth frequently comes with a bundle of expectations, and there is anxiety and pressure to make smart money decisions, such as how it should be managed, spent, passed on to future generations or used to create a legacy.Nvidia’s co-founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, offers an interesting case study on the psychology of wealth and success.Huang is ranked by Forbes as the eighth wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of over US$187 billion (S$238 billion) as at Aug 29, 2026.Yet, despite leading one of the world’s most valuable technology companies, Huang often says he operates in a constant state of anxiety as though Nvidia could fail at any moment. Success does not prevent anxiety, he says. Sometimes it simply changes what we are anxious about. When you are struggling financially, you worry about paying next month’s bills. When you are wealthy, you may worry about protecting what you have built, staying ahead or losing it all.“What this tells us is that financial anxiety is rarely truly about money,” Teo says.“It is about safety, control and identity. When we place our entire sense of security in something the world can always threaten a portfolio, a business, a title, every fluctuation becomes not just a practical problem but an existential one. The anxiety is not irrational.”More on this topicHow much money is enough? Watch and learn from the video of the second InvestMe eventBeing rich is successful? 40% of Singaporeans seem to think soWanting moreWealth is like seawater – the more we drink, the thirstier we become, said philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.Like salt water that dehydrates the body, more money does not quench our desires. Instead, it intensifies them, triggering a craving for an ever-bigger fortune. Modern psychology calls this hedonic adaptation. Have you ever noticed how quickly something you have longed for simply feels “normal”?Teo recalls meeting a mid-level professional who had worked for years towards a promotion. When it finally came with a pay increase, she was elated. Three months later, she said that exhilaration had evaporated.  When something good happens – whether it is a pay rise, a promotion or a new purchase like a car or a bigger house – we experience a genuine spike in positive emotion. But before long, we recalibrate. The excitement fades, and we find ourselves roughly back where we started emotionally, but with a higher baseline expectation.“The capacity to find genuine satisfaction and contentment in the present – in relationships, in small pleasures, in meaningful work – is an important determinant of our ability to experience happiness,” Teo says.For rich individuals, wealth is rarely assessed in isolation. Social comparison can fuel anxiety as wealth is measured relative to peers, to past performance and to an ever-expanding set of future liabilities. A $1 million portfolio may once have represented security. Today, it can feel insufficient in a world of rising asset prices, longevity risk and inter-generational planning.Stock markets themselves amplify this dynamic. Over the past decade, periods of strong returns in equities, especially in technology stocks, have led investors to expect outsized gains. More on this topicLearn how to manage your money better at InvestMe event on Sept 17Why being asset-rich can still result in no cash and debt The burden of preservationAccumulating wealth and maintaining it are different challenges, experts say.Accumulating wealth may require risk-taking, concentration and timing. Maintaining it demands diversification, discipline and, often, restraint. For some people, making that psychological shift from taking risks to exercising restraint can be challenging.See more onInvestST InvestMeFinancial planningFinancial literacyWealth managementTop storiesExplore top stories from all sections in one placeAsiaAsiaAsiaSingapore‘The river… was going to consume the entire world’: Nepal flood survivors recount harrowing experienceTour boss searches for missing brother and 54 pilgrims by air after Nepal floodsChinese rescuers zero in on Tibet mudslide site as lake threat easesThe Million Dollar Round Table: Is insurance’s most famous accolade now an overused honour?

caregiving for someone with autism

Walk a mile in my shoes as mother of two children with autismThe daily weight of caregiving is exhausting, and affects caregivers’ mental health, not to mention careers. What can be done to ease the burden?Lim Hong HuayFollow topic:Caregivers/CaregivingPublished Aug 19, 2026, 5:00 AMUpdated Aug 19, 2026, 5:00 AMListenWhen middle age struck, my body gave way. Three operations and multiple health problems in the span of five years taught me that I have to care better for myself, in order to care longer for my children even as adults. I began to learn to say “I cannot”, “I need a break”, “please help me”. Forgiveness and self-care are essential survival skills for a caregiver. I started CaringSG in 2020, a non-profit initiative to support caregivers of children with special needs. It has served more than 5,000 caregivers. I was also a steering committee member for the Enabling Masterplan 2030 and co-chaired the Alliance for Action for Caregivers of Persons with Disabilities. These national initiatives help develop solutions related to support for caregivers. As for the impending task force recommendations, to prevent families like Soo and Lu from slipping through the cracks of our society, we need intentional and tighter care coordination across life stages. Embedding mainstream funding for caregiver support within the provision of disability services would ensure programme sustainability. In the workplace, I hope for more support for caregivers to find and stay in jobs. Work gives dignity, purpose and relief. With a job, caregivers can continue to contribute income taxes and to the nation’s economic growth. With the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests, I hope more employers will support caregivers’ requests for flexi-place, flexi-time and flexi-load options. For businesses, supporting a worker who is a caregiver could reduce needless turnover and boost employee engagement. Ultimately, a caregiver’s well-being is proportional to the amount of societal support.Some caregivers stop hoping for help, accept the status quo, and stay in “bubble” lives of seclusion. In CaringSG’s CAREkaki programme, we visited homes with grassroots workers. It was not surprising to find those with disabilities or autism locked away in the home with aged caregivers. On the other hand, many caregivers have grown new businesses and spearheaded ground-up initiatives.My wishes are for more medical, allied health, social service and educational professionals to go into our homes to know our lives and our children better. When things do not work out as expected, please stick with us to search for new answers together. And also that when we caregivers are no longer able to look after our children, we would like to know there are dignified and trustworthy care options so our children will not be left behind and forgotten. Family, friends and professionals – all of society – walk with us. We need you.•Lim Hong Huay, a developmental and behavioural paediatrician, is the founder of CaringSG and a senior consultant at Rophi Clinic Novena.•The Spectrum is an Opinion series that examines the issues and challenges people with autism and their caregivers face across the different stages of their lives.See more onCaregivers/CaregivingAutismSingapore societyTop storiesExplore top stories from all sections in one placeSingaporeAsiaAsiaSingapore‘I don’t know what to tell our 7-year-old daughter’: Husband of S’pore woman missing in Nepal floods9 Singaporeans among 517 foreigners out of contact after deadly Nepal-Tibet floodsSearch for 1,300 missing after deadly Nepal-Tibet floodsEn bloc reforms may spark more deals, but not a repeat of 2018 boom cycleq

y buy books undont read

At busy times, I find I simply cannot read as much as I would like to. Life has a habit of filling every available hour with work, meetings, e-mails, chores, errands and deadlines. Standing in one of my natural habitats – a bookshop – it is frustrating to see so many things I want to read while knowing I do not have the time.My usual consolation is to buy the book anyway and let a small, satisfying pile build up, looking ahead to the next quieter stretch when I might finally open them. It is oddly satisfying. Some might call this clutter. The Japanese have a far more elegant word for it: tsundoku.The term describes the habit of acquiring books and allowing them to accumulate unread. It combines the idea of stacking things up (tsunde), leaving something for later (oku) and reading (doku). The result is a concept that captures the quiet optimism of a pile of books.Far from being a sign of being time poor or lacking in discipline, tsundoku may reveal something surprisingly important about how the brain responds to anticipation.When we encounter something that promises enjoyment or discovery, the brain’s reward system becomes active. One important pathway runs from the ventral tegmental area, a dopamine-producing region in the midbrain involved in motivation, to the nucleus accumbens, a structure that helps generate feelings of reward.Dopamine is often described as a pleasure chemical, but that is too simple. One of its key roles is helping the brain identify opportunities worth pursuing. Rather than rewarding us only after something beneficial has happened, the brain often rewards us in advance, encouraging behaviours that are likely to prove valuable.From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. Our ancestors benefited from seeking out food before they were hungry, shelter before a storm arrived and useful knowledge before they needed it. A brain that could anticipate future rewards had a clear advantage over one that responded only to immediate needs.This means dopamine responds not only to rewards themselves but also to the expectation of reward.The anticipation of a pleasurable experience can activate reward pathways long before the experience takes place.An unread book is a good example. It may remain closed for weeks or months, but the brain has already recognised its potential value, enjoying the prospect before the first page has been turned.The hippocampus, a structure deep within the brain best known for its role in memory, also plays an important part. While we often think of the hippocampus as helping us remember the past, it is equally important for imagining the future. The same neural machinery that allows us to reconstruct previous experiences helps us construct future ones.When you picture yourself finally reading that book on a summer holiday, during a long train journey or curled up on the sofa on a rainy afternoon, the hippocampus begins to assemble that future experience. It binds together fragments of previous experiences stored across the brain – the warmth of sunshine, the smell of coffee, the sound of turning pages, the comfort of your favourite chair – into a coherent mental scene. In effect, the brain uses memories of the past to rehearse pleasures that have yet to happen.This ability may be more important than we realise. Psychologists increasingly recognise positive anticipation as a contributor to well-being. Looking forward to enjoyable experiences can improve mood, increase motivation and provide a buffer against everyday stress. In some circumstances, the anticipation of an event can be almost as rewarding as the event itself.This may explain why a pile of unread books feels so different from a pile of unanswered e-mails. Both represent things waiting to be done, yet the difference lies in how the brain interprets them. Unanswered e-mails are future obligations whereas unread books are future rewards.It is perhaps no coincidence that this behaviour feels strongest in bookshops rather than online. Physical browsing engages the brain more fully, drawing on sensory, spatial and reward systems that make discovery feel richer and more memorable. For example, the distinctive, slightly sweet scent of paper and ink is detected by the olfactory system and routed directly to regions involved in memory and emotion, including the hippocampus and amygdala.Long before a book is read, the experience of finding it is already becoming associated with pleasure. So perhaps tsundoku may reflect one of the brain’s most remarkable abilities: the capacity to derive genuine pleasure from experiences that have not yet happened.•Michelle Spear is professor of anatomy at the University of Bristol. This first appeared in The Conversation.More on this topicSleepless in Singapore? A book can be a quiet antidoteParents want well-read kids, but are they themselves reading? 

dependent on everything

For more than two decades, my work has revolved around helping leaders navigate uncertainty. I spend my days planning, deciding, solving problems and helping organisations move forward. I am the sort of person who carries a list, anticipates the next challenge and quietly believes that, with enough effort, I can hold everything together.This year, I learnt what happens when you cannot.The lesson did not come from a book, a boardroom or a carefully prepared plan. It came from a chair – the one beside a hospital bed, close enough to hold my husband’s hand as he went through major surgery at Singapore’s National University Hospital.From that chair, everything I thought I understood about strength, dependence and the kindness of strangers looked very different.Depending entirely on othersLike many people accustomed to being capable, I entered the hospital believing I could manage everything on my own. I would ask the right questions, understand the answers and stay a step ahead.Instead, I found myself utterly dependent – on surgeons whose skill I could not evaluate, on nurses whose names I was only beginning to learn, on a system whose rhythms I did not know. For someone accustomed to being the one others relied on, there was something humbling, even frightening, about having to trust so completely. What surprised me was how gently that dependence was received.I carried pages of questions into every consultation. Some were clinical. Many were simply the anxious questions of a wife who was afraid. Never once did the surgeon, the doctors or the nurses make me feel that I was asking too much, repeating myself or taking up too much of their time. Every question was answered patiently. Every concern was acknowledged. And I came to understand that being allowed to voice your fears without judgment is itself a form of care.My friend, AIHospitals speak a language that is unfamiliar to most of us. Numbers flashed across monitors. Blood test results appeared on the patient portal. There were medical abbreviations that meant nothing to me. More than once, I found myself asking artificial intelligence to explain a laboratory reading or a clinical term. It would patiently translate complex medical language into something I could understand and, just as importantly, reassure me when the values were within normal limits.It never replaced the doctors. It simply helped me become a calmer, better-informed caregiver while waiting for the next medical review. Later, it quietly helped me manage another invisible burden – keeping track of who I had updated, who was still waiting to hear from me, and helping me find the words when I was emotionally exhausted. In the long, quiet hours beside the bed – when the ward was asleep and there was no one to ask – that quiet reassurance mattered more than I expected.The names I never learntPatients naturally remember the lead surgeon. Yet, from my chair, I saw how many hands a single recovery requires.Over 48 hours in the intensive care unit, I watched anaesthetists, ICU specialists, junior doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists and dietitians move around my husband with a precision that looked almost choreographed. Handovers were seamless. Everyone seemed to know exactly what to do, and to trust that the person beside them did too.The operation carried one surgeon’s name. But the healing belonged to a whole community of people, most of whom I would never be able to thank by name. I have thought about them often since – the quiet ones, doing essential work no dashboard will ever capture, whose care a frightened family member will remember for the rest of her life.Those small gesturesIf there is one thing I did not expect, it is how much the smallest gestures would come to mean.My husband’s surgery fell on his birthday. The nurses, noticing this, arranged a small celebration for him – a modest, tender gesture in the middle of a frightening week. They allowed me to visit him and spend some time with him. They found little ways to make a clinical space feel briefly human.The kindness extended to me as well. Ward staff noticed when exhaustion was beginning to overwhelm me. Even the catering staff gently guided me through the meal options, quietly making sure that I, too, was eating properly during those difficult days – a small thing that, in that moment, felt like being looked after.None of these gestures changed the clinical outcome. Not one of them would appear in a medical record. And yet every one of them changed our experience of those days.That is the part I keep returning to. We may forget the exact procedures, the forms and the schedules. But we rarely forget how people made us feel when we were afraid, tired and uncertain.More on this topicAfter years of caring for their ill parents, they quit their jobs to care for other caregiversSeniors caring for seniors: What caregiving looks like in a super-aged societyLearning that I was not indispensableI have always been someone who likes control. I enjoy solving problems, influencing outcomes and ensuring that things move forward. I quietly believed that if I stepped away unexpectedly, work would inevitably suffer. When my husband underwent surgery, I had no choice but to leave work immediately.And something remarkable happened... Nothing fell apart.Programmes continued. Contracts were signed. Meetings went ahead. My colleagues stepped in, supported one another and gave me the space I needed without once making me feel guilty for being absent. Behind that was my boss’ unwavering assurance that my only responsibility was to be with my husband. A few days later, my colleagues sent a care package. My immediate reaction was, “But he isn’t even an SMU employee.” That thought lasted only a moment. The package was never about employment. It was about my department telling me that caring for the family is also caring for the colleague.That experience taught me a humbling truth. It’s not about being indispensable and everything depending on you... It is about building systems, processes and people strong enough to continue flourishing even when you are not there.The gift of family and friendsOur son became our 24-hour hotline from the United Kingdom, checking in despite the time difference, waiting anxiously for every update after each medical review. Parents, siblings, relatives and friends reached out from different parts of the world. Prayers travelled across continents long before messages did.My husband had made one request even before the surgery: He did not want visitors in the hospital or during his recovery at home. He wanted the space to heal quietly. It was not an easy request to honour.Friends wanted to visit, colleagues wanted to help and family members wanted reassurance. There were moments when the emotional weight felt heavier than the physical exhaustion – repeating the same updates, responding to the same questions and trying to reassure others when I was seeking reassurance myself.More on this topicEasing the pain for patients and families when an illness has no cureFrom dreams to duty: A woman’s caregiving journey after her husband’s stroke upends retirement plans Before the surgery, my husband had gently reminded me to be patient with people. He knows that under stress I can become abrupt, sometimes saying things I later regret. His words stayed with me. During those weeks, I found myself choosing grace over impatience. I reminded myself that every message, every phone call and every inquiry came from one place alone – love.Looking back now, I realise that concern is one of the purest expressions of friendship. People often feel helpless in the face of illness. They cannot take away the pain or shorten the recovery. What they can offer is their presence, their prayers and the quiet assurance that you are not walking the journey alone.Gratitude, when you finally sit stillIn the hospital those days, there was suddenly nothing to do but sit, wait, hope and pray. And in that stillness, an unexpected feeling took root: gratitude.Gratitude for the hospital staff who carried us through uncertainty with skill and compassion. For colleagues who quietly took on more so that I could be absent. For prayers offered in churches, temples and mosques by people who love us. Gratitude, too, for living in a country where we could place our trust in a healthcare system that cared not only for the patient, but also for those waiting anxiously beside the bed.Looking back, I realise how many things had to go right for us to arrive safely on the other side. They did.Back in the comfort of our home now, I still find myself thinking about that chair. The one beside the bed, close enough to hold my husband’s hand, far enough from the rest of my family and the busy life I had left behind.From that chair, I could not fix anything, or take charge. I could only be present, and trust, and hope and pray – and pray I did.For most of my life, I believed strength meant being the one in control. This year, from a hospital chair, I learnt that sometimes strength is trusting others. Sometimes it is accepting help. Sometimes it is simply sitting beside the person you love, holding his hand, and believing that tomorrow will be kinder than today.Sometimes it means letting go.•The writer is head of Commercial with the office of Executive Development at the Singapore Management University.More on this topicWho steps in when parents suddenly fall ill? Discuss caregiving plans early, say expertsA 10-minute walk from the MRT. But for whom?

why parenting is optimised

As parents, we are almost always receiving a steady stream of urgent advice that is individually reasonable but collectively difficult to reconcile: Screen time is harmful, but educational content may be beneficial. Let children struggle, but protect them from stress. Set firm boundaries, but be responsive.None of these statements is inherently wrong. But do they help at 7pm on a weekday when your child is cranky, you are exhausted and dinner still needs to happen?Scientific insights are meant to help us understand broad patterns of risk and protection at a population level, but in a culture of optimisation, they can become a checklist of behaviours to optimise. The result is not greater confidence in parenting abilities, but greater anxiety.As Singapore’s total fertility rate fell to a record low of 0.87 in 2025, it intensified a national conversation about parenthood. Much of this discussion has focused, understandably, on the cost of living, housing and caregiving support.But for those who become parents, or are considering becoming parents, another less visible pressure emerges: the sense that raising a child has become a high-stakes exercise in optimisation. Sleep routines, screen exposure and enrichment and childcare choices can start to feel like variables to be calibrated. This pressure is sustained by a broader ecosystem of educational incentives, commercial interests and public health messaging that can make parenting feel like a continual exercise in managing risks and maximising outcomes. As a parent of two young children and child development researcher (Huang), and as a practitioner guided by child development checklists in clinical care (Tan), we have often wondered how science shapes the experience of parenting.Science has certainly transformed our understanding of child development and empowered parents with access to information.However, science rarely reaches families in its original form. Research findings are synthesised into guidelines, headlines and algorithm-driven content, losing nuance in the process.An ecosystem thriving on parental anxietyParenting anxiety does not arise in a vacuum. It emerges from a culture that values metrics and success, and is further amplified by a commercial ecosystem that benefits from uncertainty about whether parents are doing enough.Social media platforms are built on engagement, and parenting content engagement specifically is amplified when it taps into insecurity – highlighting mistakes, risks, and critical development windows. The algorithms do not discriminate between evidence-based guidance and content designed to provoke reactions by targeting parental anxiety.The industry of enrichment providers, tuition centres, developmental applications and parenting coaches has grown substantially. These businesses have a commercial incentive to emphasise unmet needs: another skill to build, another gap to close, another advantage to secure.Science has great value in guiding healthcare policy. In the parenting marketplace, however, the language of child development science has also been recruited to lend authority to commercial claims. For example, we have seen advertisements claiming that a child’s right brain stops developing after a certain age. Scientific language gives such claims unwarranted authority, turning a questionable premise into urgency: act now, or risk allowing your child to fall behind.This is especially potent in Singapore, where parents are well socialised to the concept of early achievements leading to opportunities. Schemes such as Direct School Admission, while well-intentioned, can inadvertently reinforce the belief that portfolio building should begin early. Enrichment providers ride on this to sell their services as a way to get a leg up. Kiasu parenting may therefore be less an individual pathology than a rational response to signals and incentives embedded within our educational and commercial systems.Parenting under constraintsThe optimisation model of parenting assumes that parents have control over time and caregiving. Many Singapore families instead balance two working parents, long working hours and caregiving constraints. Children are often raised within wider caregiving networks that include grandparents, domestic helpers and centre-based childcare. Under these conditions, parents make trade-offs every day. Screens may be used to create breathing space, long hours in centre-based childcare reflect work demands rather than parental preferences, and parents may respond more sharply under exhaustion.These moments are not poor parenting, but adaptations to competing demands with limited time and bandwidth. Yet, broad parenting advice typically focuses on what parents should do, while paying less attention to whether parents have the capacity to do it. When parenting advice assumes ideal conditions, it risks becoming another source of guilt.More on this topicParenting in the modern age – a battle for attentionHow to reduce your child’s screen time without straining your relationshipParenting under public scrutinyThere is another layer to this burden: parenting in Singapore often happens under watchful eyes. A 2021 Ipsos survey found that 92 per cent of parents in Singapore reported feeling judged, tying with the United States as the highest among 28 countries surveyed.Many parents will recognise the experience. A child having a meltdown in public may draw stares or judgment. What the parent does or doesn’t do subsequently is also judged.This tendency reflects a culture of treating outcomes as the product of individual choices and effort. Applied to parenting, a child’s behaviour can be seen as a reflection of parenting decisions.The more we believe that child outcomes can be optimised through the right parent-level decisions, the harder it becomes to tolerate unpredictability or imperfection. Everyday decisions become public signals. Parents do not only feel pressure to make the right decision, they also feel pressure to be seen making the right decision.What science actually tells usTwo of Singapore’s largest longitudinal studies – GUSTO, or Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes, and SG-LEADS, the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study – have tracked thousands of children over many years using different methods. Across these studies, a consistent message emerges: the quality of children’s relationships with their caregivers is closely linked to their developmental outcomes.Positive maternal well-being is associated with warmer and more supportive parenting practices and better outcomes for children. When parents experience symptoms of depression or anxiety, parenting may become harsher or less consistent. Parents’ economic, psychological and cognitive resources shape their ability to provide positive parenting during periods of stress.Research findings in areas that generate intense parental anxiety, such as screen use, often reveal the limits of an optimisation mindset. Early screen exposure may matter, but so does context: research increasingly suggests that the quality of caregiver-child engagement and co-use of screens help shape outcomes in ways that simple screen-time limits alone cannot capture.The irony is that much of our public conversation about parenting focuses on correcting parental behaviour, when the evidence repeatedly points to the importance of supporting parents’ well-being. Children benefit from caregivers who are supported enough to be present, responsive and emotionally available. Parental well-being, time and support are central to healthy child development. More on this topicStudy finds that over half of 8-year-olds in S’pore have used AI; most popular tool is ChatGPTHow growing up in Singapore shapes young people: New $150m study aims to find outThe way forwardIf parenting has been turned into an optimisation project sustained by an ecosystem that profits from parental insecurity, then the answer cannot simply be to give parents more information. It is to actively change the conditions that manufacture and amplify the anxiety in the first place.We should stop framing child development challenges primarily as matters of choice. Parents may know what good practice looks like but lack the time, energy or support to sustain it.Public-health messaging should acknowledge uncertainty and real-world constraints, while workplace policies should treat parental well-being as central to child development: Flexible work, predictable schedules, caregiving leave and family-friendly workplace norms are part of the infrastructure that supports children.Consider the incentives that have normalised this optimisation mindset. If educational pathways and commercial messaging all suggest that opportunities must be seized earlier and earlier, parents will naturally be compelled to do more.Services using scientific language to promise developmental advantages should be closely scrutinised. Science and its findings should not be used to exploit parental insecurity.Singapore could benefit from a more generous social culture around parenting. The old idea of kampung spirit contains an important insight: children develop not only within families, but also within communities willing to extend practical help, patience and kindness. This includes resisting the impulse to judge parents based on brief public moments.Parenting is not a test with a single correct answer. Children are not projects to optimise, nor should parental worry become a product to monetise.They are people who develop through relationships, and relationships rarely thrive under constant measurement and scrutiny.Science should help us recognise what matters, not turn parenting into a checklist. We already know a lot about how children thrive: the challenge now is not simply to instruct parents, but also to build a society in which good parenting is easier to practise, and parents have the time and support to do what we already know matters most.•Huang Pei is a neurodevelopmental scientist, and Rhea Tan is a scientist and primary care practitioner.Are people not having children because of PSLE stress and the education arms race?The Usual Place | The Straits TimesWatch onMore on this topicHow I supported my children through major exams, World Cup or notParents, stop complaining about your children. Do it for the future of Singapore