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