A man, who posted on the NUS Whispers Facebook page, said that since many of his peers are at the age of starting families, he and his wife have been asked why they’re not having children yet.
“The answer is simple. Unless you truly want to have children, and you want to devote your time towards nurturing a child, you should not have children. This answer often makes people around me uncomfortable as it seems like it is a direct jab at their life choices,” he opined.
Many people have “valid reasons” for procreating, he said, but added, “this is where it all goes downhill. Where parents only want to enjoy the fun parts of parenting, and dump the rest to everyone and everything else around them.”
He then described how instead of spending time with their children, they simply give them a gadget to play with, leaving parents to “use their mobile phones or computers in peace.”
“The amount of actual human interaction that the child receives is what helps to nurture and allow the child to grow as an intellectual,” he added.
He also underlined that nurturing children takes patience and time, and not merely a token half-hour daily.
“After years and years of watching how people can say things like ‘Parenthood is the best thing that can happen to you’ or ‘the sacrifice is all worth it’ while whipping out the iPad at the dinner table for their child and blasting Baby Shark while the domestic helper attempts to feed the child, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is no easy feat being a parent. A true parent, not a sperm donor or egg incubator,” he added.
Many commenters weighed in after the highly opinionated piece was posted concerning the difficulties in raising children and how most people “don’t seem to fully understand what they are getting into” when they have kids.
Many netizens found his post to be judgmental.
“Come and post here when you have kids of your own. Otherwise don’t come and make sweeping statements like you’re holier than thou. Talk is easy till you have to do it yourself,” wrote one mum.
“Your baby will teach you how to be a parent, and then you come back here see if you can uphold what u wrote above for ur parenting or not,” wrote one.
Some commenters agreed with some of the poster’s points, however.
/TISG