Singapore
Rules are turning
our kids into wimps
When nations compete with each other on ideas, obedience is not an asset; it could be Singapore's undoing. Seah Chiang Nee, STREATS
Dec 10, 2003

ON a Sunday morning, a family is walking along a path leading to a hawker centre when a cat saunters by.

The terrified daughter, aged about 12, darts behind her mother and hangs on to her dress, refusing to move, evidently frightened of the feline. This actually happened.

Maybe, it's an exceptional case, but then, how many of you have encountered children -or even grown women -who are scared of dogs? And I'm not talking of rottweilers, either.

Someone once related to me how an irate father reacted angrily when a crow shooter was too close to his children. He yelled at the man that his kids were frightened.

What set me off thinking about these incidents was a mother's letter to the press last week (The Straits Times, Dec 6) complaining about a cinema showing a horror film trailer, Ju-On 2, that she considered too scary for children.

She had brought her four-year-old son and nieces, ranging from five to eight,to see a "safe" movie, Brother Bear.

I understand her protective instinct to shield her son from harm, a powerful motherly force, but in this new dangerous world,an excessive dose can't be good.

My wife once shared this motherly concern. When my son was 12, she would not allow him to take a bus to school or to cycle within the estate by himself.

He could not climb trees or go camping. Other mums would not allow their kids to play on swings or climb over "dangerous" amenities in the HDB playground.

As a result, Singaporean kids are raised in a fishbowl, deprived of any harsh lessons needed to prepare them for the real world.

Sure Ju-On is scary, but then, so is the adult world - and our kids had better get used to it.

Singapore, being a stable, affluent country without natural disasters, doesn't provide any platform for speedy lessons.

Instead, our MTV generation, raised by maids, is being caught between two forces, molly-coddling parents and a society that still largely considers obedience as a virtue.

Maybe we don't have any PhDs who can't change a light bulb, but we do have junior college girls who don't know how to iron a dress or boil rice.

Some time ago, during Racial Harmony Day, I was invited by an elite SAP (Special Assistance Plan) school to share my experience in reporting Singapore's race riots.

The audience was some 700 Secondary 3 and 4 students, representative of the best in Singapore.

Quietly, they filed into the auditorium and sat on the floor in neat rows.
It was a strong display of obedience and discipline. My own school days some 50 years ago were a lot noisier.

The format was a 20-minute talk, followed by a question-and-answer session,but the teacher cautioned me not to expect too much. "You may not get any questions," she warned.

Things went according to plan. The talk ended and the teacher invited questions and, as expected, no one stood up. Obviously, she was used to this reticence, which I later learned was reflective of Singaporean youths in general.

She announced refreshments in the next room and said anyone with questions could approach and ask the speaker there.

During the meal, two boys approached me and one began asking a series of sharp questions about the state of race relations in 1964, while his friend listened intently.

When they left, I turned to the teacher and remarked: "Well you were wrong.At least one of them did ask questions."

She smiled and replied: "Yeah, except the boy who asked the questions is from Taiwan."

There's a danger of our over-protected, obedient children growing up to be wimps and softies unprepared to face the challenges of the real world when they grow up.

They are raised to obey the rules, not to speak out of turn, far from being "mavericks" that Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew is exhorting them to be. It's quite a contradiction, right?

But as the world becomes more competitive and dangerous, we should start thinking of further loosening control or diminishing protection for our youths.

Cut their leash; trust them to do the right thing. A few will misuse the freedom, but most of them will do well.

In the first generation, our economy did brilliantly because we had obedient workers and obedient students.

In the new complex world, when nations - and individuals - compete with each other on ideas, obedience is no longer an asset; it could be Singapore's undoing.
(This article was published in STREATS on Dec 10, 2003).