Forum: Let’s turn conversation back to why family matters

The Opinion piece

“When did conversations on parenthood and fertility become such a downer?”

(Feb 4) and Forum letter

“Beyond public campaigns, parents must be open about the joys children bring”

(Feb 6) note rightly that conversations about parenthood and fertility in Singapore have grown sombre. Too often, they centre on stress, cost and trade-offs, as if starting a family must be justified mainly in economic terms. But perhaps what is missing is meaning. 

Before becoming a parent, I did not feel a dramatic sense of certainty or readiness. Like many, I worried about the demands and compromises. What I did not anticipate was how parenthood would quietly reshape my life – not through grand moments, but through small, ordinary ones that slowly changed how I saw what mattered. 

Parenting involves sacrifice, doubt and ongoing adjustment. Yet for many parents, it is also where patience is learnt, priorities are clarified, and love deepens in ways that are hard to explain until lived. 

When family life is framed mainly as a problem to be managed, it misses out on meaning, which does not sit neatly in policy debates, and joy, which rarely appears in statistics or incentives.  

The Families for Life movement celebrates families through key transition points, embracing the joys, struggles and meaning in everyday familial moments. In 2025, we launched the Real Families Real Stories initiative, which seeks to capture the authentic experiences that reflect what it truly means to be family.

One father shared how family means “the feeling of tiny hands tugging at mine on a weekend morning, asking where we’re going today. It’s the laughter of my daughters as they chase bubbles in the park or argue about who gets the last bite of ice cream. More than anything, family means love that doesn’t need words – just a hug, a shared look, or the sound of giggles from the backseat on the way to yet another weekend adventure”. Stories like this reveal the universal thread of connection that binds us all.

Please contribute your stories (

go.gov.sg/realfamiliesrealstories

), and share them with those around you.

Let us turn the conversation back to why family matters, and how, despite the demands of parenthood, it can be deeply worthwhile.

Keith Magnus  
Chairman 
Families for Life Council