Parents of young children, we are hurting one another

Our children's birthdays have always been a simple affair. We have a cake, with candles and a song. Family members might visit, with a gift or two in hand - a new dress, or a wooden toy. We spend time together in the living room, and then we tuck the young ones into bed.

I never imagined that enrolling my daughter into pre-school could destabilise these homespun rituals. But they did.

Our first clue was the goodie bags, which started innocently: she'd come home with a pack of stickers, or a new eraser. Then, they escalated: a new set of crayons, a pencil case, those trending Pop It! toys. They began to come in bundles, sometimes wrapped in special bags, with names printed on them.

Soon, she began to talk endlessly about birthdays. Someone was always having a birthday, and their birthday was always the best ever. Parents would also personally deliver impressive cakes to class, which the teachers would serve in the afternoon.

By the time her next birthday was rolling around, we were plagued by visions of our child being quizzed by pint-sized peers on why her special day was such a dud. Only human in the end, we caved in. We spent days agonising on what foods to bring in (donuts, with sprinkles), and what to pack in her goodie bags (junk, if you ask me).

We spent more money than we should have, and still felt our offerings were inadequate.

As a millennial parent, I had thought my generation would be less enchanted by conspicuous consumption, and conscious of environmental waste. The truth is, our ideals crumble before our children's bright and hopeful eyes, and the prospect of them being shortchanged.

Last June, AIA Singapore polled over 300 people in Singapore and found that parents are spending 2.5 times as much on their children as they are on their retirement. Earlier in January, AIA Singapore had also polled 1,000 Singapore respondents earning at least $4,000 monthly, and found that seven in 10 intended to maintain or increase their children's expenditure.

Notably, a higher proportion of those earning more than $10,000 monthly intended to increase their children's monthly expenditure, compared with other income brackets. That suggests it isn't just basic costs of living that are ballooning our budgets. The more we earn, it seems, the more motivated we are to lavish money on our kids.

Besides money, we are also laying down our time and effort to ensure perfection in their homework.

Last year, my daughter came home with an assignment: to make a playground out of scrap materials. We duly sat with her and helped her make a cardboard sandbox and a slide. Later, her teachers uploaded pictures of everyone's labour onto the class app. We couldn't help but laugh.

The other children's craftworks were miniature models of intricate playscapes, some of them feats of engineering with perfectly stencilled lettering and little plastic toys glued on. Ours looked like someone's cat had done a tango with our toilet rolls and duct tape.

Maybe my daughter's classmates all have brilliant futures as playground architects. More likely, what was supposed to be a bonding activity at home with our five-year-olds had turned into a design and construction competition among their parents.

I deeply respect, and share, the parental instinct to give our children the best in life and unbounded opportunities. But it benefits no one, albeit inadvertently, to turn parenting into a cycle of competition and one-upmanship.

Raining gifts, treats and parties on our children doesn't just hurt our wallets. It also puts pressure on other parents to match that spending, for fear of their children sticking out and feeling different. Intensive homework coaching and enrichment classes are also adding to our anxiety, with an ever-rising bar for excellence.

All of this has a disproportionate impact on lower-income and single-parent families. They not only have less money, but they also have more pressing demands on their time, like striving to put food on the table. They can ill afford the sort of intensive, stay-at-home parenting that families who do well on a single income can consider.

As things stand, it's little wonder that friends who have decided never to have children tell me that they can't afford it - not only or even mainly in monetary terms, but in the sense of putting their lives and dreams on hold for the sake of their children.

When did parenting become about self-erasure?

If none of this moves us, consider what this means for our children in the end. The more we set them up to conflate happiness with lavish gifts and experiences, the hollower they'll feel if later in life, they can no longer tell the difference.

By interfering too much with their homework, we are also teaching them that getting the right answer and achieving ideal outcomes every time are more important than learning from our mistakes and imperfections.

Public policy no doubt plays an important role in this. It must be possible for our children to thrive without helicopter parenting; to take detours and different paths in their lives, without falling by the wayside; to earn decent living wages and be respected for their work, no matter their educational qualifications.

But as parents, it is also within our power - and I think, responsibility - to shift the narrative.

My appeal to fellow parents is to give ourselves, and our children, a break. Ease your foot off the pedal, and declutter our families' lives.

Hold our children deep in our hearts, but carry them lightly on our shoulders. Focus on what we can't buy or manufacture, and what the nation's schools and teachers can't provide: our simple, joyous and abiding love.

• Gayle Goh is a correspondent with The Business Times.