My response to the Singapore gay adoption story
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Title : My response to the Singapore gay adoption story
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Title : My response to the Singapore gay adoption story
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news-today.world | Hi again. A few friends have brought this story to my attention - it is not often that a gay-related story from Singapore makes the headlines, in fact I was in Malta last week when this was first brought to my attention both by the BBC news and social media. This is the story of the Singaporean gay couple who were allowed to legally adopt the baby conceived through a surrogate mother in America and when I read the story, I rolled my eyes in disbelief. I suppose many of the people who shared the story with me expected me to be happy for them, because this is a first in Singapore - despite consensual gay sex still being illegal in Singapore, this gay couple have been allowed to adopt. Mind you, this is perfectly common here in the West where gay sex is not only completely legal, but there's little stigma or taboo associated with being gay and we have openly gay politicians holding the highest office in many countries. Gay couples have so many rights here, from gay marriage to adoption so on one hand, yeah it is a step in the right direction in Singapore, it is a victory for common sense but on the other hand, it is just so depressing to be reminded just how backward Singapore is compared to some of the more progressive countries in the West I have lived in. Like you guys are rejoicing over something that is just taken for granted in the West, like of course we have equality in the West.
So this gay couple in their mid-40s spent US$200,000 getting this woman in Pennsylvania to be the surrogate mother and now they have a cute Eurasian baby. Clearly, they are a very rich gay couple who have plenty of money for this. My first thought was, US$200,000? That's like £160,000 - I would have used that as down payment for another property investment and given the kind of money they would have had to spend bringing up that child (which would be a lot more than that initial US$200,000), they could have easily bought a very nice buy-to-let property in Singapore instead with that money. But no, they wanted to bring up a child and be parents. Look, I don't want to judge them - it's a brave decision to do that in Singapore rather than a far more gay-friendly country and I wish them the best of luck, but geez it's not something I would ever do. Some people choose to have kids, others don't want to. I feel bad for this gay couple in Singapore who had to fight so many legal battles to simply do something that I am entitled to do under British law as a gay man here in the UK (but have absolutely no wish to do so). I did enter into a conversation with a friend in Singapore who suggested that I am still young enough (I question that) to do exactly what this guy did and more to the point, like this gay couple in Singapore, I am indeed rich enough to bring up a child and give that child a great start in life. But here are the following reasons why I would never ever do something like that.
Let me reflect on a time from many years ago when I did some gymnastics coaching - I had to deal with a group of kids who are about 6 - 7 years old and let's just put aside their sporting ability for a moment. I was amazed at just how some kids in that group were eloquent, confident and aware of their surroundings. For example, there was a French boy in the class and I would always speak to him in French because I wasn't sure how much English he understood but he always understood me perfectly in French. There were a few kids in the class who were so totally unaware of their surroundings, so totally oblivious that I was speaking in another language that they didn't even notice it whilst some kids at least were attentive enough to notice, hey I didn't understand what Alex just said, was he speaking in another language and they would ask me, "what did you just say?" And then there was this other kid whose mother is Lebanese and she taught him French (and Arabic), so when he heard me speaking in French to that French kid, naturally he switched to French with me and he was as fluent as the French kid. That's one extremely intelligent kid in that group - the other extreme was this kid who couldn't stop crying and was incapable of taking part in the class. I had to let his mother sit in the corner of the gym so she could take him away should his behaviour become uncontrollable. So as you can see, even amongst a small group of children, you could already tell that some were brilliant whilst other were extremely under-developed in their intelligence and social skills compared to their peers.
Just how disabled was this kid? Well, for starters, he couldn't speak normally - children at the age of 6 to 7 are capable of expressing fairly complex ideas and usually have enough vocabulary to get into an argument with their parents! This child spoke more like a 2 year old and the one sentence I got from him all the time was, "I want Mama!" It was not even like, "I want my mother," this kind of very basic baby talk is what you would expect of a 18 months old or 2 year old child, but not of a 6 or 7 year old boy. He would be allowed to do his own thing rather than join in the actual gymnastics class - never mind any physical ability to do sports, he didn't even have the mental capacity to understand very basic instructions like, "come here" or "sit down". When he got scared, he would just start crying and if his mother isn't there within like one minute, he would wet and sometimes shit himself. Oh he still wore diapers (thankfully) but the smell would still fill the room. Thankfully, his mother was very good when that happened, she would have a big bag with tissues, wet wipes, plastic bags and everything else she needed to clean up the mess and some clean clothes to change her son into. So I'm not exaggerating when I am telling you that there was something seriously wrong with this child - back in the day in Singapore, you would refer to a child like that as mentally retarded, though I think the more PC term we use in this day and age is 'mentally disabled'. Whilst the other children were learn challenging gymnastics skills, this boy was incapable of even putting on his own socks. A good session would be getting to the end of the lesson without the room stinking of his piss and shit. This kid is always going to be like that, he's not going to wake up one morning and go do a degree in engineering at a top university - that's the cruel reality I'm afraid.
I met his parents who were more than aware how challenging his behaviour was. They told me that when he started school, the teachers just didn't know what to do as all he would do was cry the moment he stepped into the school until the mother came with him to the classroom. A child like that made the teachers incredibly frustrated as they couldn't teach anything if there was a boy crying at the top of his voice in the classroom and they had to change school many times as most schools just said, "your child is not normal - find him a special school, they will know what to do with a child like that." Look, I never got to the bottom of just how mentally disabled that child is, all I knew was that the specialists were doing tests to ascertain just what was wrong with him but you don't need to be a child psychologist to know that a child like that is seriously messed up but I don't think the parents were prepared to accept that there was something very wrong with their child. The irony is that both the parents were highly educated, intelligent and nice people and it did leave me wondering how two seemingly intelligent adults could have a child like that - this wasn't something that boy was going to grow out of or get over. On one hand, I felt sorry for the parents having rolled the dice in the process of having a baby and ending up with a child like that; but on the other hand, I thought they were highly irresponsible trying to force a child like that participate in mainstream education and sports when all that kid could do was cry and wet himself. You could argue that you can't just lock that kid up at home all the time, he needed to interact with other children at some level but on the other hand, the poor kid was clearly traumatized and hated the experience, that was why he kept crying and a gymnastics class was clearly not right for him.
Then again, the complete opposite can happen. So how can I put this delicately: neither of my parents are intelligent - there are so many times when they spout a lot of uneducated, stupid crap and I just have to bite my tongue and tell myself it is not worth getting into a fight with them, that it is not their fault they were unlucky with this genetic lottery we all have to play. In the Hokkien language, we actually make a distinction between "boh tak chek" (not educated - implying that this person never had the chance to complete their formal education but it doesn't mean they are stupid) and "bueh tak chek" (can't study - implying that this person is extremely stupid). I'm very sorry to say that my parents are of the latter category and it would simply be cruel to bring up some of the examples of things they have said and done in the past that have left me mortified as they behaved like totally uneducated people from a different era. They produced three kids who have done pretty well, both my sisters went to NUS and I have done pretty well, getting three scholarships along the way and studied at the top universities in the UK and France. Oh and I speak 20 languages, 7 of them fluently whilst my mother would struggle to string a grammatically correct sentence together in English. How on earth did this happen? One's intelligence seems to be totally random and has little relations to your parents', is that a lottery I wish to play by creating a baby and risk the disappointment if I don't get a bright child, or at least one who is somewhat above average?
The fact is even if I were create a baby with a surrogate mother, there's no guarantee that the child will be normal, never mind intelligent even if the child has my DNA. The processes involving genes and chromosomes during conception are so complex and unpredictable. I'm sorry if it makes me sound like a monster but do I want a child like that? Hell no. Sorry. Not in a million years. I remember looking at his parents and feeling so sorry for them because they seemed like a perfectly decent couple, they seemed like nice people: what have they done to deserve a child like that? You would think that perhaps two really stupid people with low IQ would have produced a baby with a lot of problems, or if they mother had been using drugs or drinking heavily during the pregnancy that lead to complications, starving the baby's brain of oxygen. But no, it wasn't like that at all - in fact, it was the complete lack of explanation as to how the heck they ended up with a child like that which scares me. I wonder what parents think when they have a baby - are they prepared to bring up the child, love the child regardless of how the child turns out? Are you prepared for a worst case scenario? I just don't think I am brave enough to roll the dice and play this game called, "let's make a baby lottery". It's just the totally random nature of the process which totally scares the hell out of me. Allow me to assure you that I was very kind and patient with that disabled kid in the gymnastics class - I never got angry with him, I never even raised my voice with him. Mostly, I just felt sorry for him and his parents, I just thought that god played a very cruel joke on his parents and the least I could do was to try to help in what little way I could - I expressed nothing but empathy and kindness to his parents, offering them my support and understanding.
Likewise, even if I adopted a physically healthy baby - that is, one that is free from any birth defects, I fear I would still make a terrible parent. I've seen how the parents of that disabled child were so incredibly patient with him, would I be as patient with a child who is simply average? What if I had a child who was but of average intelligence and could only produce average or below average results at school? Would I be able to hide my disappointment that my child isn't going to become a scholar or the winner at a gymnastics competition? If I had a child, I would want the best for that child naturally - but that would also mean having rather high expectations and I just know I would be setting myself up to be disappointed in the real world. I know I would be acting a lot to hide the disappointment, to say something like, "it is okay if you didn't win, as long as you've tried your best". I know it sounds incredibly condescending saying this, but I'm going to be blunt: if I was just a man of average intelligence, holding down a mundane jobs that barely pays the bills, then my expectations would be a lot lower - as long as my child has a better life than me, that'll be good enough. I know the chances of ending up with a super intelligent baby are extremely slim, so I don't think I'm mentally prepared to face the prospect of bringing up a child who is merely average and ordinary. I just can't get my head around the disappointment of focusing so much energy on someone to produce such average results, sorry. I'll rather focus my energies on myself and the things that I do - at least I know I won't be mediocre.
If there was a way to create a designer baby, to ensure that you could get a baby with high IQ, good looks and talent for sports, then I'm sure parents would spend a lot of money to ensure that they don't end up with a disabled child because loving parents want the best for their children and if they could start at a genetic level by making sure the child has the right DNA, then of course parents would go down that path but for now, that's just the stuff of science fiction as that kind of technology doesn't exist - not yet anyway. But if you wanted to work with exceptionally intelligent children, then just become a teacher at a top school where every child in your class has been through a rigorous selection process and you'll be guaranteed that there wouldn't be a single stupid kid in the school. Or if you want to work with say gymnasts who are extremely talented, then you simply need to make sure you end up coaching say a top tier gymnastics club with a great competitive programme or even work your way up to the point where you can be the national coach - that way, you're not dealing with beginners, you're only dealing with the very best of the best, the cream of the crop. You can do all that through the professional route and nurture the very best talents of the next generation - it's just that these will be someone else's children rather than your own. But so what? Does it really make that much of a difference whether it is your kid your nurture or someone else's? Do you need to be related by blood before that process becomes a meaningful one? Clearly not.
As a triple scholar and a former national champion gymnast, I've worked with some incredible teachers and coaches who have taught me so much, who have made me the man I am today. Indeed, for a few years, I was closer to my gymnastics coach than I was to my own parents because I was spending so much time in the gym training hard and my coach spent so many hours observing every routine I performed - that's something my parents never did. Oh those years when I was on the national team training so hard, my coach and I had a special bond and he saw how hard I worked, he saw the qualities I displayed, the determination and perseverance I had, my determination to succeed. My parents saw none of that as they barely ever sat foot in the gymnasium - so would it be any surprise that I became a lot closer to my coach than my own parents when I was a teenager? Of course not, that would be the only natural, logical conclusion. In fact as a teenager, I began forging these very meaningful relationships with a lot of kind adults along the way and I became close to quite a few of them, far closer than I ever was with my own parents. They knew far more about what was going on in my life than my own parents ever did at that time. So what if you're related by blood? It doesn't mean you will be close - I've not spoken to my father in months and that's unlikely to ever change. I have a cold and distant relationship with my parents today and that's another reason why I would never become a parent: there's no guarantee you will get along with your child.
I also recall how I had a very interesting relationship with my tutors at university because they could see how my mind functioned through my work - they would go through my essays and challenge my ideas, questioning my research and methodology. This would lead to some very interesting exchanges and that's the kind of thing that I could never ever do with my parents because they're just not educated enough to even begin to tackle any issue more complex than in the PSLE syllabus - that's why they were just primary school teachers. Thus I've always been fascinated by the kind of relationship that involves some kind of mentoring between say a coach and a gymnast or between a tutor and a student at university. Currently, there's one client I work with very closely. I got to know him earlier this year and he's in his mid-60s, we get along extremely well and he's kind of taken me under his wing, acting like my mentor and I have a lot of respect for him as he's an expert in the field of corporate finance; we collaborated on a few projects this year and it was a joy working with him. Ironically given the fact that I've known him for about seven months yet he knows me a lot better than my own parents and certainly, I'm a lot closer to him than I am to my parents. I chat with him a few times a week whilst I hardly ever speak to my parents. The fact is, one can establish these deeply profound, meaningful relationships with people you are not related to by blood whilst being extremely distant with your very own parents. I have virtually nothing in common with my parents these days and there's little basis for any kind of social relationship beyond that obligation to keep in touch with one's family. They certainly have no clue what the heck I do for a living.
I have only just returned from a short holiday in Malta and I had just 5 days in there - it's not a big place (about half the size of Singapore) but obviously with just 5 days, I wasn't able to see everything there. So I did the logical thing by planning my trip: I did my research, read up on the most interesting things to do and see in Malta then wrote a list of places I wanted to visit whilst I was there. I planned everything quite meticulously, I'm not really spontaneous in this aspect! I was worried that I would return home after my holiday, only to realize I didn't see something utterly amazing there because I was too disorganized or lazy to plan my trip properly. I am like that at work too because it is absolutely necessary to be this meticulous: before we ever put an investment product on the market, we have to know exactly who we will target with it, how we will market it, who the first ten institutional investors will be, when they will invest with us, which platform they will use to facilitate the investment etc. We leave nothing to chance, you can't just put a product out in the market with no plan, no strategy and just hope for the best, that somehow things will turn out okay. Now contrast all that to having a baby where you can't even predict the gender of the baby to begin with - never mind all the other factors that are completely left to chance. A lot of parents hope for the best whilst crossing their fingers, but that's just not something I'm prepared to do. Do you know how many online reviews I read before I booked that hotel in Malta? And still, things weren't great and that really upset me. I like to always be in control. So no, I can't even start to deal with that aspect of parenting, so there's no way I could do it.
And here's the thing: do most parents actually have a wise strategy to cope with all these things that I have flagged up in this article? Have they for example, considered what they would do if they had a disabled child? No, they don't. The fact is, you can never ever be prepared for these worst case scenarios: most parents simply hope for the best and not think about the worst case scenarios. Is there anything wrong with that? After all, nobody would ever have a child if they all thought like me and the human race would go extinct pretty quickly by that token. But allow me to share with you something that actually did happen to me several years ago: I took part in a pilot reality TV show and there was an opportunity to win a free holiday, I was placed there in that episode to ensure that it would never happen. A group of ten individuals from very different social backgrounds are invited to London's Heathrow airport and they gather in a room: the challenge is that the group of ten people can all get on a flight and go for a free holiday together if and only if they agree on where to go. The group is presented with three destinations: the Swiss Alpine countryside, the cosmopolitan city of Vienna and the trashy Spanish resort town of Magaluf. Now for those of you not familiar with Magaluf, it is a small resort town on the island of Majorca - it isn't one of those quaint old Spanish towns with loads of culture and history. No, it sprung up in the 1970s, catering for the hoards of tourists (mostly British but from other countries as well) looking for a cheap Spanish holiday so it is associated with hoards of loud, drunk British tourists binge drinking, dated hotels built in the 1970s and 1980s, cheesy nightclubs and a near complete absence of anything actually Spanish there.
So the other 9 people were voting for either Magaluf or Vienna, but eventually settled for Magaluf - I held out for the Swiss Alpine holiday and then switched my vote at the last moment to Vienna. But because it was 9 votes for Magaluf and 1 vote for Vienna, by the rules of this game, we got nothing and left the airport empty handed. I was actually planted in there to make sure that this episode didn't result in a real holiday, so I was always going to make sure that I would vote differently from the others. Yes if you think that reality TV programmes are scripted, then you're right - in many cases, the producers do exercise a lot of control over the outcome. Like I brought an empty bag to the airport knowing that I would be home by late afternoon. After the filming had completed, one of the other 9 contestants (let's call her Kelly) cornered me in the cafe as I was getting a drink - she wasn't confrontational, but she wanted to know what was going on in my head, what I was thinking. I told her that even though I speak Spanish fluently and have been to Spain many times, I would never go to somewhere like Magaluf. I had already done my damage, I wasn't going to be rude to her - in any case, this was off camera, it was just her and I in the cafe. Kelly was not just working class, oh she was your stereotypical Essex working class woman. I told her no offence, we have nothing in common so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we don't like the same things in life such as what we like to do during our holidays. Well, she then said something which did make me think.
Kelly said, "You are so closed minded. You only want to deal with what is familiar to you. Yes I know we have little in common, I'm not denying that. I'm just extending a hand of friendship - maybe if you went out clubbing with me in a place like Magaluf or Chelmsford, you'll be doing something totally different and who knows, you might enjoy yourself, you might learn something new and I'm totally willing to do whatever things you do - like if you want me to go to the art gallery, a museum or the opera and the ballet, then I'll be totally up for it. Not because it is the kind of thing I normally do, but because I'm open minded enough to try something unfamiliar, I am open to new experiences with people I don't have much in common with. Maybe I'll really enjoy myself, maybe I won't - but the key thing is that I am willing to try, you're not. You've decided that you know it all, you're not even willing to let someone else try to challenge your perception of what is fun, to have new experiences with people you don't normally hang out with in your daily life. What if we got on a plane today and we flew halfway around the world to an exotic country far, far away. We get out of the airport and we meet some friendly locals who say, welcome to our city, let us go out and have fun in the town tonight! Would you question if they are doing something that you're familiar with or is acceptable to someone of your social class; or would you simply say, yeah I'm going to be open minded and experience a new culture. I think it is sad that you are not even taking chances with new experiences, you're missing out on discovering new things that will take you by surprise because you are avoiding surprises in life."
To be fair, I did think that Kelly did have a point - I am closed minded, everything she said was true. But is it so wrong to know exactly what you like and what you don't like? Let me give you a simple example: if you were to watch a trailer of a movie and it didn't really appeal to you, would you then spend the next two hours watching the entire movie or would you cut your losses and look for another movie to watch instead? That's exactly what I would do because I think it is silly to waste your time doing things you may not enjoy but as Kelly put it, in doing so, you are closing yourself off to new experiences that may enrich your life. By that token, I can appreciate that parents can be surprised by their children everyday, that they can actually learn a lot from the experience of bringing up children and even if the kids may not be exactly what they have hoped for, that can still represent a new experience that brings with it all kinds of useful lessons. But for now, I'll go as far as to contemplate that intellectually, I'm not prepared to change my ways. I will always be the guy who will not watch the movie if I didn't like the trailer and if that means I am going to miss out on some things in life, then so be it. Good luck to the gay couple in Singapore, but adoption is not for me. So over to you - what do you think? Am I way too closed minded on the issue of adoption and children, or are parents out there simply not thinking properly about what they are undertaking before having children? If you are a parent or if you intend to have a child, have you ever considered what you might do if you had a severely disabled child? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
So this gay couple in their mid-40s spent US$200,000 getting this woman in Pennsylvania to be the surrogate mother and now they have a cute Eurasian baby. Clearly, they are a very rich gay couple who have plenty of money for this. My first thought was, US$200,000? That's like £160,000 - I would have used that as down payment for another property investment and given the kind of money they would have had to spend bringing up that child (which would be a lot more than that initial US$200,000), they could have easily bought a very nice buy-to-let property in Singapore instead with that money. But no, they wanted to bring up a child and be parents. Look, I don't want to judge them - it's a brave decision to do that in Singapore rather than a far more gay-friendly country and I wish them the best of luck, but geez it's not something I would ever do. Some people choose to have kids, others don't want to. I feel bad for this gay couple in Singapore who had to fight so many legal battles to simply do something that I am entitled to do under British law as a gay man here in the UK (but have absolutely no wish to do so). I did enter into a conversation with a friend in Singapore who suggested that I am still young enough (I question that) to do exactly what this guy did and more to the point, like this gay couple in Singapore, I am indeed rich enough to bring up a child and give that child a great start in life. But here are the following reasons why I would never ever do something like that.
Let me reflect on a time from many years ago when I did some gymnastics coaching - I had to deal with a group of kids who are about 6 - 7 years old and let's just put aside their sporting ability for a moment. I was amazed at just how some kids in that group were eloquent, confident and aware of their surroundings. For example, there was a French boy in the class and I would always speak to him in French because I wasn't sure how much English he understood but he always understood me perfectly in French. There were a few kids in the class who were so totally unaware of their surroundings, so totally oblivious that I was speaking in another language that they didn't even notice it whilst some kids at least were attentive enough to notice, hey I didn't understand what Alex just said, was he speaking in another language and they would ask me, "what did you just say?" And then there was this other kid whose mother is Lebanese and she taught him French (and Arabic), so when he heard me speaking in French to that French kid, naturally he switched to French with me and he was as fluent as the French kid. That's one extremely intelligent kid in that group - the other extreme was this kid who couldn't stop crying and was incapable of taking part in the class. I had to let his mother sit in the corner of the gym so she could take him away should his behaviour become uncontrollable. So as you can see, even amongst a small group of children, you could already tell that some were brilliant whilst other were extremely under-developed in their intelligence and social skills compared to their peers.
Just how disabled was this kid? Well, for starters, he couldn't speak normally - children at the age of 6 to 7 are capable of expressing fairly complex ideas and usually have enough vocabulary to get into an argument with their parents! This child spoke more like a 2 year old and the one sentence I got from him all the time was, "I want Mama!" It was not even like, "I want my mother," this kind of very basic baby talk is what you would expect of a 18 months old or 2 year old child, but not of a 6 or 7 year old boy. He would be allowed to do his own thing rather than join in the actual gymnastics class - never mind any physical ability to do sports, he didn't even have the mental capacity to understand very basic instructions like, "come here" or "sit down". When he got scared, he would just start crying and if his mother isn't there within like one minute, he would wet and sometimes shit himself. Oh he still wore diapers (thankfully) but the smell would still fill the room. Thankfully, his mother was very good when that happened, she would have a big bag with tissues, wet wipes, plastic bags and everything else she needed to clean up the mess and some clean clothes to change her son into. So I'm not exaggerating when I am telling you that there was something seriously wrong with this child - back in the day in Singapore, you would refer to a child like that as mentally retarded, though I think the more PC term we use in this day and age is 'mentally disabled'. Whilst the other children were learn challenging gymnastics skills, this boy was incapable of even putting on his own socks. A good session would be getting to the end of the lesson without the room stinking of his piss and shit. This kid is always going to be like that, he's not going to wake up one morning and go do a degree in engineering at a top university - that's the cruel reality I'm afraid.
I met his parents who were more than aware how challenging his behaviour was. They told me that when he started school, the teachers just didn't know what to do as all he would do was cry the moment he stepped into the school until the mother came with him to the classroom. A child like that made the teachers incredibly frustrated as they couldn't teach anything if there was a boy crying at the top of his voice in the classroom and they had to change school many times as most schools just said, "your child is not normal - find him a special school, they will know what to do with a child like that." Look, I never got to the bottom of just how mentally disabled that child is, all I knew was that the specialists were doing tests to ascertain just what was wrong with him but you don't need to be a child psychologist to know that a child like that is seriously messed up but I don't think the parents were prepared to accept that there was something very wrong with their child. The irony is that both the parents were highly educated, intelligent and nice people and it did leave me wondering how two seemingly intelligent adults could have a child like that - this wasn't something that boy was going to grow out of or get over. On one hand, I felt sorry for the parents having rolled the dice in the process of having a baby and ending up with a child like that; but on the other hand, I thought they were highly irresponsible trying to force a child like that participate in mainstream education and sports when all that kid could do was cry and wet himself. You could argue that you can't just lock that kid up at home all the time, he needed to interact with other children at some level but on the other hand, the poor kid was clearly traumatized and hated the experience, that was why he kept crying and a gymnastics class was clearly not right for him.
Then again, the complete opposite can happen. So how can I put this delicately: neither of my parents are intelligent - there are so many times when they spout a lot of uneducated, stupid crap and I just have to bite my tongue and tell myself it is not worth getting into a fight with them, that it is not their fault they were unlucky with this genetic lottery we all have to play. In the Hokkien language, we actually make a distinction between "boh tak chek" (not educated - implying that this person never had the chance to complete their formal education but it doesn't mean they are stupid) and "bueh tak chek" (can't study - implying that this person is extremely stupid). I'm very sorry to say that my parents are of the latter category and it would simply be cruel to bring up some of the examples of things they have said and done in the past that have left me mortified as they behaved like totally uneducated people from a different era. They produced three kids who have done pretty well, both my sisters went to NUS and I have done pretty well, getting three scholarships along the way and studied at the top universities in the UK and France. Oh and I speak 20 languages, 7 of them fluently whilst my mother would struggle to string a grammatically correct sentence together in English. How on earth did this happen? One's intelligence seems to be totally random and has little relations to your parents', is that a lottery I wish to play by creating a baby and risk the disappointment if I don't get a bright child, or at least one who is somewhat above average?
The fact is even if I were create a baby with a surrogate mother, there's no guarantee that the child will be normal, never mind intelligent even if the child has my DNA. The processes involving genes and chromosomes during conception are so complex and unpredictable. I'm sorry if it makes me sound like a monster but do I want a child like that? Hell no. Sorry. Not in a million years. I remember looking at his parents and feeling so sorry for them because they seemed like a perfectly decent couple, they seemed like nice people: what have they done to deserve a child like that? You would think that perhaps two really stupid people with low IQ would have produced a baby with a lot of problems, or if they mother had been using drugs or drinking heavily during the pregnancy that lead to complications, starving the baby's brain of oxygen. But no, it wasn't like that at all - in fact, it was the complete lack of explanation as to how the heck they ended up with a child like that which scares me. I wonder what parents think when they have a baby - are they prepared to bring up the child, love the child regardless of how the child turns out? Are you prepared for a worst case scenario? I just don't think I am brave enough to roll the dice and play this game called, "let's make a baby lottery". It's just the totally random nature of the process which totally scares the hell out of me. Allow me to assure you that I was very kind and patient with that disabled kid in the gymnastics class - I never got angry with him, I never even raised my voice with him. Mostly, I just felt sorry for him and his parents, I just thought that god played a very cruel joke on his parents and the least I could do was to try to help in what little way I could - I expressed nothing but empathy and kindness to his parents, offering them my support and understanding.
Likewise, even if I adopted a physically healthy baby - that is, one that is free from any birth defects, I fear I would still make a terrible parent. I've seen how the parents of that disabled child were so incredibly patient with him, would I be as patient with a child who is simply average? What if I had a child who was but of average intelligence and could only produce average or below average results at school? Would I be able to hide my disappointment that my child isn't going to become a scholar or the winner at a gymnastics competition? If I had a child, I would want the best for that child naturally - but that would also mean having rather high expectations and I just know I would be setting myself up to be disappointed in the real world. I know I would be acting a lot to hide the disappointment, to say something like, "it is okay if you didn't win, as long as you've tried your best". I know it sounds incredibly condescending saying this, but I'm going to be blunt: if I was just a man of average intelligence, holding down a mundane jobs that barely pays the bills, then my expectations would be a lot lower - as long as my child has a better life than me, that'll be good enough. I know the chances of ending up with a super intelligent baby are extremely slim, so I don't think I'm mentally prepared to face the prospect of bringing up a child who is merely average and ordinary. I just can't get my head around the disappointment of focusing so much energy on someone to produce such average results, sorry. I'll rather focus my energies on myself and the things that I do - at least I know I won't be mediocre.
If there was a way to create a designer baby, to ensure that you could get a baby with high IQ, good looks and talent for sports, then I'm sure parents would spend a lot of money to ensure that they don't end up with a disabled child because loving parents want the best for their children and if they could start at a genetic level by making sure the child has the right DNA, then of course parents would go down that path but for now, that's just the stuff of science fiction as that kind of technology doesn't exist - not yet anyway. But if you wanted to work with exceptionally intelligent children, then just become a teacher at a top school where every child in your class has been through a rigorous selection process and you'll be guaranteed that there wouldn't be a single stupid kid in the school. Or if you want to work with say gymnasts who are extremely talented, then you simply need to make sure you end up coaching say a top tier gymnastics club with a great competitive programme or even work your way up to the point where you can be the national coach - that way, you're not dealing with beginners, you're only dealing with the very best of the best, the cream of the crop. You can do all that through the professional route and nurture the very best talents of the next generation - it's just that these will be someone else's children rather than your own. But so what? Does it really make that much of a difference whether it is your kid your nurture or someone else's? Do you need to be related by blood before that process becomes a meaningful one? Clearly not.
As a triple scholar and a former national champion gymnast, I've worked with some incredible teachers and coaches who have taught me so much, who have made me the man I am today. Indeed, for a few years, I was closer to my gymnastics coach than I was to my own parents because I was spending so much time in the gym training hard and my coach spent so many hours observing every routine I performed - that's something my parents never did. Oh those years when I was on the national team training so hard, my coach and I had a special bond and he saw how hard I worked, he saw the qualities I displayed, the determination and perseverance I had, my determination to succeed. My parents saw none of that as they barely ever sat foot in the gymnasium - so would it be any surprise that I became a lot closer to my coach than my own parents when I was a teenager? Of course not, that would be the only natural, logical conclusion. In fact as a teenager, I began forging these very meaningful relationships with a lot of kind adults along the way and I became close to quite a few of them, far closer than I ever was with my own parents. They knew far more about what was going on in my life than my own parents ever did at that time. So what if you're related by blood? It doesn't mean you will be close - I've not spoken to my father in months and that's unlikely to ever change. I have a cold and distant relationship with my parents today and that's another reason why I would never become a parent: there's no guarantee you will get along with your child.
I also recall how I had a very interesting relationship with my tutors at university because they could see how my mind functioned through my work - they would go through my essays and challenge my ideas, questioning my research and methodology. This would lead to some very interesting exchanges and that's the kind of thing that I could never ever do with my parents because they're just not educated enough to even begin to tackle any issue more complex than in the PSLE syllabus - that's why they were just primary school teachers. Thus I've always been fascinated by the kind of relationship that involves some kind of mentoring between say a coach and a gymnast or between a tutor and a student at university. Currently, there's one client I work with very closely. I got to know him earlier this year and he's in his mid-60s, we get along extremely well and he's kind of taken me under his wing, acting like my mentor and I have a lot of respect for him as he's an expert in the field of corporate finance; we collaborated on a few projects this year and it was a joy working with him. Ironically given the fact that I've known him for about seven months yet he knows me a lot better than my own parents and certainly, I'm a lot closer to him than I am to my parents. I chat with him a few times a week whilst I hardly ever speak to my parents. The fact is, one can establish these deeply profound, meaningful relationships with people you are not related to by blood whilst being extremely distant with your very own parents. I have virtually nothing in common with my parents these days and there's little basis for any kind of social relationship beyond that obligation to keep in touch with one's family. They certainly have no clue what the heck I do for a living.
I have only just returned from a short holiday in Malta and I had just 5 days in there - it's not a big place (about half the size of Singapore) but obviously with just 5 days, I wasn't able to see everything there. So I did the logical thing by planning my trip: I did my research, read up on the most interesting things to do and see in Malta then wrote a list of places I wanted to visit whilst I was there. I planned everything quite meticulously, I'm not really spontaneous in this aspect! I was worried that I would return home after my holiday, only to realize I didn't see something utterly amazing there because I was too disorganized or lazy to plan my trip properly. I am like that at work too because it is absolutely necessary to be this meticulous: before we ever put an investment product on the market, we have to know exactly who we will target with it, how we will market it, who the first ten institutional investors will be, when they will invest with us, which platform they will use to facilitate the investment etc. We leave nothing to chance, you can't just put a product out in the market with no plan, no strategy and just hope for the best, that somehow things will turn out okay. Now contrast all that to having a baby where you can't even predict the gender of the baby to begin with - never mind all the other factors that are completely left to chance. A lot of parents hope for the best whilst crossing their fingers, but that's just not something I'm prepared to do. Do you know how many online reviews I read before I booked that hotel in Malta? And still, things weren't great and that really upset me. I like to always be in control. So no, I can't even start to deal with that aspect of parenting, so there's no way I could do it.
And here's the thing: do most parents actually have a wise strategy to cope with all these things that I have flagged up in this article? Have they for example, considered what they would do if they had a disabled child? No, they don't. The fact is, you can never ever be prepared for these worst case scenarios: most parents simply hope for the best and not think about the worst case scenarios. Is there anything wrong with that? After all, nobody would ever have a child if they all thought like me and the human race would go extinct pretty quickly by that token. But allow me to share with you something that actually did happen to me several years ago: I took part in a pilot reality TV show and there was an opportunity to win a free holiday, I was placed there in that episode to ensure that it would never happen. A group of ten individuals from very different social backgrounds are invited to London's Heathrow airport and they gather in a room: the challenge is that the group of ten people can all get on a flight and go for a free holiday together if and only if they agree on where to go. The group is presented with three destinations: the Swiss Alpine countryside, the cosmopolitan city of Vienna and the trashy Spanish resort town of Magaluf. Now for those of you not familiar with Magaluf, it is a small resort town on the island of Majorca - it isn't one of those quaint old Spanish towns with loads of culture and history. No, it sprung up in the 1970s, catering for the hoards of tourists (mostly British but from other countries as well) looking for a cheap Spanish holiday so it is associated with hoards of loud, drunk British tourists binge drinking, dated hotels built in the 1970s and 1980s, cheesy nightclubs and a near complete absence of anything actually Spanish there.
So the other 9 people were voting for either Magaluf or Vienna, but eventually settled for Magaluf - I held out for the Swiss Alpine holiday and then switched my vote at the last moment to Vienna. But because it was 9 votes for Magaluf and 1 vote for Vienna, by the rules of this game, we got nothing and left the airport empty handed. I was actually planted in there to make sure that this episode didn't result in a real holiday, so I was always going to make sure that I would vote differently from the others. Yes if you think that reality TV programmes are scripted, then you're right - in many cases, the producers do exercise a lot of control over the outcome. Like I brought an empty bag to the airport knowing that I would be home by late afternoon. After the filming had completed, one of the other 9 contestants (let's call her Kelly) cornered me in the cafe as I was getting a drink - she wasn't confrontational, but she wanted to know what was going on in my head, what I was thinking. I told her that even though I speak Spanish fluently and have been to Spain many times, I would never go to somewhere like Magaluf. I had already done my damage, I wasn't going to be rude to her - in any case, this was off camera, it was just her and I in the cafe. Kelly was not just working class, oh she was your stereotypical Essex working class woman. I told her no offence, we have nothing in common so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we don't like the same things in life such as what we like to do during our holidays. Well, she then said something which did make me think.
Kelly said, "You are so closed minded. You only want to deal with what is familiar to you. Yes I know we have little in common, I'm not denying that. I'm just extending a hand of friendship - maybe if you went out clubbing with me in a place like Magaluf or Chelmsford, you'll be doing something totally different and who knows, you might enjoy yourself, you might learn something new and I'm totally willing to do whatever things you do - like if you want me to go to the art gallery, a museum or the opera and the ballet, then I'll be totally up for it. Not because it is the kind of thing I normally do, but because I'm open minded enough to try something unfamiliar, I am open to new experiences with people I don't have much in common with. Maybe I'll really enjoy myself, maybe I won't - but the key thing is that I am willing to try, you're not. You've decided that you know it all, you're not even willing to let someone else try to challenge your perception of what is fun, to have new experiences with people you don't normally hang out with in your daily life. What if we got on a plane today and we flew halfway around the world to an exotic country far, far away. We get out of the airport and we meet some friendly locals who say, welcome to our city, let us go out and have fun in the town tonight! Would you question if they are doing something that you're familiar with or is acceptable to someone of your social class; or would you simply say, yeah I'm going to be open minded and experience a new culture. I think it is sad that you are not even taking chances with new experiences, you're missing out on discovering new things that will take you by surprise because you are avoiding surprises in life."
To be fair, I did think that Kelly did have a point - I am closed minded, everything she said was true. But is it so wrong to know exactly what you like and what you don't like? Let me give you a simple example: if you were to watch a trailer of a movie and it didn't really appeal to you, would you then spend the next two hours watching the entire movie or would you cut your losses and look for another movie to watch instead? That's exactly what I would do because I think it is silly to waste your time doing things you may not enjoy but as Kelly put it, in doing so, you are closing yourself off to new experiences that may enrich your life. By that token, I can appreciate that parents can be surprised by their children everyday, that they can actually learn a lot from the experience of bringing up children and even if the kids may not be exactly what they have hoped for, that can still represent a new experience that brings with it all kinds of useful lessons. But for now, I'll go as far as to contemplate that intellectually, I'm not prepared to change my ways. I will always be the guy who will not watch the movie if I didn't like the trailer and if that means I am going to miss out on some things in life, then so be it. Good luck to the gay couple in Singapore, but adoption is not for me. So over to you - what do you think? Am I way too closed minded on the issue of adoption and children, or are parents out there simply not thinking properly about what they are undertaking before having children? If you are a parent or if you intend to have a child, have you ever considered what you might do if you had a severely disabled child? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
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