What's the harm in a little overparenting if it helps your child flourish?

Taking a more hands-on role in your children's day-to-day life is perhaps what they need to cope ably in a challenging world

- Ramesh William

Over the past few weeks - and not for the first time in recent months the topics of mental health and fertility rates appeared in close quarters in the news cycle.

In and of themselves, the stories were not linked - but deducing as much would be missing the point. By now, one can say with a certain level of unambiguity: There is a correlation between the two.

In January, findings from two studies saw young people continuing to grapple with the lingering impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, worries over grades, employability upon leaving school, and so on. Worryingly, the most common area of concern across all respondents was burnout.

In February, Parliament was told that Singapore's resident total fertility rate dropped below 1 for the first time in its history.

And news out of South Korea around the same time also mirrored the stark realities both societies will face. There, the fertility rate dropped to a record low of 0.7 in the second quarter of 2023; another report highlighted the alarming trend of suicides among Korean youth.

A STRESSFUL ENVIRONMENT There is both a linearity and circularity to the issues at hand.

To be in a constant state of mental flux all through adolescence and into adulthood will likely imprint a pessimistic view of life and the future.

In such a scenario, marriage and rearing children are the last things on young people's minds. A common refrain is: "How can I bring children into this messed-up world?" But people also choose to marry and have kids for many reasons, be they cultural, personal or even economic regardless of mental well-being. Yet those who begin a family without addressing mental health concerns could, in turn, saddle the next generation with similar issues.

For when dealing with the exigencies of work and running a household, families breadwinners, notably can lapse into a fraught crisis mode.