When I Was Young

From TODAY, Voices
Monday September 1, 2008

Letter from Michelle Jean Yeang

I REFER to the letter, “Babies: How singles can help” (Aug 29). I, too, fear that having children means having to give up my freedom and having a lifelong liability.

What I fear most is that my husband and I may create a “social chasm” between our friends and us if they cannot relate to or understand what we are going through. I already felt this way when I got married at 21; while most of my friends were complaining about National Service or university life, I was busy setting up home.

I’m afraid that I will lose my friends when we take different paths in life.

My husband and I thought about waiting for our friends to “catch up” with us so that we can start having families in the same phase of our lives. But we’ve been married for three years and our friends are still single.

I really wonder how much longer we can wait before we finally decide to use what’s left of our youth to raise children so that we can still enjoy spending time with them as they get older.

But I have a feeling that if we do have children and excitedly share baby anecdotes, we will get polite smiles in return as our friends go on to talk more enthusiastically about the remake of some superhero movie.

At the end of the day, even though having children is a personal choice, it is still one influenced by those around us. If our friends can’t understand and relate to our experience as parents, should we give up the company we enjoy for the joy of having children?

Or, can we have both?