Only 23 and forced to tie fallopian tubes by the Old Fart. Expect the Old Fart and his Familee to be burnt in HELL! 
Part 1
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Aug 24, 2008
special report: babies
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Two is not enough
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>The Stop At Two policy, launched in 1972, came with tough measures that made it 'over-successful' </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Mavis Toh
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
</TD><TD vAlign=bottom>
-- ILLUSTRATION: MIKE M DIZON
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Many middle-aged Singaporeans will remember the poster of two cute girls sharing an umbrella and an apple.
The umbrella fit two nicely. Three would have been a crowd.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css> #related .quote {background-color:#E7F7FF; padding:8px;margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;} #related .quote .headline {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px;font-weight:bold; border-bottom:3px double #007BFF; color:#036; text-transform:uppercase; padding-bottom:5px;} #related .quote .text {font-size:11px;color:#036;padding:5px 0px;} </STYLE>Not about the money
'We need to learn to fine-tune to the emotions rather than to the dollars and cents. It should appeal more to the sense of fulfilment of having children.'
MR NGIAM TONG DOW, former top civil servant
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The slogan made clear the message behind the image: 'Girl or boy, two is enough.'
This was among a range of iconic posters that popped up everywhere in the 1970s as the Government embarked on its two-child policy.
Madam Margaret Chua was a young mother then. She had her fallopian tubes tied in 1976 after giving birth to her second child at the then Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH), now known as the KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
She was 23 at the time and came from a family of 10 children. She, too, wanted a big family of her own.
But the disincentives made her change her mind and she decided to get ligated - that is, have her tubes tied to prevent further pregnancies.
'The pressure was high. The Government clearly didn't want us to have more than two,' said Madam Chua, who is now 55. 'Now, more than 30 years later, I wish I had more.'
=> 30 years down the road, expect Sporns to regret not having warded off the FTrash invasion now?
Singapore's procreation policy has come full circle. From discouraging its citizens to have children, the Government's preoccupation over the past two decades has been to get couples to marry early and have more babies.
At the National Day Rally last week, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong unveiled a basket of generous perks.
Referring to the 'Two Is Enough' policy, he admitted it had been 'fabulously successful, in fact over-successful'.
'We had a poster, you remember this: 'Girl or boy, two is enough',' said Mr Lee. 'We achieved the target, we over-fulfilled our plan.'
He added that the Government became alarmed as the birth rate plummeted. It changed the message to 'Have three, if you can afford it' in the 1980s.
=> And this sob can make fun of it instead of hauling his daddy on the stage to flog him?
He showed a graph depicting the slide in Singapore's total fertility rate (TFR) from six children per woman in 1960 to about 1.3 today.
Singapore's current TFR is 1.29, or about 40,000 babies last year. In 1973, each family had 4.3 children and in 1975, a rate of 2.1 was recorded. A country needs a TFR of 2.1 - the so-called replacement level - just to keep its current population from sliding.
Housewife Susan Teo, 56, cannot help but wonder if Singapore would be facing its population crisis now had the two-child policy not been pushed so hard in the 1970s.
She reasoned that if that trend had not been curbed, each of the extra two children or so would have gone on to have an average of two kids of their own.
'Singapore might not have prospered so fast but at least we won't have a population shortage now.'
Despite the policy, she had three children. All are in their early 30s now, and still single.
A necessary move
=> Sure, 30 years down the road, the same would be said when all Sporns have died out or emigrated and replaced by FTrash! As long as the 66% Sporns refuse to vote out the Familee, expect the Familee to take the easy way out to create more problems to fix earlier problems! And then get away with it and billions richer!
Population experts pointed out that the campaign was necessary at the time.
Newly independent and resource-poor, Singapore needed to plug into the global economy and aiming for a replacement-level TFR made sense.
Professor Saw Swee Hock, 77, a statistician and demographic expert, said it took less than 20 years for Singapore's population to move from its peak in 1965 to replacement level.
'It was rapid because of the Government's strong population control measures,' said Prof Saw, a professorial fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
He said that even without the Stop At Two policy, the TFR would have gone below 2.1 due to modernisation and women's changing attitudes towards marriage and having children.
'The measures were comprehensive and strong, but they weren't reversed quickly enough,' he said.
Mr Basskaran Nair, 60, was press section head at the then Ministry of Culture from 1970 to 1976, which managed the publicity for government campaigns.
Now property group CapitaLand's senior vice-president for group communications, he agreed with Prof Saw.
'We never anticipated the change in attitudes of the working women and couples. By the late 1970s, they had become more career-minded and that attitude change suddenly led to Singapore being hit by a low replacement birth rate,' he said.
Dr Paul Cheung, 55, Singapore's former chief statistician - now director of the United Nations Statistics Division - also felt that the two-child policy was a 'totally rational' decision back then.
Former minister for social affairs Othman Wok, 83, noted that at that time, families were living in squatter areas, people were unemployed and houses, schools and medical facilities were insufficient. 'If we didn't have the policy, Singapore would be overpopulated and where would people stay?' he said.
Was it too harsh?
The Family Planning and Population Board was set up in 1966 to reduce Singapore's birth rate.
The Stop At Two campaign was launched in 1972 and quickly became controversial, not least because it came with tough measures to discourage couples from having more than two children.
Couples who did not stop at two enjoyed less income tax relief, paid more in hospitalisation fees and had maternity leave reduced.
Women were encouraged to go for ligation and children with two or more older siblings did not get priority in school registration. Such families also had lower priority in allocation of Housing Board flats.
=> So using the pigeonhole to threaten Sporns is not new to the Papayas and Sporns have accepted and yield to it for a few generations!
Mr Robert Tan, 62, then a public health assistant, recalled teams going to antenatal clinics in kampungs to educate mothers on various methods of contraception.
'Knowledge was very low then; many did not even know how to use a condom,' he said. 'We were trying to promote sterilisation more than anything else.'
One policy decision caused a lot of grief, though it worked: linking sterilisation to school policy.
'If you did not undergo sterilisation after your third child, he would not get priority in school,' recalled gynaecologist Paul Tan, 68. 'That was when people stopped reproducing.' Working in KKH then, Dr Tan said sterilisation rates 'went sky- high' as doctors there performed up to nine operations a day. 'Pregnant women came in saying 'Doctor, I think I'm pregnant again' like they committed a crime,' he said.
Part 1
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Aug 24, 2008
special report: babies
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Two is not enough
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>The Stop At Two policy, launched in 1972, came with tough measures that made it 'over-successful' </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Mavis Toh
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
-- ILLUSTRATION: MIKE M DIZON
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Many middle-aged Singaporeans will remember the poster of two cute girls sharing an umbrella and an apple.
The umbrella fit two nicely. Three would have been a crowd.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css> #related .quote {background-color:#E7F7FF; padding:8px;margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;} #related .quote .headline {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px;font-weight:bold; border-bottom:3px double #007BFF; color:#036; text-transform:uppercase; padding-bottom:5px;} #related .quote .text {font-size:11px;color:#036;padding:5px 0px;} </STYLE>Not about the money
'We need to learn to fine-tune to the emotions rather than to the dollars and cents. It should appeal more to the sense of fulfilment of having children.'
MR NGIAM TONG DOW, former top civil servant
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The slogan made clear the message behind the image: 'Girl or boy, two is enough.'
This was among a range of iconic posters that popped up everywhere in the 1970s as the Government embarked on its two-child policy.
Madam Margaret Chua was a young mother then. She had her fallopian tubes tied in 1976 after giving birth to her second child at the then Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH), now known as the KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
She was 23 at the time and came from a family of 10 children. She, too, wanted a big family of her own.
But the disincentives made her change her mind and she decided to get ligated - that is, have her tubes tied to prevent further pregnancies.
'The pressure was high. The Government clearly didn't want us to have more than two,' said Madam Chua, who is now 55. 'Now, more than 30 years later, I wish I had more.'
=> 30 years down the road, expect Sporns to regret not having warded off the FTrash invasion now?
Singapore's procreation policy has come full circle. From discouraging its citizens to have children, the Government's preoccupation over the past two decades has been to get couples to marry early and have more babies.
At the National Day Rally last week, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong unveiled a basket of generous perks.
Referring to the 'Two Is Enough' policy, he admitted it had been 'fabulously successful, in fact over-successful'.
'We had a poster, you remember this: 'Girl or boy, two is enough',' said Mr Lee. 'We achieved the target, we over-fulfilled our plan.'
He added that the Government became alarmed as the birth rate plummeted. It changed the message to 'Have three, if you can afford it' in the 1980s.
=> And this sob can make fun of it instead of hauling his daddy on the stage to flog him?
He showed a graph depicting the slide in Singapore's total fertility rate (TFR) from six children per woman in 1960 to about 1.3 today.
Singapore's current TFR is 1.29, or about 40,000 babies last year. In 1973, each family had 4.3 children and in 1975, a rate of 2.1 was recorded. A country needs a TFR of 2.1 - the so-called replacement level - just to keep its current population from sliding.
Housewife Susan Teo, 56, cannot help but wonder if Singapore would be facing its population crisis now had the two-child policy not been pushed so hard in the 1970s.
She reasoned that if that trend had not been curbed, each of the extra two children or so would have gone on to have an average of two kids of their own.
'Singapore might not have prospered so fast but at least we won't have a population shortage now.'
Despite the policy, she had three children. All are in their early 30s now, and still single.
A necessary move
=> Sure, 30 years down the road, the same would be said when all Sporns have died out or emigrated and replaced by FTrash! As long as the 66% Sporns refuse to vote out the Familee, expect the Familee to take the easy way out to create more problems to fix earlier problems! And then get away with it and billions richer!
Population experts pointed out that the campaign was necessary at the time.
Newly independent and resource-poor, Singapore needed to plug into the global economy and aiming for a replacement-level TFR made sense.
Professor Saw Swee Hock, 77, a statistician and demographic expert, said it took less than 20 years for Singapore's population to move from its peak in 1965 to replacement level.
'It was rapid because of the Government's strong population control measures,' said Prof Saw, a professorial fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
He said that even without the Stop At Two policy, the TFR would have gone below 2.1 due to modernisation and women's changing attitudes towards marriage and having children.
'The measures were comprehensive and strong, but they weren't reversed quickly enough,' he said.
Mr Basskaran Nair, 60, was press section head at the then Ministry of Culture from 1970 to 1976, which managed the publicity for government campaigns.
Now property group CapitaLand's senior vice-president for group communications, he agreed with Prof Saw.
'We never anticipated the change in attitudes of the working women and couples. By the late 1970s, they had become more career-minded and that attitude change suddenly led to Singapore being hit by a low replacement birth rate,' he said.
Dr Paul Cheung, 55, Singapore's former chief statistician - now director of the United Nations Statistics Division - also felt that the two-child policy was a 'totally rational' decision back then.
Former minister for social affairs Othman Wok, 83, noted that at that time, families were living in squatter areas, people were unemployed and houses, schools and medical facilities were insufficient. 'If we didn't have the policy, Singapore would be overpopulated and where would people stay?' he said.
Was it too harsh?
The Family Planning and Population Board was set up in 1966 to reduce Singapore's birth rate.
The Stop At Two campaign was launched in 1972 and quickly became controversial, not least because it came with tough measures to discourage couples from having more than two children.
Couples who did not stop at two enjoyed less income tax relief, paid more in hospitalisation fees and had maternity leave reduced.
Women were encouraged to go for ligation and children with two or more older siblings did not get priority in school registration. Such families also had lower priority in allocation of Housing Board flats.
=> So using the pigeonhole to threaten Sporns is not new to the Papayas and Sporns have accepted and yield to it for a few generations!
Mr Robert Tan, 62, then a public health assistant, recalled teams going to antenatal clinics in kampungs to educate mothers on various methods of contraception.
'Knowledge was very low then; many did not even know how to use a condom,' he said. 'We were trying to promote sterilisation more than anything else.'
One policy decision caused a lot of grief, though it worked: linking sterilisation to school policy.
'If you did not undergo sterilisation after your third child, he would not get priority in school,' recalled gynaecologist Paul Tan, 68. 'That was when people stopped reproducing.' Working in KKH then, Dr Tan said sterilisation rates 'went sky- high' as doctors there performed up to nine operations a day. 'Pregnant women came in saying 'Doctor, I think I'm pregnant again' like they committed a crime,' he said.
