Hi, I’m a father of two kids and I used to have a life.

It’s true, I even dedicated an Instagram page to my past life.

Ever since levelling up to a dad in 2014, I’ve lost these things:

• Spontaneity. Nothing is spontaneous, especially when you have a kid.
• Veg out in front of the TV. Technically you still can but do you really want to veg out to Baby Shark? I don’t think so.
• The ability to enjoy weekends. Long weekends are the worst. Here’s a highly accurate visual representation.

• My hair (Who am I kidding? It’s just male pattern hair loss lol.)

By the way, I knew what I signed up for. So please get off your high horse.

All these being said, I love the kiddos. In fact, I love them so much that I will not fund their university education (qualifier: if they can make it to university and degrees are still necessary).

Yes, kiddos, I said it. It’s on the Internet, there’s no turning back now.

Allow me to explain.

I don’t want to be a burden

Check out this headline.

You know why parents don’t save enough? They probably just spent it on their kids.

"Interestingly, while 66 per cent of the parents polled were most concerned about having insufficient savings and being unable to afford healthcare, 90 per cent of them were still willing to give up their retirement savings for their children’s education and development needs. (emphasis ours)"

Because parents spend a bomb on their kids hoping their offsprings take care of them when they are old, in short: parents treat kids as commodities (where’s the ROI?) Asian values.

If you think the headline is not depressing enough, here’s something to trigger a healthy dose of existential crisis:

“The survey also found that two-thirds or 66 percent of the youths have factored in the cost of looking after their retired parents - but only 8 percent were very confident of supporting them financially.

In particular, 70 percent of them foresaw downgrading their lifestyle to care for their parents in the future. This included settling for a smaller home, or giving up driving a car.

The youths also said they would indulge less in personal hobbies and interests (48 percent), make career-related sacrifices such as taking up extra jobs or giving up local or overseas job opportunities (44 percent), and even delay marriage (25 percent) to help financially support their retired parents, if needed.”

Do I want them to indulge less in hobbies? Settle for a smaller home? Give up a lucrative overseas gig? Or delay marriage just to support my wife and I when we retire?

No. Which brings me to my next point.

The kiddos need to live their lives

According to this writer, the greatest fallacy any parent could make is to protect and shelter the kids from any form of adversity.

How would any kid learn to solve problems if they could turn to their parents for an easy solution all the time?

That is kinda what’s happening to Japan.

Introducing Parasite Singles, children -- not exactly cute and young -- who depend on their parents for money, food, lodging etc even when they are no longer children. Exactly like a parasite.

A Japan Times article stated that some 4.5 million Japanese aged between 35 and 54 were living with their parents in 2016.

Newsflash: Parents are not going to live forever, you know.

Independence, the greatest lesson of all.

As a working adult for more than a decade, I can vouch that the working world provides the best education.

So it is not all doom and gloom if the kiddos decide to work full time for a few years first to get some experience before deciding to enroll into university.

And if they choose to proceed to university, a bank loan -- not the father/mother scholarship -- is always available. Nothing like a negative net value hanging over your head after graduation to get you thinking about survival.

I need to reclaim my life

I can’t say for the missus (I suspect the same but she couldn’t be reached for comment) but I do really want to reclaim my life when I retire.

Well, I know I sound quite self-serving but ultimately everyone knows it -- the best gift for the kiddos is actually to let them stand on their feet, explore life the way it’s meant to without us parents in the rearview mirror.

So I’m going to save up for my eventual demise, and of course the golden years prior when I will attempt to do something spontaneous, veg out in front of the TV, look forward to long weekends, grow my hair (Joking, too late for that).

All these on my own money.

Views expressed above are the writer’s own.

This article is sponsored by NTUC Income who also produced this viral video.

Top photo by Angela Lim