Mothership and The Birthday Collective are in collaboration to share essays from the 2018 edition of The Birthday Book Jr.

The Birthday Book Jr is a collection of essays about Singapore by 54 children, mostly five- to 13-year-olds, from various walks of life.

Apart from showcasing the diversity of young voices in Singapore, these essays also discuss our collective future as a nation.

12-year-old Oscar Swindell contributed an essay titled "Where I come from, where I’m going to", sharing his experiences as an expat kid growing up in Singapore. His essay is reproduced here:

By Oscar Li Ren Evers-Swindell

I grew up in Singapore but I am what people call an expat child.

My dad was born in England but spent the first eight years of his life in America then moving to New Zealand for a brief period before moving to Singapore when his parents relocated here.

My mom is from across the causeway from Malaysia. She moved to Singapore when she was 21.

I attend an international school and mostly, to me, we are all the same. I feel no different to my friends.

I feel that I am similar to other kids my age that live in Singapore. In my opinion we are all the same but we have many unique ways to showing ourselves.

I am lucky to be an expat child because I have different cultures and I can explore: Singapore, New Zealand and Malaysia.

Maybe if I retire I can live in New Zealand or if I need to save money and find a good job or I can stay in Malaysia or if I am doing business I will live here in Singapore.

But sometimes I feel like I don’t know what country I am really from, maybe I will figure it out when I am older.

The roads we take will lead us to our destination but whether that is where we actually want to end up only time will tell.

If you happen to be in the education space and think this essay may be suitable as a resource (e.g. for English Language, General Paper or Social Studies lessons), The Birthday Collective has a new initiative, "The Birthday Workbook", that includes discussion questions and learning activities based on The Birthday Book essays. You can sign up for its newsletter at bit.ly/TBBeduresource.

Top photo credit: Theodore Lim/AFP/Getty Images