Notes

Sue Palmer has stated that the sight of children and even infants being forced into fixed schedules and send to childcare centres so as to allow their parents to earn money, has become increasingly concerning. However, this sight is quite prominent in Singapore. In Singapore, many adults need to work to maintain a stable source of income. It is with this source of income that they can continue to sustain their family's needs and desires.



This commercialisation of childhood has been accompanied by its ‘schoolification’; tots as tiny as three are bused and herded into full-day nurseries, endlessly scheduled and timetabled into routines in order for their parents to work and feed the economy. Back home, these tots spend time with electronic babysitters and are fed yet more visual stimulation. Is it any wonder these mini-mechanicals sleepwalk into formal education bereft of any real interest in anything and without an independent streak whatsoever? School teachers who bewail the precipitous decline in their students’ communication skills and shortened attention spans often point to those early years spent in supervised care and the premature digitalisation of their lifestyles as the culprits.