Marriage – Yay or Nay?

Let me start with a confession. When I was approached to write a commentary about marriage, my first reaction was “No thanks!”

Non-interference: Parents Decide, Grandparents Follow?

In Singapore, there is an important social norm of "non-interference" between grandparents and parents. It implicitly recognises that parents have primary responsibility for raising children. Dialogue, mutual respect and understanding are important, if we want to move forward constructively.

“Mom, Dad, Where Are You?” The Right to Know One’s Natural Parents

Adoptive children have a deep desire to seek their biological parents in an effort to find themselves. It touches on deep and profound questions, involving one’s identity and origin. This right to know one’s natural parents has been recognised as a legal and moral right in Singapore.

“Mismatched: Dating and the Gender Divide”: A Cultivate Commune update

Do gender roles or differences matter in dating? What do men and women think? At our Commune on 8 March, we gathered some young men and women to talk candidly about the dating scene and their own experiences, and gained some interesting perspectives on the topic.

Fatal Child Abuse of Megan Khung: Can we do better?

Every child abused is one child too many. In this process of soul-searching and learning to do better in our protection of children following the death of Megan Khung, it would help to reduce the level of blame levelled at the preschool and social service agency involved. Furthermore, we should also appreciate her grandmother’s dilemmas in her response, and the wider ecosystem surrounding the incident which involved drugs and family breakdown.

“Porn: What’s the Harm?”: A Cultivate Commune update

Early exposure as teenagers, double lives, impaired relationships and bumpy healing journeys: these stories marked Cultivate’s first breakfast conversation this year, on a thoroughly un-breakfast topic – Pornography. Our conversation featured Jeffrey Pang, a counsellor who handles porn addiction cases, and Jakin Tan, a university undergraduate who overcame the addiction. It was moderated by Cultivate Chairperson, Ariel Lim, with her own story of breakthrough.