They say adulthood has a script — house, spouse, kids, commute — and when you reach your 30s in Singapore without that script being checked off, the silence can start to echo. In recent years, more than ever, mid-career Singaporeans are discovering that the traditional markers of “adulting” don’t necessarily map onto their realities — and many are choosing, consciously or unconsciously, to chart lives that don’t involve marriage or children.
A recent piece in Channel News Asia captures this shift in voice, following individuals whose conversations with friends have gradually slipped from “Which BTO launch are you eyeing?” or “When’s the wedding?” to awkward silences. As one person put it: watching friends cycle through pre-wedding shoots, renovation selfies and baby announcements can stir quiet anxiety, even if you’ve never desired those milestones in the first place. The discomfort often stems not from regret, but from the pressure of a cultural script many still carry — one where family formation is treated as proof of adulthood, maturity, or even competence.
These personal stories resonate against stark facts: Singapore’s population statistics show that singlehood and childlessness are no longer outliers. As of mid-2025, the city-state’s population stood at 6.11 million — yet despite a slight rise in citizen births, the resident total fertility rate has lingered at an historic low of 0.97 children per woman. Recent data show marriage registrations dipping in 2023 to 28,310 couples, down from 29,389 in 2022, underscoring how fewer people are stepping onto what used to be the default “next step.”
Underlying this shift are deeper structural and cultural changes. Research finds that in low-fertility societies like Singapore, a growing share of women — particularly ethnic Chinese women — are remaining never-married well into their 30s, sometimes by personal choice, sometimes as a byproduct of shifting priorities. And even among couples who do marry, childbearing is being delayed or skipped altogether: the wording in the latest statistics reveals that in 2024, 15 per cent of resident ever-married women aged 40–49 had no children — more than double the share two decades ago.
These numbers reflect not merely demographic shifts, but deeper changes in worldview and life planning. Surveys show that the majority of young Singaporeans no longer assume parenthood is a given. Meanwhile, attitudes toward gender and family roles are loosening — for instance, the share of respondents who believe mothers should be full-time child-carers has dropped sharply in recent years. Instead, many singles and childless couples articulate different priorities: building fulfilling careers, travelling, financial independence, or simply embracing solitude.
Still, smiling through the milestones around you — weddings, BTO flat buys, baby stroller selfies — can take emotional work. As the CNA essay highlights, the tension rarely comes from a place of regret, but from a nagging sense of being “off-track”, especially when social media distills collective life into neatly ordered life stages. For many, the discomfort is not about what they want or don’t want — but whether their choices look acceptable to others.
Yet there is a quiet rebellion in these choices — a reclaiming of agency, a redefinition of adulthood. Singles and child-free adults in Singapore today often speak not of deprivation, but of relief. Relief from societal pressure, from financial burdens, from expectations of care work or climbing property ladders. Relief that the cultural timeline doesn’t have to be theirs.
Understanding that choosing not to marry or bear children is not an aberration but increasingly the norm might ease this shift. For a nation confronting sharply falling fertility, rising singlehood, and an ageing population, these personal decisions are also reshaping the social fabric. But at the level of individual lives, they represent alternate scripts — ones where adulthood isn’t measured by a wedding photo or a pram, but by fulfilment, contentment and self-determined timing.
If enough people embrace that, the story of “adulting” in Singapore could evolve — from a checklist of milestones to a mosaic of meaningful lives.
My darlings, gather round — Auntie is pouring herself a strong kopi and lighting one metaphorical chili pepper to talk about freedom. Not the big political kind (though you know Auntie always has things to say there), but the small, intimate freedom to choose how to live your one precious life in Singapore without the Greek chorus of aunties, uncles, co-workers, and random Grab drivers asking, “So… when getting married ah? When having baby ah? When upgrading house ah?”
Auntie says: Break. That. Script.
It’s outdated, dusty, and about as relevant to modern life as dial-up internet.
If you want to stay single, stay single. If you want a partner but not marriage, own it. If you adore children, have them — and if you don’t, let the world deal with it. No adult should be measured by the number of rings on their finger or the number of tiny humans they produce. The idea that adulthood must follow a mandatory route — BTO, banquet, baby, and then 30 years of loans — is a social invention, not a biological truth.
Auntie has seen too many brilliant younger friends twisted into knots because their peers are sprinting through these “milestones.” But milestones are not a race. They’re optional checkpoints, like in a video game where you decide which quests matter to you. Skip the ones that bore you. Create new ones that thrill you.
Let Auntie share a small personal truth, just between us and the spicy gods: I had my daughter when I was 39, long after people assumed the “child window” had slammed shut. Some even whispered — yes, whispered! — “Wah, isn’t it too late?” Let me tell you: it was perfect. My pregnancy was calm, my delivery safe, and my daughter arrived with all the love, security, and stability that younger-Auntie would never have been able to offer. I was wiser, more financially stable, and far more patient — a late bloomer becoming a late mother, and blooming beautifully.
So when society warns you that life has “expiry dates”, laugh politely and walk away. You’re not milk. You’re chili oil — you age deliciously and become more potent over time.
The truth is simple: adulthood has no single shape. Some of us will have babies at 25, some at 39, some never — and all are valid, all are worthy, all are beautiful.
Live boldly, loves. Write your own timeline. And if anyone pressures you, send them to Auntie — I’ll give them a lecture hotter than sambal belacan.