How to live a long time: be a parent.

I am aware that the title above might surprise people. Parents are an exhausted breed, always running around after little ones so much more energetic than themselves. Surely, this takes a toll on one's health? Surely, parents live shorter lives than lifelong singletons?

Well, the surprising answer, for some, is no. Being a parent is good for you. In a paper, Fertility and Life Span - Late Children Enhance Female Longevity, authors, Hans-Georg Müller (a), Jeng-Min Chiou (c), James R. Carey (b) and Jane-Ling Wang (a) discussed their findings as to the correlations between fertility and life span.

(a Departments of Statistics, University of California, Davis
b Departments of Entomology, University of California, Davis
c Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, National Health Research Institutes, Taipei, Taiwan)

They studied the life records of 1,635 French-Canadian women of the 17th and 18th centuries, paying particular heed to survival past the age of 50. Unexpectedly, they discovered that greater fertility meant greater postreproductive survival. In other words, the more kids you had, the older you got. This goes against the age old wisdom of women being worn out by incessant child birth - if anything it seems to show that women are sustained by the reproductive act.

They derived a mathematical relationship to determine the lifespan advantage. For every ten fold decrease in the age of your youngest child, at the age of 50, there is a 3.93 year longevity advantage. This is quite substantial. For instance, a 50 year old woman with a 2 year old child, is going to live 3.93 years longer than a similar 50 year old with a 20 year old child, typically.

Another paper further enlightens us as to what is happening. Does Having Children Extend Life Span? A Genealogical Study of Parity and Longevity in the Amish by Patrick F. McArdle, Toni I. Pollin, Jeffrey R. O'Connell, John D. Sorkin, Richa Agarwala, Alejandro A. Schäffer, Elizabeth A. Streeten, Terri M. King, Alan R. Shuldiner and Braxton D. Mitchell.

This paper studied 2015 Amish parents from 1749 to 1912 who survived to 50 years or more.

The correlation between number of children and longevity is striking - and it applies to both men and women. For men, each child fathered resulted in an average increase of 0.23 years of life, this was linear and applied to every child fathered. For mothers, there was an increase of 0.32 years per child up to 14. Beyond 14, there were health issues which negatively affected the life expectancy of the mother. Further analysis concluded that, for mothers, the key factor was the age of last child birth - this accounting for all the apparent benefit.

So, what are we to make of this? Many a bachelor or spinster, that I have encountered, has seemed quite pleased with themselves not to be "burdened" with children. They account themselves wise to have no such worries. They tend to believe that they will also live longer without the "stress" of parenthood. Yet, all is not as it seems. Parents live longer than those who never become so. The difference rises linearly with the number of children. Thus the more fertile you are, the longer you tend to live. (Or another way of putting it, the older you are, the more fertile you tend to have been.)

Having children gives you many joys that life does not otherwise offer. It also teaches you much more about life than being a bachelor or spinster ever could. To see a child grow up is the best education there is. It delights me to be able to write that being a parent is also a longevity indicator of sorts. So, not only do children fill your hours with unexpected joys - they give you more hours to fill, too.

It sounds like quite a bargain.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Children's Day, Singapore, October 1st

October 1st, every year, in Singapore is Children's Day. This is, as the name suggests, meant to be a day of celebration of children and childhood. At least, that is the theory.

Fintan enjoyed a party of some kind, at school, for Children's Day - and, in the evening, Syahidah arranged for an outing to mark the day. We had in mind two activities - one for Ainan and one for Fintan.

For Ainan we wanted to go to the top of one of the tallest buildings in Singapore. Ainan has an interest in tall buildings, and has an encylopaedic knowledge of their heights, locations and designs. He has even been to the top of the Petronas Twin Towers (the tallest twin towers in the world) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (He did so a few weeks ago).

However, we had not been to the top of any of Singapore's tall buildings.

Anyway, we went to UOB Plaza and into UOB tower, myself, my wife and two children in tow. We had done our research and knew that, although we couldn't go to the top (62nd storey), we should be able to go to the restaurant on the 60th floor.

Once in the lobby, I soon saw an escalator going up, with a sign on its side: "Restaurant 60th floor". I saw others taking it, upwards, one after the other. I walked towards it, trailing my family. I was within three steps of it, when a guard approached. "Where are you going?" He asked. "The restaurant." I said pointing upwards.

He looked at his watch. "Six thirty. It opens at six thirty."

He wasn't going to let us up. I could see that. The matter of the opening time of the restaurant was just an excuse. It should have been obvious why we wanted to go up to the sixtieth floor with children in tow: to see the view. That, however, was not to be allowed.

I did note that no-one else had been stopped - only us. It must have been because we had children with us. A funny thing this Children's Day: people are so charitable on it - and clearly believe in the importance of children.

Next we tried Republic Plaza. This too is a very tall tower - similar to UOB Tower.

This time I thought it best to approach the guard directly and raise the issue with him, to gain permission.

"Is it OK if I take my children up?"

"Yes. Sure." he said.

Great, I thought, that simple.

I turned to call my children in.

"Which floor?" he then asked.

"The top."

"Oh no. You can't go up there. It is a private club: the Tower Club."

It seemed that he had supposed that I was taking my children up to my office. Once it was clear that I was just visiting the matter became an impossibility.

"What about another floor? A high floor?"

"No. You can't go up. It is not open to the public." He had changed from helpful to resistive in an instant. It was almost funny to watch, were it not to our disadvantage.

"Where then?" asked Syahidah, "Where in Singapore can we go up to the top of the towers?"

"In Singapore?" he began, as if to say..."Are you mad? Don't you know what it is like around here?" "They are all closed to the public. Except for Raffles City...you could try there."

"The restaurant?"

"Yes."

No - we both thought. Not tall enough - and too far from where we were now, what with our other plans to see to.

So, Republic Plaza wouldn't let two children go up to the top on Children's Day, either.

A funny thing this Children's Day: people are so charitable on it - and clearly believe in the importance of children.

My wife didn't want to go back to try UOB Tower again for it had seemed clear that he just didn't want us to go up. There was no reason why we couldn't go up to the sixtieth while the restaurant was closed: the view would still be open.

Ainan managed not to be too disappointed, though we had failed to give him his wish for the day. Or more precisely Singapore had failed to deliver what it could so easily have done.

It is a puzzle really. I have been to New York and been to the top of the Empire State Building. No-one tried to stop me. No-one said I couldn't. I am sure, too, that I could have brought my children had they been born at the time. Most countries make tourist attractions of their tallest buildings - but not Singapore. Singapore makes a no-go area of them. I can't see why.

The next wish was easier to grant. We went to the cinema to see Azur and Azmar - a fantastic film set in a world that never was - one of Arabian magic and Djinn Fairies. My wife particularly liked it because of the drawing style of the cartoons. It was directed by Michele Ocelot and is to be recommended to those who have children whose imaginations have not yet died. Even if they have, this might perk them up a bit. I won't say too much about it, lest I do what I loathe to see others do: spoil the plot. Let us just say it takes a look at childhood, motherhood and how lives turn out. It is also a comment on brotherly love and sibling rivalry.

One thing I did note on going to the cinema was that we had to take an MRT (underground train). I have never done this before with my children in tow, since we normally use taxis with them. I was rather surprised to note one thing: there was no children's rate. Both our children paid the full adult fare. That is rather surprising, especially compared to all the other countries I have been to. Everywhere that I can recall has a children's rate for transport - and for cinemas, by the way. Our children paid the full adult rate for the film, too.

Singapore may have a Children's Day - but it is far from being a child friendly city or culture. Perhaps that is why so many potential parents, here, choose never to become parents at all. Nothing is free here. In England, kindergarten was free, when I was a child - here, in Singapore, it is most definitely not - and is really quite expensive.

Everywhere we went, on Children's Day, our children had to pay their way, like fully-fledged adults: on the train, in the cinema...and at the restaurant (no children's portions).

Personally, I think it is a very short-sighted way to build a nation. The future of the nation is the little ones, the children. Yet, despite the existence of a Children's Day - and even on Children's Day itself - children get short shrift in Singapore. There are no concessions made here for parents or children. A country that chooses not to support children, in this way, is one that won't have too many children to support. In a few short decades, such a nation, will be an ex-nation. For without children, there is no future.

It comes as no surprise that Singapore has one of the lowest total fertility rates in the world (at 1.26 births per woman, listed 186th out of 195 countries, on Wikipedia). That rate, note, is so far below replacement rate that, without immigration, Singapore would drop to 60 % of its original population in one generation. It wouldn't take too many generations for there to be nation, at all.

Everywhere we went on Children's Day, not one Singaporean showed any evidence of consideration towards our children. No-one in Singapore seemed to know that it was Children's Day - or what Children's day meant.

A funny thing this Children's Day: people are so charitable on it - and clearly believe in the importance of children.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)