#57: What 'Kiasu' Culture Is Really Costing Us with Teo You Yenn

Most of us have been taught that the pressure Singaporean parents feel is a mindset problem. That we just need to relax. Stop being so kiasu. The data tells a completely different story.

Associate Professor Teo You Yenn spent three years interviewing 92 Singaporean parents across every class background for her new book Unease; and what she found will reframe how you see your own life. Not just parenting. The whole thing.

She makes the case that the exhaustion, the anxiety, the feeling that you're doing everything right and still something is off.. none of it is personal. It's structural. And until we understand that distinction, nothing changes.

We talked about:

Why "kiasu" is not a cultural trait; and what it actually is

What it means that most parents describe their child as a problem to solve

Why Singapore's falling birth rate isn't a fertility problem - it's a conditions-for-family-life problem

The three quiet costs to our society that nobody is talking about

What the opposite of unease actually is (it's not ease)

What stayed with me long after we stopped recording: the way we're living is shaping who we're becoming. As individuals, as parents, as a society. And we haven't stopped to ask if this is who we want to be.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction