TODAY (Singapore)

In 2011, 15-year-old Jason Chng told his mother he wanted to be a doctor. While any other parent might have beamed with pride, she was fearful and hesitant to support his dream. Given her son's earlier struggle with a critical illness, she worried about his desire to pursue a career notorious for long hours and high stress.

For most of my 20s and 30s, while my friends were getting dressed up for drinks after work, or travelling on a whim to Europe, I was at home in a loose tee smelling of spit-up, with a baby in each arm and my unwashed hair scraped into a messy bun. I had my first child at 26. In the next eight years, I went on to have four more – and all five needed my constant attention. I was exhausted all the time. I gained weight, and oversized shirts and baggy jeans felt like the only clothes I could hide in.

Some of Mr Julian Teo's secondary school students are in such a rush to answer mathematics questions that they skip over words. Others start working out the solution even before they finish reading. The 48-year-old mathematics teacher said that he has seen this worrying pattern become increasingly common among his students over the past five years. He showed CNA TODAY an example of the kind of problem sum that his students find too long to read properly.

Since moving to Sembawang 24 years ago, Ms Bernice Ang has been sure to give herself ample time to get to appointments to factor in the long commute out of her neighbourhood. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) clusterwhere she lives is only served by two feeder buses – service numbers 859 and 859B – which head toSembawang MRT station. During the morning peak period, bus stops along the route are packed with residents thronging buses that arrive, with many struggling to squeeze on board.

Last November, I got an email invitation to an in-person meeting with my then-CEO, a rare occurrence. The meetingwas also scheduled for a Monday, a day when most of the company typically worked from home. "Is this a Bad News Meeting?" I asked my boss via online chat. I got a cryptic non-answer in response. It was, in fact, very bad news. Gathered around a meeting table, the bosses told me and a few other colleagues that we were to be laid off.

In my work providing financial education to lower-income Singaporeans, a participant in one of my courses once asked point-blank: "How can I save for an emergency when every month is an emergency?" It was a difficult but very real question. When you're the main breadwinner and unexpected expenses keep coming up, it can feel like that for many of the people we work with, including migrant domestic workers.

On gym days, Malcolm Ho is always waiting by the door at home five minutes early. If his father Alex Ho, 59, is not ready, the 30-year-old tells him: “Papa, go already.” Malcolm, who has Down syndrome, attends NCSF Uplift, a free strength training programme for people with special needs, including those with intellectual disabilities, autism, and physical, hearing or visual impairments. Exercises are adapted to each participant, who are known as "buddies".

Every morning, 58-year-old Dasuki Johari wakes up alone on his motorised wheelchair, which doubles as his bed in a tiny room in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He takes a sip of last night's iced teh-o (tea with sugar) from his insulated tumbler, heavily decorated with stickers of his favourite heavy metal bands and Liverpool Football Club.

In 2017, Ms Madeline Toh left a promising corporate career to take over a handmade udon restaurant in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. She had learnt through a friend that the two owners of the restaurant were retiring to return to Tokyo and were looking for someone to take over. "I had a pretty solid corporate career trajectory that I was actually looking forward to," said Ms Toh, who was then 28 and a management trainee at a multinational company.

Standing in his newly purchased condominium unit amid the renovation work, 32-year-old Shelton Chang couldn't shake off a surreal feeling. He was finally getting the space of his own that he had dreamed of since his 20s, and which for many years had seemed out of reach.