괜찮아요

Okay, maybe it’s because the CNY season makes it more frequent for us to be very much updated with one another’s life [when we usually do not have the time to 'gossip' :p] and maybe it’s also because the “pressure” of being asked ‘where’s your bf/when is your turn to give ang-bao’ always surfaced that the discussion of marriage-age/life is gaining heat. This CNY has been quite “memorable” since it’s the first time I receive a ang-bao [red packet] from a cousin who is younger than me [she's 21 this year and got married last year while I was away and no, they just wanted to get married, no other reason whatever you may be thinking] and visited one of my sister’s friend [20 this year], who got married early last year and her son is now about a few months old.

Gosh!

Few would want to marry young these days. And I would say that the way our society now functions has played a part in this. Let’s see, generally, all of us need to attend 3 years of pre-school [nursery and kindergarten], then 6 years of Primary education, 4-5 years of Secondary education and then a 2-3 years of Pre-university education. By then, you are 18 or 19. And if you further your studies, by the time you graduate with a degree or BA, you are about 23-24 [for girls] or 25-26 [for guys]. If you don’t further your studies, you probably start to find a job and try to pay off the bank loans for your education thus far. Say, if you take 3 years to repay your loan, u are now 29 [guys] or 27 [girls]; then you begin to save together so that you can afford to apply for a HDB apartment. WOW~

You are really quite old by the time you save “enough” [especially since everything is so so so expensive these days; so I really wonder at times, how many children would people want to give birth to --- living standards are high, children's education finances is snowballing and you wont want to be running after your kids when you are already 40-50 years old right? -.-"]. So really, at times, it feels good to see that your friends are getting married young [there are pros and cons to marrying young and old anyway] since it’s so blissful.

Then again, there is always other pressure when you decide to marry young. “Are you ready to begin a family life of your own?”; “Are you ready to be parents?”; “Do you have the essential financial foundation?”; etc. It’s rather necessary to go through all these thought processes at times really. Also, another factor lies with the fact that marriage is not just the union of two persons, but of two families. Are the two families getting along well together? Are they supportive of your decision too?

It’s so not easy at all.