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I spent my entire life in the USA, and for the last 10 years I have felt this increasing feeling of isloation, rampant materialism and animosity toward anyone who thinks remotely different from you. After my step-father died in 2016, I simply couldn't deal with all the fake insincerely and deleted every instance of social media it was so toxic to my mental health.

I've never been happier, I just live my life. I've never opened TikTok, Instagram, or whatever else is around these days.

In 2019, my first son was born and I knew the USA was not an environment you can raise kids without help, the cost of child care alone would have been 1/2 my gross salary. I was lucky enough to have met my wife (on an airplane of all places) who was born and raised in Singapore. After my second son was born in 2021 we packed up everything and moved here.

I can tell you, while Singapore has its own set of issues there is an actual sense of community and responsiblity to each other. I have no fear that someone is going to screw me over, there is so much richness in relationships here. Every Saturday we shop at the same local fruit stall where the auntie gives my son free fruits, you know all the local store owners and it's so refreshing.

Some people may find family overwhelming but it's so fucking important to me, Singapore is so small that my kids see their aunties, uncles and grandparents like 5-6x per week. They have amazing relationships with them.

The focus on education is amazing, like my kid is 3.5 and he can already write letters in both English and Chinese. The most popular activity on a Saturday is taking your kid to tuition class haha. As a parent it is so reassuring to not have to worry in the slightest about the quilty of my children's education.

Childcare is not only subsidized by the government, you can get full time quality daycare for as low as $200-$300 USD per month. We send ours to a private one and only pay $1000 USD for 8AM-6PM. In addition we have a full time live in helper who we pay $550 USD. While this might seem quite low consider many people in Singapore earn around $2200 USD/month and they still have to pay all their rent and food.

Taxes are so low, we paid ~6% total tax on a HHI of 250k USD. There is 0% tax on capital gains Housing so much more expensive here, housing can run anywhere from $2000 USD for a 1BDR or $4000-$6000 for 3+ BDR.

Other than that everything is cheaper, I can get responsibly healthy lunches (bimbimbap, beef noodle soup, chicken and rice) for around 5$ USD. Groceries, I have heard they exploded in price since I left but we roughtly spend $400 USD for our family of 5 (2 kids + wife and I + our helper).

While there are valid concerns about free speech and an extremely harsh drug policy, as a parent as controversial as it may be I actually support the harsh stance toward drugs and the free speech policy makes people think twice before they say crazy shit. It works here and only here due to a lot of factors (small country size, overall attitudes towards drugs).

Anyway this post was long as fuck. All I can say is I found a place where I feel part of a community, and free to live my life. This should go without saying this is just my particular experience (shocking I know!).