Play with a purpose: Intensive parenting, educational desires and shifting notions of childhood and learning in twenty-first century Singapore

This article examines how Singaporean parents negotiate complex expectations in relation to current reforms aimed at raising creative and problem-solving children. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the article explores how ideas of brain-claiming, resilience, and natural exposure shape parenting practices around young children’s learning. The findings suggest that parents’ sentiments of uncertainty and guilt in relation to their children’s future are entwined with and fueled by a deep-rooted narrative of national survival, reproduced in the form of 21st century skills.