That's an interesting perspective :- "How much do you intend to spend for your children's education?
Do you intend to lend a helping hand for your children purchase of first car or property when they start their family?
Not providing a helping hand means unlikely they will provide financial assistance when you get old"

If your argument was based on the fact that the children will only reciprocate your financial help, then it is a sad day indeed. However if your argument was premised on the fact that if you dont lend them a helping hand, and they ended up not doing well in life, then that's a different story.

My parents were unable to help us financially because they were lowly educated and thus were not holding well paying jobs. But they helped us in other ways. Their encouragement for us during our days of schooling was enough for us. My parents are now staying with us in our 4 bdroom condo and all their needs are taken care of by me.

I dont expect my children to take care of me financially when I am retired, but if they chose to, it will be a bonus. My wife and I have been preparing for our retirement for sometime now and we have built up 3 sources of passive income streams. Our target cash flow when we are finally retired is $150k pa. We are not there yet, but getting close.

Now that CPF allows top of the retirement amount to $241K, we will also take advantage of that. This will then add to our cash flow of another $3.6K pm or $43K pa (combined for the two of us) when we reach 65. This will bring our cash flow at 65 yr old to $193K pa. More than what we will need.