Count On Maids, Singapore

In today's ST Prime News headline "Give women the right to ask bosses for flexi-work", Para. 5 states "It is women, whether they work outside the home or not - and not men - who will be their children's primary caregivers. But our laws fail to recognise this cultural expectation."

Para. 6 states "The fact is, the ideal worker, whether male or female, can work endless hours only because some woman - wife or maid - is taking care of the childcare and household work. Since men don't generally help out very much in childcare, some women have compensated by staying single, putting off pregnancy if they marry, delegating childcare to maids, or not having any babies at all."

It is hard to change cultural expectations and roles without the drive of the government. Our govt. has done a good job adding on to the cultural role of wifes of just a homemaker. Now she is expected to work also. And men's role has not changed (maybe only in some cases - New age men). Maybe that is why childcare and parenting are being delegated to maids.

But a few questions her to ask couple today:-
1) How do they defined " giving the best to their children?"
2) How much money is enough for a family to live a comfortable and happy life.
3) By the time they have climb to the top of their career with even higher responsibility, and the children have grown, would they have miss out a lot on the childrens' lives? Will they still have time and energy to do the catch-up? Will their children be comfortable with letting them into their lives?
4) If they hire a maid, how sure can they be that the maid will love the child like her own? Even if the maid will, can she be by the children's side forever? And when she leaves after many years, how will it affect the children emotionally and psychological?

This posts somehow brings me to think about the roles of parents.

Being an Asian country, most family culture are such that the father brings back the dough. The mother’s place is the house and the kitchen.

I think in the past, our government saw the need to include women in the workforce and it greatly contributed to our economic growth. What I feel was missing was that the government forgot to educate the men to also be included in the household affairs, and their children's moral and academic development. Therefore, now, very often, but not in all cases, mothers are expected to work out there, and still perform the same tasks at home, while the husbands are still in the frame of mind (comfort zone) that those things at home are for the mothers and not the fathers. Fathers are still lagging behind in the old frame of mind – “My role is to bring back the dough only. My father did that too.”

Both the father and mother figures at home are just as important.

I am writing this assuming that a family lacks the presence of a father (though he is there providing material means of liveing), which is already lacking to any children. So I cannot imagine when both father and mother throw themselves out there focusing most of their time and energy on their career, and delegating the parenting job to a maid.

I think if financial situation calls for it, both parents need to work. But work should not "suck" them dry so much so that when they reach home, they cannot spend quality time with the children. Even if in the day, the children are taken care of by a maid, it is okay. As long as the parents still spend quality time, communicating with their children, guiding them in homework and housework, having leisure time together, providing a model of responsible parents, their children will follow this model. The children will “catch” the spirit and attitude of this model. They will subconsciously understand that yes, both my parents have to work but, they do not "escape" from their main "job" as parents once they reach home. They will feel loved. They will feel secured. Automatically they will pass on this legacy to the generations to come.

We need them, that's for sure. But i wonder how our children, brought up by domestic workers, will grow up to be....

In this country, the way some people treat out foreign workers and domestic helpers is truly appalling. I wonder if this is in-grained in our psyche and that it runs through our whole society as in an elitist country where those at the top of the hierarchy treats the plebians with utter contempt.

In the current society, people cannot afford to be ignorant of the responsibilities involved as we are part of the community. Everyone has a role to play in the society. The government believes that as Asians, filial piety should be deeply valued. The government and society cannot replace family warmth in any way. One way of showing warmth towards family is by taking care of the parents by themselves. It is futile to push the blame as it can never end by playing victim.

I have friends who parents have died when they are still schooling. They have actually regretted of not being able to take good care of their parents when the parents are still alive. The sense of remorse is certainly hurtful.

It leads to the importance of primary and secondary school education as most parents fail to instill the cycle of responsibility according to OneHuman. The vicious cycle can be reversed based on a decision made by the youngsters today. It is alright to be casual and careless for a while but sooner or later, the problems will come back. The failure of recognizing the responsibility cycle requires a combination of awareness and actions to be taken in order to resolve. If everyone does not wish to bear responsibility and become selfish, the old folks’ home will sure have businesses because of demand and supply. It gives a poor image of portraying Singapore as an non-compassionate country that lacks of family values.

Singaporeans have their shared values in place. I found them on a back page of a primary school exercise book that I have used 10 years back.

Our Shared Values

- Nation before community and society above self

- Family as the basic unit of society

- Community support and respect for the individual

- Consensus, not conflict

- Racial and religious harmony

I believe that Community Involvement Programme is effective when people are making the effort to benefit the needy. The calling to help is required from within. My parents do not believe in contributing to the local community, but I’m doing social service every weekend. By doing social service, I understand that the old should be taken care of not just for responsibility, but compassion. By giving back, the sense of satisfaction is there and it can never be replaced by maids.

I agree with the point that maids deserve respect. Furthermore, I think they should be treated as helpers more than servants as Singapore emphasize on equality and compassion. A person carrying a white-collared job deserves equal respect as a person carrying a blue-collared job, regardless of nationalities. The reason being that in every occupation, there is a paid service involved to benefit a group. As long as the job is clean, legal and ethical, there is no reason why they do not deserve the respect. Stereotyping is an unhealthy thinking as every individual is different. To me, the role of a maid is important as they make sure that the house is clean. If they fail to do a good job, the occupants of the household can get sick easily. The maids deserve recognition for their efforts as they are in debt of their agents before coming to Singapore. Usually, they have a family to feed in another part of the world. Wouldn’t it be better for the locals to be friendlier towards the maids, considering their family background to be less better than the locals in general?

Hi gwen,

I agreed with you when you typed that the government should do more for new mothers.

The pace of our society is defined by the government. How fast we must run is really up to the government to set the pace for us. At the same time we are also expected to reproduce enough offsprings for obvious reasons. It has never been easy on females because they need to take on many roles at the same time. So it is only fair that the government should also takes care of those who needed help to cope.

Due to this fast pace of life, people became less connected inwardly, people can't feel for others as much as they should. Drivers are mostly selfish, the youngsters are mostly self-centred, people are busy chasing material wealth as if it is the only things that really matters, nothing else seems as important. People here lack substance, material success is like a beautiful but empty vase. Mothers definitely needed urgent help to reconnect themselves with their children again, otherwise these children, when they grow into teens, will seek for comfort elsewhere such as sex, cyber games, drugs, alcohol, smoking, petty crimes.

I dread to think what kind of adults will take over the running of this country when these youngsters grow up. But I am sure there will always be some who grow up as good civic minded adults who will lead the way.

Who are we, where do we come from, where are we going? The truth is, are we really for the real answers or not? Perhaps another 300 years from now. The ancient answers are already there for all to see, but most of the time when people do see, they cannot comprehend. They feel it is too godly true. They rather take the trouble to find out the answers from all corners of the universe except from within themselves. Perhaps most of us need another 300 years to realize ourselves.

After my sister had my niece, she got a full-time live-in FDW. But I personally quite like her system with regards to her FDW and child-care. Basically, she or my bro-in-law or the grandparents (both sides) still did all the direct child-care, while her FDW only handled all the housework, including things like preparing my niece's food, etc., but never directly taking care of my niece.

Even when my sis and bro-in-law took my niece out, they would be the ones to carry her, feed her, clean up after her, scold her, etc. Their FDW was literally just that - a domestic worker. What this also meant was that when they had to send their FDW back, they weren't very handicapped in terms of caring for my niece, since they'd been doing it all along.

And both my sis and bro-in-law work full-time jobs, so it's not like they're a single-income family. But here, of course, is where the grandparents helped tremendously, because there would always be someone to watch the girl while they were at work, or to pick her up from class, etc.

I don't have kids yet, but when I do, I would very probably follow the same system as I can see how it has made my niece very close to her parents and grandparents (and even me), and how it has also made my sis and bro-in-law very independent parents who are able to function quite comfortably with or without an FDW. :)

i believe being a woman these days require us to work and to handle all household chores will be difficult, but then i am still a woman, a wife and if i become a mother there are certain roles i will have to play i will not leave these responsibilities to a maid.
Cooking for your family, looking after the child when he still young(a child needs his mother the most to make him feel secure). i used to be from the childcare sector i can see that the child does not cry for his mum anymore instead he calls out for his 'kakak'(maid), even when his mum is present.
The government should definitely reward mums who give up their careers to take care of the child atleast for the first 2 yrs.

We still have to count on our family. Maids are here in many families to help the busy parents to do the households, they should never be surrogate parents or to assume the role of the mother at home.

To Edward Ong, I have seen children who grow up and ignore their aged parents simply reply that it is not their parents that is responsible raising them but instead it is their maids. They would also describe their parents as banks and responsible for only their birth.

With such an answer you can't blame the children for ignoring their responsibility as the parents themself fail to instill the cycle of responsibility. Individualism has taken its roots not only here in Singapore but most other capitalist countries where money is top priority and entertainment comes close second while social reponsibility comes near the very bottom of anyone list.

You can't blame the younger generation as the government has also instill the spirit that one should work till one death but what the younger genertaion would need to acknowledged is that the cycle will hit them too, when they are older they will be neglected. This is also a part of the problem of why not many younger couples would elect to have a child, while not many would say but a child use to be a safety net for parents when they are older but with the way its going, it is highly unlikely a child can be use as a safety net when one is older.

This also leads to the issue of family responsibility. Singapore, being an affluent society, has the capabilities of hiring foreign maids to work for the locals. The common reasons of hiring foreign maids could be lack of time, work etc. However, why don't people consider taking care of aged parents as a form of family bonding? If the working class has the time to meet clients, why don't they treat their families as their most important clients in their everyday lives?