so i missed out on the whole ‘wah, 16 weeks!’ hoo-ha, because i just HAD to give birth four months ago instead of like… NOW. (yeah they brought forward the starting date to aug 08 instead of jan 09 because some clever mums-to-be started a petition on a motherhood forum. gah!)

dang it. there goes one month’s worth of $alary i could have $aved.

and somehow the whole slew of ‘incentives’ or ‘dangled carrots’ didn’t send me to the moon and back either.

because, just what IF i do decide to throw in the towel and do the sahm thing for real (as opposed to fantasy, which is what i’m living in now)?

then, the extra childcare leaves, paid or unpaid, would have no impact on me.

i would have no income, so nothing in it for me there in terms of tax reliefs.

the extra cash gifts? too late for that too. bah.

and if i really were a sahm, no change in subsidies if i decide to send my kids to pre-school because, you know, sahm’s children don’t *really* need to have a headstart with an EC education since their mums have all the time in the world to do the ‘teaching’ themselves, like make their own flash cards and paste words on all the furniture around the house, etc. right? :S

so it was with much interest and enlightenment that i read a forum letter by a certain ST reader.

Mistake to ignore stay-home mothers

I WATCHED Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally speech and realised just how much the Government values the working mum and how little the stay-home mother.

I felt disappointed and discriminated against. The Government is simply not interested in persuading stay-home mothers to have more children, presumably because we are not contributing to the economy. Tertiary-educated homemakers like me have been chastised for wasting taxpayers’ money on our education. We are constantly reminded that as it is our personal choice, we do not merit any incentives.

Stay-home mums willingly give up their financial independence and put their aspirations on hold because they believe that it is worth it.

They do so despite the disincentives, not because of any pro-creation benefits. They need no convincing about the joys of parenthood and do not fret about lost opportunities.

Doesn’t that make them the perfect candidates to have more babies? And surely, they need less persuading.

Stay-home mothers are not asking for handouts, just equality. Give our husbands (the sole breadwinner in our household) the tax incentives you are dishing out to working mums.

With our burdens eased, we may consider having more children. It wouldn’t cost the Government as much as the two-month extended maternity payout to the working mums, and may yield far greater results.

Stay-home mums are neither quitters nor parasites. They play an important role at home and are often active community volunteers. Educated homemakers want to stay active and return to the workforce when their children grow up.

The Government should respect a woman’s decision to stay home to care for her children, and provide opportunities for her to re-enter the workforce later.

I am fortunate to have started my family early and have discovered other passions while staying home with the children. I am now pursuing a second degree part time in preparation for my re-entry to the workforce when my youngest child goes to secondary school. I shall be 45 years old then, and not too old to embark on a second career.

I urge the Government to consider a two-pronged approach to boost birth-rates. It is already bending over backwards for the working mums and should consider stay-home mothers too.

We are women, we can bear children and we are willing to do so.

Lee Sui Yi (Madam)

man oh man, i wish i’d come up with that myself! i really couldn’t have said it any better.

i mean, i’m not exactly… uneducated. i would, or at least hope to, raise educated children too. while a sahm may not directly contribute to the economy, wouldn’t this be a kind of contribution in the grander scheme of things? and wouldn’t sahms be the more willing women to devote more time to procreating and adding to the population level, if anything, to justify their existence?

never mind the single working bees – let the sahms be the queen bees and do all the multiplying for you! come on, i even have the child-bearing hips and the child-nourishing boobs as guarantee and added bonus!

but… no money, no honey lor.

now, who wants to start a petition for sahms? :D

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 am and is filed under News, Parenthood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.