Petition?

Now that the details of the new Baby Bonus have been finalized and made public I would like to express my feelings and thoughts as a father.

While I am happy that Mothers will get an additional 4 more weeks of maternity leave I am also worried for some of them at the same time. As it is we are already hearing ladies complaining that their office is not very family oriented so by increasing the maternity leave will it affect the job opportunities for these ladies?

Say a company planning to hire a staff is presented with 2 very qualified and good candidates. Will this company choose the one that already has a few kids over the one that just got married and is planning to start a family within 2 years? If this company is small and worried about staff going away on maternity leave surely it will reject the latter right? Let’s not even talk about promotion.

Guess the above scenario is also good for the Stay At Home Mummies who are looking at rejoining the work force after taking care of their children during the early years.

As you know the new incentives were originally supposed to take effect next year but what you may not know is there was a petition from the SMH mummies to have the effective date backdated to August hence benefiting almost everyone.

My sister is due sometime in October and she is of course on the October Mummies thread and according to her there is this mummy who is also due in October and she was the one who called for this petition. It seemed she gathered enough signatures to sway the government to change their decision.

I always say those mummies on SMH are amazing. Getting all the bulk purchases and now getting the Government to amend their policy. I know they tried to bring in prams and strollers at about half price but unfortunately that hit a road block. Nevertheless I am confident it is only a matter of time before they work around it. Imagine if they can bring in cars or the latest gaming consoles with their bulk purchase wouldn’t that be fantastic?

So the mothers are all happy now. What about us dads?

When PM Lee said gave his speech and touched on the role of a father, he had the following to say: “First of all, we have to share responsibilities for child-raising. Traditionally the husbands go to work, wear the pants, the wives stay at home, have the babies, take care of the babies. And it's true that the women have a better touch with children. But the situation today is different and the men can make the effort. If husbands leave everything to the wives, or the women are forced to choose between working or having babies, they are going to go on baby strike. So the husband has to share duties at home. I was discussing this with some MPs, including a lady MP and I said, you know, nowadays, I see men carrying babies in the markets when they go out. So she says you think carrying babies is enough? You have got to wake up at night, feed the baby, change the nappies. I used to change nappies. In the days before pampers, you’ve actually got to fold the cloth, you got to put it on, you got to put the safety pin and I haven’t pricked any baby yet. If I can do it, it means everybody can do it and I think that you have to change these attitudes.”

After his speech I was glued to the TV waiting with anticipation for his announcement of paternity leave and as you should have all guessed, I was left bitterly disappointed. On one hand he said that times have changed and parenting these days cannot be left to the mothers alone but on the other hand the Government still does not recognize that Fathers like me do appreciate paternity leave so as to allow us to help out at home when the wives are recuperating.

According to our Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Wong Kan Seng, Men in general just prefer not to take the paternity leave. See article here. “Surely the statistics must be wrong because I for one will welcome the idea with open arms” I thought to myself. “Why is it that these types of studies never find their way to me? Same thing with the Durex sex survey?” was my next thought.

So, with the successful petition by the mothers to backdate the effective date of the incentives, I was wondering to myself if I should start a petition too for us fathers. I was confident that there must be many fathers like me. That was until the Mrs told me that there are really not many. In fact some of the husbands of her friends and acquaintances are actually relived that there will be no paternity leave. For a lack of a better word, I was “SHOCKED”!!

“Really?!?! How come?” I asked.

Interestingly enough it is not on money issue and fathers generally earning more. According to the wives, the husbands are worried that with paternity leave they will be "forced" to take the leave and stay at home to help care for the kids. If the wives do not expect them to help out at home then paternity leave would have been welcomed because they can take four weeks to enjoy their golf or catch up on their many hobbies, healthy or otherwise.

After listening to the Mrs I found my answers to both my questions. 1) There is no need to petition because we already know what the response will be. 2) This is why I never get to answer these types of surveys because I am not their targeted audience. I have a feeling perhaps these surveys are done with the fathers at the golf course on a Sunday afternoon or at the pubs on any given nights.