The childcare concern

While we regard being a Full time mother as a privilege, we also understand that it is absolutely a personally choice.

The childcare will be the number one concern of women who are not able to have such privilege. I would like to discuss the childcare options of in local Singapore context.

The first option is Grandparents supervised childcare arrangement. That appears to be the most popular choice in Singapore, as Asian traditional family value still dominate in society. It echoes “Blood is thicker than water”. Many working mothers are able to return work force as early as their baby turns three months, because they are confident their children are in good hands. Grandparents, as the same time, find joy and fulfilment in taking care of their grandchildren. The couples will send their child or children to grandparents’ home on the way to work, and then pick them up on the way home. Very often, they will stay back for dinner. In such way, not only children are being well taken care, the family union is strengthening through constant communicating and mutual beneficial relationship.

However, sometimes, things may turn sour too, when two generations have different opinions especially on child discipline or education, this “ideal” arrangement may suddenly turn to be double edged sword.

The second most popular option is to hire a domestic help.Though not all the domestic helpers are hired for sole childcare purpose, the majority of dual income families are using domestic help as the main childcare giver. That inevitably involves risk. Fewer today’s domestic helpers possess the professional attitude and aptitude which olden days’ domestic helpers had. Most of all, if there is no another adult supervision; the child is under her total mercy and influence. we have heard enough scary stories of irresponsible maids, if you happen not lucky, we cannot imagine the harmful effects on your child and your family.

The third option is childcare centre. The quality and cost of childcare centre are various great deals. As we suggested in our earlier post, for a reasonable good quality childcare centre, the fee for full time care is about S$800. That imposes no small financial burden to many young couples. The average children numbers in childcare centres are 30 with average two teachers and the youngest acceptance age is 18 months onwards. Teachers or helper will have some challenges to give equal and adequate attention to each child. It is also understood that 24% childcare teachers are not qualified ( means do not have "early education teacher's diploma"). Young children also are subject to more risk of contacting infectious diseases in a large crowd setting such as a childcare center.

Therefore, after examining these three popular options, it is our recommendation for the first two years of child’s life, it will be best for a mother to take up the career as Full Time Mother. This is really the best choice on childcare concern.