A privilege of being a “Stay at home” mum,

To be a full time mother or "stay at home mum" is really a privilege.

1. Time is our great enemy for all parents, time changes our babies into teenage and adults in no time. My children need me most when they are young, while my job can wait. Their beautiful, wonderful and innocent childhood fly like wind, passing quickly, it is more worthy to enjoy these time together.
   
   The study done by Teachers College, Social work professor finds association between mothers working full time and young child’s cognitive and verbal development. Professor Jeanne Brooks of Columbia Teachers College and her colleagues found that even after taking into consideration of quality of child care, the home environment and maternal sensitivity, the researchers found lower cognitive development for the children of mothers who worked full (30 or more hours per weeks) during the first nine months of life.



2. No one, not best childcare service can raise my children better than I can, no one loves my children more than I do. My children only have one mother, they don’t need a perfect teacher, the best childcare, or even the most wonderful nannies, and they need their mother. I don’t want them have someone to be substitutes. They need me as mother more than any company needs me.



3. Motherhood is the most demanding, challenging and rewarding career I have ever had. One can develop some many skills which could be valuable for her future career ever to personal development.

USA Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a stay at home mum for 17 years, she did not enter into electoral political position until her youngest son entered senior high school. She said: Don't think of this as a minus," Pelosi says. "This is a plus, being a mother, having an experience of raising a family."
Pelosi says her children gave her the scheduling discipline it takes to be a successful politician. Meeting their demands taught her to budget her time: "I was raising them, but they were forging me." "It renews you," Pelosi says. "It makes you stronger at doing the job you're doing. Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom. Not being a member of Congress, not being speaker of the House. I wish I could do it all over again.

The Value of Stay at home mothers in Singapore

The research done by our local scholar A/P Euston Quah in 1987 found that household service contributed our 5-8% GNP. 1997 some other scholar repeated the same research confirmed the finding. In some other country, household service even contributes as high as 23% of GNP.

In Singapore context, as dual income family increases over years, the smaller family size has also been found among these families. For younger couple, which wives age below 35, 40% dual income families do not have child while 20% single income family do not have child. For wife age between 35-44, more than 1/3 single income families have three or more children while 1/5 dual income families have the similar family size. For average family, single income family has 0.3 more child than dual income family

What does that translate? Taken GDP per capita in 2006 is S$46,832 and average life expectancy is 80 years, single income family contributes S$1.2 million more than dual income family.

There is a long term economic earning capacity dealt in each and every child. Besides economic value, stay at home mum certainly contributes in our national future human resource development and, most important social building foundation and social value reinforcement.

So what Government can do?

Like many other countries, our government has realized the urgency of ageing and decreasing TFR rates,
o Do not discriminate stay at home mums, give them practical recognitions and social supports
o Increase maternity leave could be one of effective measure, countries like UK has increased paid maternity leave to 9 months,
o Expand the more job options for mothers with new babies
o Reinforcement more on work-life balance,