Math and literacy scores aside, the real problem lies in the expectation for parents to work like they have no children, and parent like they don’t have to work. If it’s really so important for our young children to spend more time at home with their parents and less time at a childcare centre, perhaps it’s time to make some things mandatory: starting with flexi-work.
So, we’ve been told that children in Singapore between the ages of three and six who attend more than 40 hours of childcare a week score lower in math and literacy, according to a large-scale Singapore-based study.
This is in contrast to their peers who attend childcare for seven to eight hours each day, or 35 to 40 hours in a week – an increase in childcare attendance within this magical bracket seems to lead to higher scores.
A good 38 per cent of children in Singapore spend more than 50 hours a week at childcare, which works out to over 10 hours a day.
As a parent, how do I feel about all these findings?
Admittedly, not great.
Not even because I’m worried about my children’s scores, but because I feel a mixture of chagrin and exasperation.
We are constantly told we can do this: pursue our personal ambitions and goals alongside raising a family.
We are told that these centres will be open from 7am to 7pm, so that we can drop our children there before work and pick them up after work. We are also assured that our children will be in good hands, with professionally trained teachers who will care for them while we work, and nurture them to the best of their abilities.
We can’t have it all, can we?
Working parents may not have a choice
For many of us, placing our young children in childcare centres seems like a necessity, not a choice. And shortening their school hours to less than eight hours a day seems impractical at best, impossible at worst.
Most families with both parents working nine hours a day will have their children at childcare for about ten hours a day. If they start work at 9am, they will have to drop their children off at school at 8am; if they end work at 5.30pm, they will likely only pick their children up at 6.30pm.
With an increasing number of workplaces requiring employees to be in the office five days a week, it seems even more of an uphill task for us to pick up our children within the 10-hour window.
As someone who works flexibly as a freelance writer, I reap the benefits of not needing to place my children in childcare beyond seven hours.
It is a privilege I will never take for granted, but for many of my working mum friends, the longer hours that childcare offers (7am to 7pm) is an absolute necessity.
How else can they go to work with peace of mind and give their best?
What about flexible working arrangements or alternative caregivers?
What about asking your boss for more flexible working arrangements, so that you can pick your children up early? Or enlisting the help of grandparents or a helper to do so?
It’s not as straightforward as that.
While employers are obliged to consider requests for flexible working arrangements, they are not obliged to grant these requests. Coupled with the push for more employees to return to office full time, five days a week, it becomes even trickier to navigate.
Anecdotally, the mums I’ve spoken to are hesitant to request for flexible working arrangements. They don’t want their colleagues to perceive that they are slacking off, or to be gossiped about as That Irresponsible Coworker.
Personally, I’ve tried looking for a full-time job with a flexible working arrangement that allows me to pick up my kids from school during lunchtime – with the promise of putting in hours at night to get my job done.
My search was futile. I was always politely informed that such working arrangements would be too complex to administer, and that it wouldn’t be fair to the other staff.
What I mean to say is: it’s really not that simple to request for flexi-work arrangements that allow you to pick your children up earlier from school.
What about enlisting the help of grandparents or helpers to pick your children up earlier from school, you may ask.
For one thing, not everyone has grandparents who are able to help in this way, nor does everyone have a helper.
On this note, I think the trained preschool teachers might just have an edge in educating our children, so getting the grandparents or helper to pick the children up early will likely not help very much in improving their learning.
Flexi-work can make things better
As a mum who works flexibly, I have full control over my schedule and can therefore pick up my children myself. I manage my meetings and calls around the kids’ schedules, and work late into the night during busy seasons to meet deadlines.
I’ve seen how my children have benefitted from me being at home with them from a young age – not solely in terms of reading and math, but also their overall happiness and development.
When my older three children were in preschool, they spent three to six hours at school each day. (They attended a kindergarten, which offered only three-hour and six-hour programmes.
My fourth child, who is five this year, spends anywhere between four and seven hours in her school each day. I chose to enrol her in childcare because I now need to spend a bit more time at work each day.
My youngest, who is now 20 months old, is still being cared for at home.
I’m not advocating for everyone to work like I do – but I really think more mums (and dads) can benefit from some form of flexibility in work arrangements – whether it is in work location, work hours, or work load.
This would allow us parents to continue working to the best of our ability, while being good parents too – whatever that may mean to each one of us.
Don’t forget that picking our children up from school early means that we will also need to be free to spend meaningful time with them when they’re home. After all, what is the point of ferrying them home only to park them with the helper or the TV just so that we can finish up one last deck of slides or send out one last urgent email? (Come on, it’s never the last one, we all know it – there’s always just one more).
Mums, sending your children to childcare while you work is NOT the problem. Having them spend more than eight hours a day in childcare is NOT the problem either.
For as long as current work expectations remain, and flexible working arrangements are encouraged rather than mandated, we will have to make the best of this – math and literacy scores be damned.
We don’t need another thing to feel bad about – motherhood is tough enough as it is.
For what it’s worth, we can definitely benefit from more workplaces making flexi-work mandatory for employees, so let’s keep on asking and advocating for that. Our children (and our sanity) will truly appreciate it if and when this comes to fruition some day.
Kelly Ang (@kelthebelle) is a freelance writer and a mum of five, who spends an equal amount of time each day writing, driving her kids around, nagging at them (sadly) and planning her next family adventure. She’s still learning new things about being the mum her kids need, 11 years into this motherhood gig.
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