How Flexi-Work Has Worked For Me, As A Mum Of 5

With the new flexi-work guidelines kicking in from December 1, 2024, all employers will have to fairly consider their employees’ requests for flexible work arrangements. Mum-of-five Kelly Ang, a freelance writer for 10 years and counting, shares her experience with flexi-work over the years. She’s convinced more mums can find a flexible work arrangement that works best for their family.

10 years ago, I made the decision to leave my full-time job in corporate communications when I gave birth to my eldest child. No one was more surprised by my decision than my then-unmaternal self. The plan was always to place my baby in infant care or enlist the help of loving grandparents who would be more equipped to care for my baby.

My bosses back then tried to dissuade me with well-intentioned suggestions to reconsider, because I was still rather young and had my whole career ahead of me. Quitting my full-time job, I was warned, may be a decision I’d come to regret. 

10 years on and five children in, I’m still working flexibly from home today, as a freelance writer. Suffice to say, no one is more pleasantly surprised at how long I’ve lasted than myself. 

Some days, I work two hours a day. Other days, I work six hours a day. Most days, I work from 10am to 1pm. Occasionally, I work from 9pm to 1am too. 

Every day is a delicate balancing act, managing everyone’s schedules on top of my work deadlines. But I’m so glad to be able to show up each and every day for my family in the exact way I want to, and all this is only possible because I have the huge privilege of working flexibly.

Truth bomb: Flexi-work is all the rage now. You can hardly scroll through your Facebook or news sites without seeing someone weighing in on it. It’s the future of work. Guides on how employers can implement it. What types of flexi-work arrangements can be requested for. Why it won’t work for some companies. Why it can work for every company. 

I’m here to make a case for why it’s been absolutely necessary for me in this season of my life, in the hope that more people can benefit from similar arrangements.

What my typical day looks like

Every day is packed to the absolute brim, juggling six separate schedules – mine and my five children aged between 11 months old and 10 years old. This is not a flex, don’t get me wrong. In fact, I think most mums keep similar crazy schedules; just call it a lifelong lifestyle occupational hazard.

Before I begin, I must say that I’m fortunate to have a hands-on husband, healthy and willing grandparents to step in whenever I’m unavailable, and a trusted helper who cooks our meals and keeps our home clean.

My husband and I tackle the morning school drop-offs in two parts (the primary school boys go first at 6.20am, then the preschool girls go at 7.30am) with my baby in tow, and we’re home at 8.30am. 

On most days, I get to grab breakfast with my baby with her happy coos as a welcomed side, play with her a bit, sometimes checking emails and replying work messages while I sit with her, then get her ready for her morning nap, snuggling with her as she nurses to sleep.

Time check: 10am, and it’s the start of my work day. 

I get started on writing – the bulk of my work; and I also schedule work meetings, calls, or interviews at this time. Meanwhile, my helper listens out for the baby and picks her up if she wakes before I’m done. And if I’m not at a meeting, I can even nurse her back to sleep to extend her nap; mums will know how AMAZING this feels.

When all the napping stars align, my baby is up from her nap at 12.30pm, and we have our lunch together before I pack her into the car with me for my afternoon shift as a Grab Mum. From 1.30pm to 6pm, I’m driving around to pick my kids up from school, drop them off at home or at class, or we’re hanging around somewhere waiting for a sibling to be done with their programme over kaya toast, coffee, and milo.

In between everything, I reply to work messages, take calls from clients, run through my never-ending to-do list, and plan article angles as I drive.

Dinner, showers and bedtime routines take up a good three hours in the evening, before I dive back into work again, from 9pm to midnight.

Rinse, and repeat, Monday to Friday. On some Saturdays, I work too, if I have an exceptionally heavy set of deadlines to meet in the week.

Is it hard work? For sure. But I’m glad I found this way to work and live, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. How else can I be there for my children when they’re home from school, have a handle on their schedules, help them with their schoolwork and studies, and still work at a job I love?

How I stumbled upon flexi-work

I’ll be honest, I never thought I’d do life this way. How could I, when all I’d known as a girl growing up was people going to the office to work from 9am to 6pm daily?

Flexi-work today is proof of the fact that just because something wasn’t done in the past doesn’t mean it can never be done in the future.

The Internet, mobile devices, and video call platforms like Zoom have made it possible for flexi-work to exist today, and I honestly think more of us should embrace it.

As a freelance writer, I work for many clients but am not bound to a fixed schedule or work location. Work is done as long as I meet my deadlines and am contactable on WhatsApp, on my phone, or a video call.

When I left my full-time job 10 years ago, flexi-work was not the norm at all. In fact, I count myself very fortunate to find my very first flexi-work arrangement as a freelance writer at a PR agency on career portal, Mums@Work.

There, I wrote social media posts, did PR writing, and wrote e-books and EDMs. I had worked out a system with the founder of the company, who allowed me to work on a retainer basis every month, requiring me to go into the office just once a week for team meetings.

Wanting to grow my portfolio, I moved to another agency six years ago where I now get to do long-form content writing, SEO blog articles, web landing pages, and even children’s books. 

On some days, I have to interview people for my articles. On others, I have to attend meetings with my clients. Thankfully, I’ve been able to do all this from home, especially post-Covid when video calls have become so widely accepted.

Looking back, working as a freelance writer on a flexible schedule was always intended to be a stopgap measure while my child grew up, because I wanted to be his main caregiver. Well, I ended up doing this for 10 years and counting now, and I’ve welcomed four other children into my family in the meantime.

Flexi-work is hard work

As with all things in mum life, the reality is always far from perfect. While my flexi-work situation may seem like a dream arrangement, I have to work very, very hard to protect my boundaries; when it’s time to work, and when it’s family time.

The truth is that working from home 99% of the time means that I don’t have a clear demarcation of space.

My work table is overrun with my kids’ possessions, and I often have to haul stuff off my table every morning before I start work. Some days, I just work at the dining table or the sofa, if the mood strikes me.

And that’s the other problem I face with my fluid work arrangements: switching from mum mode to work mode.

There simply isn’t the time and space to shift mental gears smoothly.

More often than not, I’m interrupted while I work even if I try my best to time everything to the T –because as we know, plans are made to be upended. Sick children, school closures, and Home-Based Learning days all throw a spanner in the works. Add in erratic baby naps, preschool meltdowns, and primary school homework and exams, and it’s like navigating a minefield of All The Things That Could Possibly Go Wrong And Prevent Me From Working.

Consequently, I’m unable to be fully present either way and it can get pretty frustrating typing the same sentence many times over, or not fully listening to what your children are telling you. The guilt is awful.

Yes, flexi-work is hard work. I wouldn’t compare it to a job with regular hours because that comes with its own set of problems – but you definitely cannot say that mums who work on a flexible schedule “have it easy” or work any less hard.

Times like that, I think to myself that maybe it’ll be better for everyone, especially myself and my mental health, if I stopped trying so hard to live out my flexi-work dreams. Maybe things would be neater if I just surrendered to the old norms and found a regular, office job.

Those thoughts are real, but they are fleeting, and I always come back full circle to the conclusion that I’ve made the right choice for my family and me.

When I pick my children up after school and hear their excited voices chatter on about their school day, when I sit with them to have lunch while we wait for their next class to start and I can hear about their fears and worries and try to soothe them away, when they’re sick and at home, and I can sit by their bedside to work without second thought… I know in my bones that I wouldn’t – couldn’t – have it any other way.

Is flexi-work for everyone?

I don’t purport to speak for all mums. But I daresay every single mum in Singapore has been doing some form of flexi-work for years now, without even realising it.

Hands up if you’ve ever had to get some work urgently done from home while you were supposed to be off work on childcare leave when your child was sick? Or if you had to come in to work later due to something inadvertent that happened in the morning? Or how about leaving to pick your child up early when you received a call from the childcare centre, only to catch up on work after everyone has gone to bed?

Flexi-work is already more common than you think, and only made more systematically pursued and evident in our post-Covid world.

And while not every industry can embrace fully remote work for instance, there is surely wiggle room for flexibility wherever you go.

Even nurses from Tan Tock Seng Hospital are going on flexi-shifts by the end of this year, in a system that would allow them to have a lot more flexibility in arranging their shifts to make up their 80-work-hour requirement every fortnight.

If you’ve been on the fence about fully embracing flexible work arrangements for whatever reason, this is your sign to lean into it and try it wholeheartedly. Maybe being able to work flexibly will be just the thing your family needs in this season of life. Maybe you’ll find that you can ace this motherhood thing and work thing, with more flexibility in your work week.

For what it’s worth, go on and ask for those flexi-work arrangements that work best for your family. Your boss can still turn you down even after the new flexi-work guidelines come into play this year end, but if more of us ask for flexi-work arrangements, our voices will be louder and will one day be harder to ignore.