NDR 2024: Can We Support Parents Beyond The First 6 Years?

As a mum of five young children in Singapore, I listened to the announcements made at the National Day Rally by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong with bated breath.

I was hoping for some big policy changes that would make my life as a mum just that bit less stressful. After all, experts were predicting more support for families in the form of more childcare leave, or social support for raising a family.

So at 8.45pm on Aug 18, when PM Wong announced the first slew of policies on increasing paternity leave from two to four weeks, it seemed really promising. Then the announcement of the additional 10 weeks of shared parental leave – and I felt my heart beating faster.

Wow, new parents will get to spend so much time with their new children! I thought enviously.

Childcare fees will drop to $300 a month for government-supported preschools. Maybe I should switch schools for my daughter in N2, to benefit from this! 

As I kept listening, I remained hopeful that there would be something to alleviate the stresses of being a mum to slightly older children past the age of 6. 

All the unseen labour of juggling my work deadlines with their packed-to-the-brim schedules while ensuring we kept on top of academic work and spent quality time together…

All too soon, the rally speech was over. And I realised that I, along with all the other mums with older children in Singapore, were still very much on our own.

Additional parental leave a huge win

Let’s talk about the generous leave new mums and dads will get to enjoy with their newborns first.

I’ll be among the first to say without hesitation that it’s GREAT, and absolutely a long time coming.

Having had my first child in 2013 and my youngest one in 2023, I’ve seen how much parental leave has increased over the last 11 years; and I can say with certainty that having more parental leave definitely eases the transition with a new child to the family, 

When my eldest was born, my husband was entitled to only one week of paid paternity leave. That was considered a big thing then.

When my second son was born in 2015, paternity leave had doubled to two weeks – a norm for the last decade, until next year when paternity leave will double to four weeks, and potentially go up to 14 weeks from April 2026.

So when I heard about the enhanced leave benefits for children born next year, I immediately thought: time to try for another!

After the initial excitement died down, I realised that the leave benefits are enticing for having a new baby in just their first year of life. I’d still have to spend the next 20 years of my life parenting.

The truth about parenting older children

As a Singaporean mum who’s currently deep in the trenches of raising young children, I think we are forgetting that children don’t suddenly raise themselves after they leave preschool. The wider and more stressful world of primary school awaits.

Teaching our children how to be good and kind people, how to navigate different social situations, encouraging them to pick up healthy habits and modelling it to them, having difficult conversations about life, coaching them through their tests and examinations – all these are part and parcel of having an older child.

Without a doubt, parenting gets more complicated as a child grows older. I miss my older children as tiny babies, when life was a lot more straightforward.

Crying baby? Maybe he’s hungry, has a dirty diaper, or is overtired, overstimulated, or uncomfortable. All of which have a logical, correlating solution. 

Crying primary schooler? Maybe he had a rough day at school and acted out in class, failed an exam that he studied really hard for, didn’t make the school badminton team, or got made fun of. None of these have a textbook solution.

I deal with upset children from the ages of one to 11 on a daily basis. I’d say without hesitation that handling a fussy baby is the more straightforward and less heartbreaking task.

So, what would help?

Which brings me to my final point: parents who want to give this parenting gig their best shot (who doesn’t?) need to invest a lot of time, effort and resources into loving and nurturing each child in the way he or she needs. 

There’s absolutely no shortcut.

You can school bus the children home. You can pay for a tuition teacher to cover the academic bases. You can hire a helper to cook those meals and clean the house. 

But you (most probably) cannot get someone else to talk or hug your kid through their disappointments, tuck them into bed each night, and teach them the values and morals you hope will lay the foundation of their life.

More flexi-work arrangements, for one thing, would give us more time to be around for our children. Working parents who have to beat the evening jam after a day of work in the office have a precious one to two hours each day with their children after dinner and before bedtime. How is this okay?

More childcare leave, for another thing, would help. My close friends and family who juggle full-time jobs with their mum duties unanimously say that the current childcare leave entitlements are lacking. Six days of childcare leave a year for parents with children aged 6 and below. Two days of childcare leave a year for parents with children aged 7 to 12. Regardless of the number of children parents have.

And how about subsidised bigger homes for bigger families? The enhanced CPF housing grant announced at the NDR are great for young couples looking to start a brand new family, but those of us with growing families are once again overlooked.

The current size of a 5-room HDB Built-to-Order (BTO) flat is approximately 110 sqm, which comes with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. 

I’d lived in one such flat with four children and a helper for five years. It was honestly a bit of a squeeze. We gave our helper her own room – that left two bedrooms for the six of us.

We’ve since moved to a slightly bigger home which has 3+1 rooms for my growing family, but it took some creativity and courage to take the step, in the hope of a better quality of life for my children.

Closing thoughts

I stand wholeheartedly with PM Wong when he says that realising our refreshed Singapore dream where we can thrive at our own paces requires us to have a mindset shift. 

I have been living that out in my last decade as a mum, striving to navigate my motherhood journey on my own terms. But courage and (naive) determination wouldn’t have sufficed to bring me to where I am today.

I have only been able to carve out my own path, making a living from flexible freelance writing thanks to forward-looking and supportive bosses I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with.

I’m hoping our government can be exactly that for more parents in Singapore as we raise the next generation, who will carry our dreams on their tiny backs and turn them into reality when it’s their turn at the wheel.

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.