”I wished I had lots of money to give to my mom so that she wouldn’t have to work; so that she can spend more time with me.” (girl with a single mom, from the video ‘Juggling With Work’)
I was struck by the simple, yet heart-wrenching words of this child in the video that we watched. This is real life proof of how the current trend of working women is affecting families worldwide. And I believe that this is the heart cry of many children who have ‘lost’ their parents to the workplace.
You could argue perhaps, that this is a different case- that she has a single parent, and things could have been different if she had both sets of parents. But I beg to differ. It doesn’t matter if a child has one, two, or even three parents (if that was possible). As long as parents are absent from their families because of work, they have lost their children.
When both parents work full-time, the responsibility of child-raising is shifted to someone or something else. This someone could be their grandparents, domestic workers or even childcare centres. However, I’m appalled that nowadays, parents have the audacity to leave their children in the ‘care’ of computers and television. Isn’t it common knowledge that family shapes the worldview of every child?
Coming from a single-parent background myself, I consider myself to be very blessed to be where I am today. My father passed away when I was 6, leaving my mother to feed 3 children, aged 6, 8 and 10. So she started to work, and left us in the care of a babysitter during the day. However, after a few years in the workforce, she decided to quit working and became a full-time mom.
Every night, she cooked dinner, and even when she didn’t, we went out and ate as a family. That was how she shaped my worldview on family-that is, a family sits together for meals. Mealtimes are the only time where we can meet and communicate with each other. Until now, this is what family means to me, and I find it rather strange when I come to know of families who do not have meals together although everyone is in the house.
To me, parents shoulder the responsibility of teaching and training their children. And this only happens when enough time is spent with their children. Sometimes parents equate the provision of finances with showing love to their children, but in fact, love equals time. Children need time with their parents. And when I say time, I mean quality time -the giving of undivided attention to their children, which excludes time spent sitting next to each other while the parent is making, and answering business calls.
Of course, work is important, but I feel there is a need for a clear dichotomy between work and family. Work should not be locking women in and shutting men out. To me, women bear the responsibility of nurturing their children. If they work, it should be only part-time, or on a temporary basis. Current financial difficulty is nothing compared to future emotional and spiritual security. And that only comes with quality time spent with children from young. I live to testify this truth. Honestly, my financial difficulties in the past only brought me more security now, because my security is not based on my material gains, but on who I am really inside.
In conclusion, let us focus on building up families, rather than on storing up capital gain and watching families breaking down. If Singapore really values its’ people, and considers them as resources of the country, then families should come first before work. Would you want to see Singapore poor in the future? Then just allow the current marriage and divorce rates to increase exponentially. Workers are only human, and they certainly will work joyfully even without emotional security.
