All In The Family

Before you became a mum, what did you do for work?
I was a paediatric nurse with the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, but I quit to focus on my own kids.

How has this change been for you—becoming a stay-at-home mum?
I think it’s been nothing short of amazing, because you get to witness each and every one of their milestones, which not many parents are able to do because they work full-time jobs.

Of course, there are tough parts to it too. I think now that my son, Oliver is older, he’s able to talk back more, so sometimes it feels like I’m like arguing with my mini me. But otherwise, I feel like becoming a mother has really changed me. I’m more patient now, I see things differently, and I’ve learnt to sort of slow down in life. I’m also more willing to do lame things that I wouldn’t have done previously, like queueing up for hours to go on a ride that the kids like, or to enter a place where they can play.

What is one thing you hope your kids will remember as they grow up?
One thing I hope my kids remember is how my husband and I try to spend a good amount of time with them, to give them the kind of childhood that our parents couldn’t quite give us because they had to focus a lot on work.

Now, we just want to play with them as much as we can before they actually start formal education, because what’s lacking in our society is free play. So most of the time, we like going to beaches and bringing them to museums because they have good subsidies for locals and kids.

We also travelled quite a bit when Oliver was much younger, but COVID happened so we had to stop. Because of that, my younger daughter Maggie has been stuck at home since she was born, but now that borders are opening up, we’re trying to bring her out more. That’s why their personalities are so different.

Are you planning any trips as a family?
We just came back from Vancouver in April actually. We try to avoid peak periods like the school holidays, since flights and baggage tend to get delayed and stuff like that. So our next trip will probably be this month.

We’re going for a short vacation to Desaru for my husband’s Ironman race. He was doing that previously, but COVID stopped everything, so now we’re trying to get back into it. So this time, Maggie can experience waiting by the side for a few hours (laughs). Ask papa to run faster (laughs).

What part of yourself do you see in your kids?
What’s a better word for defiant? (laughs) Determined? Assertive? Yeah, they have their own opinions on things, which we encourage, because we want them to use their voices to ask for the things that they want.

In the past, most people believed that children should never talk back to elders, and should be seen and not heard, but we want to give our kids more autonomy. We want them to know that their voice and opinions matter in this family. They get to choose what they want to eat or do, and we have discussions as a family instead of us providing close-ended options like a yes or a no to everything.

In fact, Oliver picked out my watch for me today. He insisted I wear this Swatch Kids watch with him so that we can twin! And we just bought his shoes yesterday because Maggie has had hers for a while now, and Oliver suddenly decided that he wants to twin with his sister as well. So I said “Okay lor!”

I think a lot of younger parents are adopting this kind of gentle parenting technique, because we have a lot of resources now, like Google and Instagram and all, so we’re able to do our own research and decide “Okay, this is for me, I want to do this”.

Being a stay-at-home mum is a never-ending job. How do you get me-time throughout the day or week?
I think there are a lot of versions of me-time, like self-love. And this shouldn’t be “Oh, I’m going for a manicure, I’m going for a facial, I’m going for a haircut”. Rather, self-love should be learning how to say no. Like “No, this is too much, I don’t want any visitors, I want to rest”. You know, especially when you’ve just given birth, and everyone wants to come and visit you, you really just learn how to say no.