Sifting Through

Tell us more about yourself.
I just left my post as a polytechnic lecturer—I was there for six and a half years—and I’m moving on to develop my next career move.

You have two kids—what’s the hardest part about raising them?
They need to eat all the time and they eat so much. My kids are both reaching their teenage years, so they’re both going through a growth spurt. As much as I want to always give them healthy food, the thing with kids is that they’re always going to want their McSpicy at the end of the day—and they’ll ask for the double McSpicy. So it’s always a challenge to balance that.

We see that you have quite a few skull-related accessories—share with us what draws you to them?
I used to like skulls and roses since I was young, and I’m still quite fond of them. A lot of people are fearful of skulls because they remind us of death, but I don’t think we should be scared of it. I’m also a widow: my husband passed away six years ago, so death has always been a very big part of my life and I’ve learnt to embrace it.

If you could change something in society, what would it be?
As a single mother, I feel that people’s perception about single parents need to change—we’re often not accepted into the general framework of society, because of the idea that single-parent families are incomplete. But we’re all part of perfectly normal and functioning families; it’s just that they’re not a reflection of a typical nuclear family that we see so much in the media.

Is there a stereotype that you feel we should leave behind?
The concept of family is quite outdated. A family shouldn’t be placed in a heteronormative sense—these days, a family can mean a group of friends you’ve known your whole life.