Do you think professional parenting is the way to go for S'pore?

Professional Parents are foster parents who have been carefully selected, licensed, and specially trained to raise other people’s children. Over the last few decades, our culture has become less and less clear about its messages to parents and other guardians and educators of its children. Parents often experience doubts or guilt regarding the decisions they make for their children’s sake because they receive so much conflicting advice from various “experts” in the field of child rearing. Much of this confusion is a result of the rapid changes our society as a whole has been going through. Thus, I feel that parents should do without role models and scripts, let alone pushing their parental responsibilities to strangers, and let their hearts be their guide.
The life of the family is a learning experience for both the parents and children. The idea of family is to go through trial and tribulation together. I believe that parenting is about the process and not the end result. Natural parenting allows the parents to rein in their own expectations. This is because professional parenting is based on certain fixed philosophy. For an example, it could be based on the western idea of nursing and nurturing babies which may not be suitable for the Asian ways.
It is not an uncommon sight in Singapore to see both parents out working, leaving their children in the hands of the maids. While I agree that professional parenting makes parenting more efficient, family life is not about efficiency. There is a saying that “a home should be clean enough to be healthy but dirty enough to be happy.” Moreover, there has also been much focus on work-life balance. The five-day work-week and flexible work arrangements such as telecommuting and part-timing have made it much easier for officers to fulfil their responsibilities outside work, as well as to engage in other pursuits. Thus having insufficient time to take care of their children is not an excuse for parents to turn to professional parenting.
Journeys into unknown territory often involve taking two steps forward and one step back. Parents swell with pride in seeing their young ones make their first baby steps. Why not, then, take a little pride in their own? At the end of the day, would they want their babies to call them mummy or nanny?

Alumni Donations

With reference to the article from The Straits Times on 23 February, more alumni are donating to the National University of Singapore (NUS) bursary fund although they are aware its bursaries have been going to foreigners too.

NUS had confirmed that four in ten students who were awarded bursaries last year were foreigners. Some critics felt that foreign students were already subsidised by the Government to a large degree. Hence the bursary fund should benefit local students instead of the foreigners.

Personally, I feel that as long as they are needy students, whether or not they are local or foreign, it does not matter who receive the bursaries. Moreover, NUS took pains to stress that Singapore students were catered to first, before the funds went to the foreign students who are in need. However, as the saying goes, “Action speaks louder than words.” Thus I feel strongly that NUS should practise the principle of transparency by showing the public the process of selection of students for the bursaries, for an example. We have to look at the big picture. There is a higher probability that local students will contribute back to our society as compared to the foreign students. Therefore my stand would be NUS must "invest" in the right group of people and take care of all the local students first.

S'pore and Thailand

Referring to the article from The Straits Times on January 21, I dare say that I am proud of Singapore. This is because despite the souring of bilateral relations, Singapore is still going ahead with the programme of training Thai doctors for the first time.

Many Singaporeans travel to Thailand for holiday or business. So Thailand’s Accident and Emergency expertise will benefit us too. As for Thailand, with more trained doctors in the medical line, there is a glimpse of hope in the improvement of the country’s level of healthcare.
The training programme went ahead as scheduled although last Tuesday, the Thai government, as part of its response to its former premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s recent visit to Singapore, cancelled an invitation to Foreign Minister George Yeo to visit Bangkok. It also suspended the Singapore-Thailand Civil Service Exchange Programme (CSEP). To make matters worse, unhappiness engulfed in most of the Thais with Singapore’s win in the recent soccer match. All these certainly heightened the diplomatic tension between the two countries.

However, Singapore and Thailand are very close friends. And just like teeth and tongue or husband and wife, sometimes there will be quarrels. But I just hope that it will not last for long.