A Singaporean In Australia

You know, if I were a member of the PAP Women's Wing, I would want to make sure Singaporean mothers have the peace of mind in regards to finding a shelter over their heads, regardless they are married or not. Very simply, any parent needs a roof to raise a kid. If the Government refuses to allocate public housing for the needs of single mothers who is left to help them?

Instead, all the PAP Women's Wing care for are CPF benefits for married women who chose to be stay-at-home mums. Unlike the past, a stay at home mum is a rarity of late. To cope with the high cost of living in Singapore, most mothers have to work. The Government encourages that because it increases productivity and are willing to give incentives to working mothers, such as a childcare subsidy. In a nutshell, the situation has become such that a stay-at-home mum is a luxury that most families of the working class cannot afford.

Now to make it even more unaffordable, some smart asses are suggesting that husbands should pay their stay-at-home wives CPF so that they can also "get to benefit from the CPF system." Good as it sounds, there seems to be an awkward correlation between maid levies and paying our wives CPF that leaves Singaporean sons in a-damn-if-you-do, damn-if-you-don't situation. Many of us would rather leave cash buried under the Bougainvillea hedge than to leave it with the CPF. You know, even if you throw a bundle of cash into Bedok Reservoir, you can hear a resounding, "Plop!" That's still more satisfying than converting them into imaginary digits and not hearing anything from it ever again if you leave it at you-know-where. Or better yet, husbands could just give their wives cold hard cash. Or set up an endowment fund which gives a far better yield than 2.5% There are so many options out there yet they are looking for just another method to channel funds into the CPF. Predictably, a voluntary system would turn into a compulsory system once the Government is able to show the "benefits" of their small database of volunteers in future. The real question is, who really get to benefit from the CPF system in such an arrangement? 

One of the reasons why we moved to Perth is that we will not be able to achieve a single income family model in Singapore. Over these 3 years as a parent, I could see the obvious benefits of having a stay-at-home mum to take care of my child. Unfortunately, instead of working towards a more family oriented environment, our government is doing their best to make this arrangement even more unfeasible than it already is. 

With all the baby bonus and one time perks to entice young couple so to have kids, nothing much has been done to improve the sustainability of having a larger family. Instead, they gathered some bitches to make it worse for everyone. I can't see how our trend of declining birth rates will be reversed anytime in future. We'll just have to stick to importing more foreigners to keep the scheme going.