With the extension of paternity from one week to two weeks, new fathers like Evan Choe can spend more time with their families
Shortly after Claire Choe celebrated her full month, Singapore gave her a present – more time with her daddy. On 23 August during the National Day Rally, Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong announced that working dads would have their one-week paid paternity leave doubled. The move is a nod to the importance of fathers to families and to encourage them to take a more active role in childcare.
New father, Evan, 32, welcomed the extension.
“My wife, Pamela, and I are very appreciative of it. It is good to know that I have the flexibility to spend more time with my daughter when I need to. I have already taken a few days (of the leave), mostly to bring Claire for her check-ups. She was a breech baby and had to return to the hospital recently to have her hips scanned. So, I took paternity leave for that,” he explains.
Paternity leave was introduced in Singapore in 2013 as part of the government’s enhanced Marriage and Parenthood Package.
Leave it to Dad
Paternity leave and pro-family measures of employers go a long way to encouraging fathers like Evan to be more involved in raising their children
Even before his little girl came along, Evan had already planned to be an involved parent.
“My mother loves children and enjoys taking care of them, whether they are kids in church or relatives. So from young, I learnt from her how to manage children,” he says.
“Whenever I am home, I will bathe Claire, change her, and play with her. She is bottle-fed with breast milk half the time because she is very impatient and doesn’t latch on well. So, if I am around, I will feed her the bottle.”
Apart from the added paternity leave, having a pro-family employer has also helped Evan fulfill his daddy duties. He is an Assistant Manager at the Republic Polytechnic’s (RP) Adventure Learning Centre (ALC), an outdoor activity facility where students can be part of experiential learning. All eligible Full-time Staff in RP are allowed to telecommute once a week.
“I picked a Friday so that it would feel like a long weekend,” he smiles.
“Now that we have Claire, I am the one who wakes up for her feeds on Thursday nights so my wife can sleep a little more since I can work from home on Fridays.”
In addition, all RP Full-time staff get to decide when they want to come to work. They can choose a fixed start work time at half-hour intervals between 7.30 and 9.30 in the mornings. Evan and his colleagues also get to leave work half an hour earlier every Friday which is dubbed “Blue Sky Fridays”. The last Friday of every month is designated as “Eat with Your Family Day” and staff get to leave at 5.00pm subject to exigencies of services. .
“We do this to promote work-life balance. Staff are assessed based on their performance which is measured by outcomes and not facetime. Good work-life strategies and pro-family initiatives do not compromise productivity and can enable RP to have a competitive edge when attracting talent. It also enables staff to contribute to the best of their ability when they have a balanced work and family time” says Ms Chia Chew Lee, Director of Office of Human Resources, RP.
Such forward thinking on the part of employers have far-reaching impact on families in Singapore.
“When I look at Claire, I feel so much joy when she smiles or coos which she is doing quite a lot now. With such support, we’ll definitely consider having more children,” says Evan.
Book a Date with Dad
Thanks to the support that has been given, Evan is considering giving little Claire more brothers and sisters
There is more support on the way. NTUC U Family has put together a survival kit for new fathers and has worked with KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) to distribute the packs to 300 fathers of newborns at the hospital. Coffee sachets, energy bars, eye and pain relief patches as well as a pamphlet of useful information on the types of paternity leave and a lyrics sheet of popular nursery rhymes – the fun and useful items are to encourage fathers to share caregiving duties so mothers can continue to be part of the workforce.
Dads of this generation may have it better, but fathers of the past did try.
“My father who passed on in 2009 was also an involved parent. He was an insurance agent while my mother worked a regular office job. So, my father had more flexible hours and was home for my brother and I more often,” recounts Evan.
“Because of my dad, being involved with my baby is quite natural for me.”
With the government and employers all gunning to support families, the next generation of fathers will surely be naturally involved, too. Looks like more daddies will not mind being home with baby.
