STI: I'm not your Superdad

Dec 29, 2004
I'm not your Superdad
by Mathew Pereira

I ONCE rushed my youngest son Marcus to the hospital near my home after a fall left him with a gash at the back of his head.

It was close to midnight and there was no anaesthetist but the doctor said the stitching could not wait.

He went ahead without my son getting anything to numb his pain.

Slightly over three years old then, he was straightjacketed with a blanket so that he could not struggle while the doctor did his job.

Throughout, he screamed, yelled and looked pleadingly at me. The look in his eyes said: 'Help me, Daddy, I am in pain.'

Like any parent, I wanted to do something that would ease that, if not relieve him of the pain altogether. But with him screaming away, I could not even comfort him.

When he was being stitched up, I had already clocked six years of parenting. Clearly, I had not gotten over this urge to intervene to spare my child pain and heartache.

But this reflex is something which I have often kept in check right from kid No.1. I felt they needed to take tumbles and falls and pick themselves up.

Of course, I have friends who disagree with my approach.

An over-protective father and a good friend of mine used to follow his child around to make sure that he did not trip, lose his balance or slip.

He was prevented from doing many things and the two words he heard most were: 'Peter, don't.'

'Peter, don't step out of the house without your shoes, it would cut your feet.'

'Peter, don't step on the grass' - he would get bitten by insects.

'Peter, don't run, you will perspire and get a rash.'

He was not allowed to go to the playground because it was deemed not hygienic.

'Your child will think his name is Peter Don't,' I used to tease my friend.

Another parent I know tried to get his son in national service posted out from a demanding combat unit to one where he could do a 9 to 5 job. Needless to say, he failed.

This not wanting to be superdad who bails the kids out all the time has also meant that I grit my teeth and let them face the consequences of their actions.

This is something that can be extremely difficult to do.

Once, Marcus was caught with a sheet of paper going around his class. It had landed on his desk and he picked it up to read the note others had been giggling about earlier.

The teacher spotted him. In the piece of paper were some comments that were not exactly part of school curricula.

Summed up, the note said something like 'Teacher is pregnant but she is wearing a G-string. Ha ha.'

Marcus was terrified. He came home crying. This time, he insisted that he was innocent.

He wanted us to call the teacher and clear his name. We did not.

We told him: 'You checked what was in the paper so you face the music like your fellow voyeurs.'

I heard nothing more of that incident. I never found out if he was punished or if his teacher was pregnant or wore a G-string.

For me, it was important that my children experienced pain, tasted defeat and realised that not winning were part of life.

They know that whenever they are beaten in whatever, they are to go up to the victor and congratulate him, but at the same time resolve to try and beat the person the next time.

Sure, they still cry when they lose, they still feel depressed but they pull out of it without feeling that it is the end of the world.

They also learn about discipline - biding their time and not walking out of the team just because they are not in the first 11.

There were many times when I had felt that intervening would have made me, as well as my kids, feel better in the short term but I resisted it because I was convinced it would do them only damage in adulthood.

But I will also confess that there were times when I had not meant to intervene but capitulated at the last moment.

Doing the right thing is not easy or clear-cut.

When I was mulling over some matter concerning my son recently, a good friend told us: 'Would you be able to live with the fact that you did not do all you could have for your son regarding this critical matter?'

Sometimes, bailing out the kids is necessary. I just remind myself that it should not be the default mode.

The tricky part, of course, is knowing when and under what circumstances I should do it.

STI: Lots of EQ needed to make a happy family

Dec 20, 2004
Lots of EQ needed to make a happy family

THE term Emotional Quotient or EQ is usually used to cover everything about feelings, but when one refers specifically to Family EQ, it indicates the family's awareness of how each member feels, the ability to manage feelings and the commitment to resolve interpersonal conflicts.

An emotionally intelligent family is not one with no conflicts but one that can ride out any storm because of the strong relationships within it.

It is characterised by open communication and respect and empathy for each other.

The more a family deposits positive experiences and messages into its joint Emotional Bank, the higher its EQ and the stronger will be the bonds between the various members.

 

Aware of emotions

 

EMOTIONS speak louder than words, yet are often dismissed as troublesome or trivial.

This is especially so within the family, where we often take each other for granted and have high expectations and demands of one another.

If we dismiss feelings easily, we may miss clues to what goes on inside a person.

For example, children who say they are mentally or physically tired could be misunderstood as being lazy and given more work to do, when they could be heading for burnout or a breakdown.

Sometimes, expressions of frustration, worry and confusion are not easily accepted by parents, who may not be able to understand what their children have to worry about when everything they need is provided for.

 

Teach by example

 

PEOPLE tend to take out on their family what they would never do to friends or colleagues.

Parents also often discipline their children through punishment rather than showing them the right behaviour or offering positive ways to solve a problem.

For instance, caning a child who misbehaves does not teach him much other than what he is doing is wrong and that he has to suffer for it.

On the other hand, parents can manage their own anger and lead the child by example.

Teaching children by example is the most visual and influential way to bring them up to be what you want them to be.

 

Build family rituals

 

A GOOD way to maintain constant contact as a family is to establish family rituals.

Many are familiar with rituals associated with festivals, such as Chinese New Year, or with family traditions of celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and vacations.

Fewer practise family routines - activities established by the family as a way of life, such as a run in the park every Friday evening or a meal out every weekend.

Even fewer set aside time regularly to communicate feelings, opinions and dreams as a family.

Communication is especially important in a family with teenagers.

There is so much happening in their lives that if parents do not talk to them, they will soon lose touch with them.

A family can eat together or go cycling, but if it does so without communicating, little bonding takes place.

Take time to think about what family routines can be started that will not just encourage doing things together but enhance family communication.

 

Four ways to start

Tell tales:  Stories can educate, inspire and bond hearts and minds.

They help develop self-awareness and empathy, essentials to develop high EQ.

Parents can relate tales of their childhood, as well as those of failure and success.

Children can tell their own stories too, but they take time to open up to adults, and that includes parents.

They are also very sensitive to adults' feelings and attitudes.

Nothing can encourage a child to open up more than sincere interest and acceptance of him as a person.

Nothing closes a child up more than constant critical judgment of what he says.

Children tend to not talk rather than face parents' moralising.

Talk:  People talk all the time, but going beyond just exchanging facts requires a commitment of time and energy.

To really communicate, a family has to set aside time to talk about issues and to share thoughts and feelings.

Do not wait for things to happen before you see a need to talk.

One way to get everyone in the family to contribute to a conversation is to take turns to talk about what each person has been reading.

This habit builds up a lot of shared experiences, as does chatting about human relationships and behaviour.

A good place to start is at dinner.

Learning to talk as a way of life helps to strengthen a family's EQ, because doing so allows the various members to get to know each other really well.

Think: Stop and think when emotions are running high as things that should not be said may be uttered. It is better to wait until everyone has calmed down and can reflect on what has happened or been said.

In such situations, those involved are less likely to blame each other and more likely to consider the real reasons for a fracas.

When a child misbehaves, ask: 'Why is he feeling this way?', 'What difficulties is he facing?', 'Is he mature enough to do what I want him to do?', 'What can I do differently to get him to behave the way I want him to?'

Do things together: Do things together that the whole family enjoys, as such experiences help the bonding process.

The activities do not have to be complicated.

They can be as simple as playing a board game or watching a television show, or cooking a favourite dish. 

STI: Natural birth risk low after C-section

Dec 16, 2004
Natural birth risk low after C-section

BOSTON - Pregnant women who try a natural delivery after an earlier Caesarean section face greater risks - but still very low ones - compared with those who opt for a second C-section, a large study suggests.

The lead researcher said the chief risks - a torn uterus in the mother and brain damage in her newborn - are so unlikely that this study may boost the slumping rate of attempted natural births after C-sections. 'I think it will certainly open up the dialogue once again,' said Dr Mark Landon of Ohio State University.

The study was released on Tuesday before publication in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. It was carried out at 19 teaching hospitals nationwide, with collaboration and funding from the National Institutes of Health. It is the most elaborate effort yet to examine the safety of natural birth after Caesarean section, researchers say.

The medical community has long debated the merits and safety. Surgical C-section brings its own set of risks, like haemorrhaging and infection. Vaginal deliveries involve less hospital time and expense. In 1980, an NIH committee encouraged natural birth attempts in carefully selected women with a history of C-section. The rate of natural births after C-section peaked at 28 per cent in 1996.

Since then, reports of uterine ruptures have pushed down the rate. Many hospitals, nervous about the liability or need for surgical teams on standby, stopping doing such deliveries. By the end of last year, the rate had dropped to 11 per cent.

Doctors and patients often elect repeat surgery for fear that the uterus, weakened by scarring from the previous Caesarean, will rupture under the strain of natural labour and birth. That can seriously endanger both mother and child.

In this study, the researchers identified 33,699 women who had previously delivered by Caesarean section. Their subsequent pregnancies were monitored as they chose either to attempt vaginal deliveries or opted for another C-section. More than half of those chose to try natural delivery. Of that group, a quarter encountered problems and had to switch to Caesarean section.

In the end, 124 women who started with natural labour, including the C-section transfers, suffered uterine ruptures - less than 1 per cent of cases. There were no ruptures in the surgeries - only the cutting itself.

Seven babies suffered brain damage from uterine rupture, including two who died, according to the findings. Excluding pre-term deliveries where other factors come into play, one in 2,000 natural birth attempts ended with a brain-damaged or dead child as the result of a ruptured uterus.

There was no significant difference in the rate of maternal death between the natural-birth and surgical groups.

Researchers and doctors agreed that the findings can cut in favour of either kind of delivery, depending on the risk tolerance of particular patients.

Some doctors, however, cautioned that the study was conducted in leading hospitals, so the risks might be somewhat higher elsewhere.  --  AP

STI: Sorting out X from Y

Nov 29, 2004
Sorting out X from Y

In this age of increasing choices in many aspects of life, more couples are considering choosing the sex of their child too. Improved technology has added to this possibility.

Talk to your gynaecologist and consult with several fertility clinics before you go ahead with any procedure.

An increasing number of fertility specialists and reproductive endocrinologists perform procedures like sperm-spinning. This procedure is based on the principle that sperm determines the sex of the child. Sperm selection produces a sample of semen with a changed proportion of X or Y-bearing sperm.

In the technology called flow cytometry - used for farm animals and adapted to humans - sperm are tagged as bearing X chromosomes (that determine females) or Y chromosomes (that determine males) with different dyes and sorted in a machine into different batches used for artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilisation.

Another technique combines the parents' eggs and sperm in a petri dish and then tests the embryo to see its chromosome make-up, and implants the desired one in the woman's womb.

These are methods only done in fertility clinics under medical supervision.

Some sperm separation methods claim to affect the birth ratio. Some clinics using this procedure have claimed up to an eight in 10 chance of conceiving a desired child.

There are no guarantees, but some clinics are currently testing the effectiveness and safety of the process.

The procedures are also expensive.

Some experts say the odds of having a girl can be boosted by taking the fertility drug Clomid. But there are potential side effects to this and any drug.

Some calendar methods claim success, under the principle that having sex on certain days of the menstrual cycle matter, as the chemistry of the endometrium changes.

People have tried changing the chemical balance of the vagina. Some have tried using vinegar or baking-soda based douches. Scientists do not agree with these methods.

Using various positions in sex has also been tried, with various ideas including one that the Y chromosome is more delicate and therefore needs to be more firmly implanted in the vagina to enter the tubes, suggesting that the woman's hips be lifted in the air.

Some people have tried herbs. Others have turned to drastic diets to try to alter the chemistry of the vagina.

Medical associations are hesitant to endorse any as a tried and true method.

Dr Judy Kuriansky is a New York-based clinical psychologist, marital counsellor, certified sex therapist and professor at Columbia University Teachers College. Her books include The Complete Idiot's Guide To Dating, The Complete Idiot's Guide To A Healthy Relationship and The Complete Idiot's Guide To Tantric Sex.

STI: Grandparents are a treasure

Nov 20, 2004
Grandparents are a treasure
by Sharon Loh

WE HAVE just ended a very welcome but all-too-brief visit from the grandparents who live in America.

Though in their 70s, they got on a plane some weeks ago and travelled halfway around the world from their home in North Carolina to Singapore.

Because of the vast physical distance between us, the children have spent far less than a year of actual face time with Grannypam and Jan Jan since they were born.

Despite this, they adore their paternal grandparents and are as comfortable in their presence as they are with their beloved Mama and Gong Gong in Singapore.

What can one say about grandparents? In our experience, they have been a treasure, indispensable in the raising of our children, adding untold layers of love, care and security around them.

It's not the same for everyone, though.

Tell us about your Gong Gong and Mama, the girls clamoured recently, as we were talking for the umpteenth time about the anticipated visit from Pam and Jan.

Well, I said, my grandparents weren't quite like yours.

Why not, they wanted to know.

Somehow, my grandparents seemed older, more constrained in what they could do with us.

We saw our maternal grandmother a lot but she was something of an invalid. I remember her as a frail but somewhat stern woman who was tolerant rather than warm, but she would always indulge us by giving us money for candy or movies.

My paternal grandmother was kindly, as stout as my other grandma was thin. She sometimes came to watch my brother and me at our home in Tanglin Halt but not often, as she had other grandchildren in her care.

Both my grandmothers were 80 when they died within six months of each other. I was 17.

My maternal grandfather had died in my mother's childhood, so I never knew him. He was a prominent educationist in the Teochew community and my mother said she owed a great debt to him.

He exacted a promise before he died that his younger daughter, the fourth of five children, should be sent to school - and educated in English.

I knew my paternal grandfather, a tailor, but he was very much the patriarch who left the care of children to the women. He too died when I was a teenager.

I wasn't close to my grandparents. Language kept us apart. I spoke little Teochew and almost no Hakka, so our communication was functional only.

It is a different story for my girls.

Their grandparents are mobile, active, healthy - and they help with homework, thank God.

Grannypam and Jan Jan are nothing but patient and attentive, open to all sorts of childish requests. I have never heard Pam say no when a child asks for a game or story. Jan will amuse them with funny impersonations and put them to bed.

As for their grandparents here, Mama and Gong Gong might as well be the air that they breathe. There just isn't anybody else they are more at home with.

At least once a week they sleep over at their grandparents' house, all four of them in the same room. I may protest but my mother never says no when the kids ask to stay.

Without my parents I probably would have gone barmy as a new mother.

We decided there was no need to employ a maid since I would be home with the baby. But as anyone with a newborn knows, it's a 24/7 job. And when we had two within 13 1/2 months of each other, the workload simply multiplied.

My parents have always been willing to share the burden of child care. Even today they help pick up the kids from school, take them to activities, give them meals and have them for the weekend if we want the time off.

In America, my in-laws do the same whenever they can for their daughter, who lives with her family in another state, a four-hour drive away.

Where the dotage of a grandparent, any grandparent, can become a double-edged sword is when they try to intervene by coming between parent and child.

A friend who was thrashing her young son complained of how the grandfather threw himself between them to shield the child. 'I ended up caning my father-in-law,' she said, exasperated.

Kids soon learn who the good cops are.

Still, it's a small price to pay for the wealth that granddads and grandmums add to their lives.

We keep in touch with the folks on the other side of the world through that most enabling of technologies, the Internet. Once or twice a week, Alexis and Isabel talk to their grandparents on video through iChat.

It was their father who got everyone wired up, first at our house, then, through a constant stream of persuasion and instruction, at his parents' house too.

Finally when the two households were connected, they roped in his sister, who then set up a system in her house which could talk to the other two.

Now the three Drake households, though thousands of kilometres apart, are connected, so we can talk to each other, face to face in real time - when the time difference permits.

That, in a world that's constantly expanding outwards, is as good as it gets.

STI: For crying out loud, give baby a rub

Nov 8, 2004
For crying out loud, give baby a rub
by Teo Cheng Wee

HANDS up, those parents not getting enough sleep because of wailing babies.

Now, bring down those hands and massage your baby.

This can reduce the number of times the baby wakes up at night by 33 per cent, according to a recent study conducted at Brown University in the United States.

Each massage takes about 15 minutes and is done all over the body.

The babies in the study were massaged before being put to bed, but the rubdown can also be done at other times with the same benefits.

Mrs Jacqueline Tan, 31, found out the hard way after enduring a few difficult weeks when her daughter Odelia was two weeks old.

'Odelia kept crying and nothing we did would make her stop. It was depressing,' says Mrs Tan, an information systems executive and first-time mother.

She sought help at Thomson Medical Centre, where Odelia was born, and was advised to sign up for a $30, hour-long infant massage class.

Since she started giving her child daily massages, Mrs Tan says the four-month-old now sleeps through the night and is less irritable during the day.

Says Dr Judy Owens who handled the study at Brown: 'Massage reduces stress hormones and relaxes the body, making it easier for the babies to sleep well.'

The study, conducted on 45 babies, was initiated this year and is still ongoing.

'Massage can start at any age and be done up to the age of eight,' adds Dr Owens, who is also an associate professor of paediatrics at Brown Medical School.

She was in town the last few days for the Regional Sleep Alliance, a discussion with fellow paediatricians on topics like baby massage and sleep problems in Asian babies.

Babies spend more than half the day sleeping and sleep trouble has been linked to developmental and behavioural problems.

By the age of four months, they should be able to fall asleep without assistance (such as rocking or sucking on a pacifier) and sleep continuously through the night.

While there is no one pioneer of massage, Dr Tiffany Field from the US was the first to drive research related to its clinical benefits.

The Touch Research Institute was set up under her guidance at the University of Miami in 1992.

It was the first centre in the world devoted to the study of touch and massage and its application to the well-being of babies or children.

Still, Dr Owens doesn't think that many parents practise it regularly in the US.

Here, baby massage is taught in all nine maternity hospitals.

Exact figures are unavailable but Associate Professor Daniel Goh, a senior consultant at the Children's Medical Institute of National University Hospital, does not think it is commonly practised.

But as the doctors are now working towards a set of Asian Sleep Guidelines to promote good practices for Asian babies, young parents can look forward to kissing sleepless nights rock-a-bye-bye.

Hands-on training

Step 1: Legs

Rub your hands till they are warm

'Pull' from the thighs down to the feet, like you're milking them

Rub the soles

Gently pull the toes one by one

Step 2: Arms

'Pull' from the shoulders down to the hands

Rub the palms

Gently pull the fingers one by one

Step 3: Stomach

Using your palms, gently rub the stomach in circular motions

Step 4: Back

Using your palms, stroke from the top to the bottom

Cup your palms slightly and tap the baby's back

Step 5: Face

Using your thumbs, stroke the eyebrows from the inside to the outside

Move on to stroke the cheeklines around the nose

Continue to the jaw, stroking from the chin to the ears

STI: When the tooth fairy disappears

Nov 8, 2004
When the tooth fairy disappears
by Sharon Loh

ALEXIS came scurrying out of the bathroom in a state of high excitement one morning.

'My tooth has fallen out!' she yelled. In her cupped palm was a tiny piece of enamel that had only recently sat among her lower teeth.

It had started to come loose very gradually, months before - an event full of endless fascination and promise for her, a real milestone.

A few classmates already had gap-toothed grins and she was dying to be among them. There are, after all, few more definitive signs of growing up.

So she worried it with her tongue and wiggled it with her finger for us to see. We admired it and started talking about tooth fairies and going rates for first teeth.

Privately I wondered how much pain and blood there would be, having forgotten what it was like, and how traumatised it would make my pain-averse child.

In the end, it was the innocuous action of brushing that dislodged the tooth and the pain, if any, was fleeting.

Describing it for us, she said she felt something fall into her mouth. Spitting it out, she saw her tooth in the sink - with a little blood, swiftly forgotten in the joy of having it finally come out.

The tooth fairy duly visited that night.

That was a few months ago.

Last Tuesday morning, it was the turn of Isabel, eager as always to follow in her sister's footsteps, being one year younger.

I wasn't there when it happened. Her father was at his computer when she walked into the room at one in the morning, bleary-eyed but thrilled. Again there was a cupped hand with a bit of enamel in it.

'My tooth fell out, Daddy,' said Isabel. It must have happened in her sleep.

The next morning, there was $2 under her pillow.

'The tooth fairy came, Mummy!' she cried.

Alexis, who is six and worldly-wise, clucked her tongue. 'Tsk. It was Daddy who put the money there.'

'Nooo-ooooo,' protested the younger one. 'It was the tooth fairy. I SAW her.'

Then, like her sister before her, she bore the tooth to school in a ziploc bag so that her classmates could bear witness to her rite of passage. (It wasn't the right day for show-and-tell but her teachers made an exception.)

I was left behind to sigh at the memories of when they cut those teeth, and their beautiful toothless grins which are gone forever.

Alexis was about nine months old when she cut her first tooth and Isabel was four months old. Even then she was in a rush to catch up with her sister.

The girls are at an age when they are in a real hurry to grow up. For them, it doesn't have the bittersweet taste that it does for us. Or the panic.

A few weeks ago, while I was at work, I got a message from their father, saying: 'The kids are out of control.'

Oh no, I thought. What now?

The next message read: 'They are wearing flashy outfits and make-up and dancing to music.'

We had a good laugh about that, but since then he's been putting away small pots of cosmetics that they've filched from my drawer and saying that they are not to wear make-up between the ages of 12 and 16.

Dream on.

But seriously, now their milk teeth have started falling out, I suppose questions about sex will soon follow (don't ask me what the connection is; mothers and logic don't have to go together).

Come to think about it, Alexis did ask me what sex was a couple of weeks ago.

I thought about it and said in my most matter-of-fact voice: 'Sex is what people do to get babies.'

I looked at her for the follow-up question. She was watching the television and seemed not to have heard me.

Phew. Bought myself some time.

It's going to come up again, I'm sure. That is, if I am lucky, and she doesn't feel she can't talk to me about it.

This business of raising a child has come to the point when it's no longer enough to feed, clothe and entertain them.

And as I juggle my various duties of worker, mother, wife, and daughter, I can't help feeling that my children will soon overtake me and run through the little wisdom that I have.

I can see it. They'll be streaking on ahead while I stall, saying: 'Wait, wait, a little longer, please.'

We've given them a few defensive skills so far: Do they know how to cross the road? Do they know not to go with strangers? Do they know the right phone numbers to call?

But there are spaces enlarging in their lives that don't include us, whether by choice or not. You realise that you can't always be there, not even when the first tooth falls out.

And now we are starting to have to face the bigger questions, like how to manage the dynamics of relationships, how to respect others and believe in yourself - issues which one still grapples with in middle age.

But some things remain universal whether you are four or 40.

For example, it's better to listen than to talk.

Whether or not you feel confident of your parenting skills, you will want to know that you've given them a few tools to help them navigate the world unsupervised.

After all, one day, the tooth fairy will disappear, for good.

STI: We've got it maid - without one

Nov 3, 2004
We've got it maid - without one

A SHUFFLING sound came from downstairs while I was channel-surfing through the latest TV news on the United States presidential elections.

Sean heard the noise too, ran to the basement door and found it open.

On the stairs, he found my mother carrying up Crown Lines boxes from the dozens still left over and still unopened from our move to Brecksville, Ohio.

'What you doin' granma?' he shouted in his outside voice, even though he was inside.

'I'm bringing up some boxes,' she replied.

I walked down the stairs behind him to try to help pull up a box that was bigger than my four-year-old son.

'Don't do that, Daddy. I'm helping granma,' Sean said.

It was exactly what I had hoped to hear.

My wife and I have always raised our son, who is now four years old, to fend for himself. The last person we wanted around the house when we lived in Singapore was a maid.

Now one of the benefits of living in the US is that almost no one has domestic helpers, especially the live-in kind.

When I say benefit, I mean it.

When I was a youngster growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, my mother taught me and my two brothers how to scrub kitchen and bathroom floors on my hands and knees.

My father built a garage for our car and renovated the entire attic of our home into two bedrooms for my brothers and myself. He did it almost single-handedly although he let us pound in a few nails and varnish some hardwood floors.

One of my favourite chores was washing dishes with my mother. I loved soaping and rinsing them and towelling them off - at least until I got a job washing enormous piles of them in a hospital cafeteria when I was in junior high school.

In spring and summer, the whole family took turns mowing the lawn. In winter, we bundled up in thick layers of clothes and got out our toddler snow shovels after a blizzard to help clear the driveway.

In the season that we're now having here - autumn - my parents, wife, Sean and I have been out in the yard several times already raking the brown, gold, red and yellow leaves.

Like other homeowners in this neighbourhood and others all around the parts of the US where trees shed their foliage, we've been raking them into mountainous piles at the kerb-side.

City trucks come around every week or so to suck them up with supersized vacuums.

It's not that my neighbours and I have more time on our hands to clean our own houses, tend our own lawns and gardens, and even fix our cars than people anywhere else in the world. Most of us do not.

My own parents worked most of their lives. When my father came home from his job at the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, my mother went to wait on tables at the Highlander Restaurant.

'One of the things I regret most was not being able to kiss my boys goodnight,' she said recently.

Still, both of them always made time for household chores, and still do.

After a long day and night covering the elections for the Straits Times Foreign Desk on Sunday, I gathered all the rubbish round the house to put it on the kerb for the Monday morning collection.

My mother realised it was Halloween and thought it better to wait until early morning than to give trick-or-treaters in the neighbourhood easy access to ammunition for that mischievous night.

I didn't get to sleep until almost 3am, but I heard her scrounging round downstairs at 6am. I dragged myself out of bed, as I didn't want my 75-year-old mother hauling out a week's worth of rubbish into the cold before dawn by herself.

My parents passed their own work ethic on to me.

During junior high school, I delivered newspapers after school before going to work in the hospital canteen. During high school, I tended fairways and greens on a golf course.

Still, I somehow found time to be the editor of my high school literary magazine, write for the school yearbook and newspaper. I even pitched in to turn the high school cafeteria into Camelot for the senior dance.

I also found time to help my parents around the house and garden.

Now the last person I want doing things to my house or in it - and especially doing things Sean should be learning to do for himself - is someone else.

I'm teaching him to sweep the floors, vacuum the carpets and wash the car, just like my mother and father taught me. After all, I had learnt from my parents that getting your hands dirty is just as important to growing up as going to school.

Of course, having Sean help me in the yard is not terribly helpful at his age. Before long, he is jumping into the mountains of leaves we rake up, and laughing.

When we washed the car a few weeks ago, he insisted I use the sponge and pail and that he man the garden hose to do the rinsing.

Unfortunately, he realised eventually it was more fun turning the hose on me than on the car.

No matter. That's part of growing up, too.

STI: When broken families unite

Oct 27, 2004

When broken families unite
by Cheong Suk-Wai

TAKING another chance on marriage can be a big but rewarding challenge when your new family resembles TV's Brady Bunch.

This is when two divorced or widowed people with children remarry.

But while the 1970s TV show is full of the big smiles and good cheer of a winsome family, real life can sometimes be quite different.

In everyday Brady Bunch families, children may want their biological parents to get back together even as stepparents try to woo them.

Conversely, stepparents can get jealous of the attention stepchildren get from their biological parents. The latter can over-compensate because they feel guilty about imposing a new parent in their children's lives.

It also doesn't help that insensitive outsiders may needle Brady Bunchers with barbs like 'What kind of man or woman would want to feed someone else's children?'

Still, remarriages here are on the rise, so Singaporeans must be getting things right the second time around.

According to the Department of Statistics, the number of remarriages rose steadily from 1990 to 2000, with more men than women doing it.

In 2000, 2,700 divorced men remarried compared to 1,700 in 1990. This is a 58 per cent increase.

The corresponding figures for divorced women during that period are 2,400 versus 1,400, a 67 per cent rise.

Overall, that decade saw 24,600 divorced men and 22,300 divorced women remarrying. And their remarriages are holding up well.

Lawyer Foo Siew Fong says fewer than 3 per cent of the cases her firm handles are divorces as a result of remarriages. She heads the matrimonial practice at law firm Harry Elias Partnership.

In contrast, 60 per cent of all remarriages in the United States end in divorce.

Ms Foo and other lawyers Life! spoke to say the most common ground for divorce the second time around is the spouse's unreasonable behaviour, chiefly over differences in managing finances.

'It could be due to the fact that at least one of them had gone through a divorce before and so is more concerned about protecting her assets. This can lead to a breakdown in trust,' says Ms Foo.

For those who stay the course, perseverance goes beyond just financial compatibility.

So, while the six stepparents Life! spoke to all say they remarried mainly to give their children a father or mother figure, family psychologist Joanna Koh-Hoe says single parents should never see Brady Bunch families as a quick fix.

Ms Koh-Hoe says: 'While a single parent has to take on an extra role of either father or mother in one family, a stepparent has the double workload of leading two families.'

American stepfamily therapist Ron Deal says the most crucial thing stepfamilies need to grow love are time and good feelings.

'Think of a Brady Bunch family as a crockpot which cooks food on low heat for a long time, but when it's done, the result is warm, rich and nourishing,' he says over the phone from his home in Arkansas.

Mr Deal, 38, married with three sons, has been counselling stepfamilies for 18 years and advises The Stepfamily Association Of America. He also wrote the book The Smart Stepfamily (2002).

He and other experts tell Life! it takes an average of five to seven years - and up to 11 if the kids are self-absorbed teenagers - for such families to bond as well as first-time ones.

'You may wish it were a microwave but love is not instant like noodles,' Mr Deal says. 'If you wish it were blended, as some call Brady Bunch families, that's worse because you are chopping the family up thinking they all feel and want the same things. They don't.'

So humility, frank and frequent conversations, and a big dose of common sense help.

But the great thing about remarrying in mid-life is that one often wears less rose-tinted glasses and has two feet firmly on the ground.

This, at least, is the view of Mr Jan Van Wellen, 47. The Singapore-based Belgian risk manager has three children from his first marriage and three stepchildren.

'You know your ship will come across a few icebergs but your commitment is also more solid the second time around,' he says.

Mr Deal quips: 'The honeymoon for a remarriage is at the end of the journey, not the beginning, but it's ultimately a great reward.'

Peace after the hurricanes

AMERICAN expatriate Vicki Reay is now more certain of her second marriage.

The 47-year-old was a widowed housewife with three children - son Paul, now 16, Lauryn, 14, and Autumn, eight - when she wed Belgian risk manager Jan Van Wellen in 2000.

Of her second marriage, she says: 'There have been a lot of hurricanes in this marriage and I used to think: 'You know what? I don't need this. I'll pack my bags and go'.

'Any time a problem came up, I found myself just bearing it for the kids and planning my next move. But that's the easy way out and if I asked the kids, they'd beg me not to do so.'

Smiling, she adds: 'Never once have my kids told Jan, 'You are not my father'.'

Her son, Paul, chips in: 'I was all right with them getting married because Jan made my Mum happy and I understood that nobody could replace my Dad.'

His British father Brian Reay, who was a hotel project manager, died suddenly of pancreatitis in 1998.

He left enough money for the family to continue living comfortably in Hong Kong.

He and his sisters have actually known their stepfather for 10 years, first as the father of their best friends - Kris, now 17, Dimitri, 16, and Kiera, 14 - and then as the man who helped their mother fix things around the house.

But when it became clear that the two were becoming an item, Lauryn recalls: 'Overnight, our best friends turned against us and took sides with their mother.'

Mr Van Wellen, 47, and his British wife, Simone, divorced in 1999. She and their children moved to South Africa to live with her family.

Mr Van Wellen continued living in Hong Kong with his new family until last October, when his job brought them here.

Then, just last week, his three biological children visited him at the family bungalow in Woodlands for the first time in five years.

Their mother had died of cancer in July.

It was not a smooth reunion for everyone.

Ms Reay's stepdaughter Kiera, for one, made her trudge through every clothes store in town - and then refused to buy anything.

Ms Reay says: 'Kiera was pushing every button but I knew she wanted me to lose it so she could throw it back in my face, so I held it in.

'She finally said: 'Boy, you're really patient, aren't you?'

She breathes in deeply and adds: 'My stepkids went home last Saturday but they'll return to spend Christmas with us so we'll have to see how that goes.'

She had wanted to have a child with Mr Van Wellen but he was not keen.

Grinning wryly, she says: 'Perhaps it's just as well, otherwise it's not just His and Hers, but His, Hers and Ours, which would really complicate things.'

As to how they differ on disciplining the kids, she says: 'I choose which mountains to climb. He climbs every mountain.'

She soul-searched this summer when she and her kids spent two months apart from Mr Van Wellen, visiting her family in the US.

It was the first time that they were separated for so long in four years.

They found themselves missing him a lot, and would call him up whenever they saw things like beautiful sunsets along the way.

There are more signs that this family is doing fine, like when chatty Lauryn lauds her stepdad for his way with words and teases him for eating pizza with a fork and knife - just hours after she had a big tiff with him for partying when she should have been studying for a school test.

With moments like that and their Christian faith, they are moving forward.

Ms Reay muses: 'After being away from Jan for two months, I made this mental switch that this family is forever.

'So I now have both feet in my marriage.'

Changing gears with new husband and father

REIKO CHAN* never intended to remarry after her divorce.

Her second husband is James Tan, 57, a divorcee who is a retired businessman.

Mrs Chan, 57, a receptionist, met him in 1986, some six months after she walked out on her first husband after 15 years of wedlock.

The latter had accused her of flirting with her bosses and complained about not having a son in the early years of their marriage.

They had a daughter, Maggie, and Mrs Chan did conceive a son, Jordan, later.

But in 1986, she walked out with her children after he brought women back to their house. They divorced that same year. 'That era was so different from now. Divorce was very shameful,' she says.

She struggled to cope but her mother and sister came to her rescue, pointing out a handsome church worker who was purportedly a bachelor.

He was Mr Tan, who had divorced his wife earlier after living apart for 14 years.

He says his mother hated his first wife from Day One, so he sent her back to her parents' home three months after their honeymoon. They never lived under the same roof again.

Still, they had two sons - Ken and Ben, who are now in their 30s and married - before they called it quits.

Mr Tan was known to Mrs Chan's kids as they attended the Sunday school classes he taught. He would often allow Jordan to change the gears of his green Nissan van whenever he gave them a lift home.

He also took to calling up Mrs Chan every Sunday after church. Before long, they were dating, often including her kids in their weekend meals, but not Ken and Ben, who lived with their mother.

In 1987, they registered their marriage.

Mrs Chan's stepsons surprised her when they called her 'Mummy' from the start without prompting. But her children found it 'very strange' to call their stepfather Dad. They had called him Uncle James before.

By then, Maggie was 16. She is now 33 and a mother of two.

She recalls that her stepbrothers were friendly but not close. Ken, one year her senior in Victoria Junior College, 'passed on his college belt and badge and introduced himself to everyone as my big brother. That was nice'.

Mr Tan's ex-wife died a few years ago, but even before then, his sons had always had reunion dinner with their stepmother and stepsiblings every Chinese New Year Eve. His sons are now married with children.

Mr Tan adds: 'Maggie and Jordan visit their father every Chinese New Year and it's nothing to be jealous about. In fact, I feel good they do so.'

Jordan, quiet by nature, turned wild child after Secondary 2 and ended up in a boys' home after numerous juvenile delinquent raps.

Maggie recalls: 'He was pretty confused when Mum left Dad. He told me he wished it hadn't happened.'

Mrs Chan now rues cutting him too much slack then. 'I was blinded by love because of the guilt I still felt over breaking up the family and causing the children to suffer,' she says.

Jordan, now 21, is in Selarang Prison. He has served 10 months of a two-year jail term for employing an illegal immigrant in his carpentry business.

But this Brady Bunch will make it work.

On Father's Day this year, Jordan wrote a letter to his stepfather from prison, which included this line: 'How long has it been since I changed gears for you in your Nissan C20 van?

'What I'm trying to say is that when I have a child of my own, I would want to be a father just like you.'

* The names of this family have been changed at their request

Step by step

HERE are tips for Brady Bunchers to get along better:

IF YOU ARE A STEPPARENT-TO-BE

Do 'date' your child and potential stepchild as often as you can and, if possible, date them one at a time at first to find out how they really feel about you remarrying

Do explain how your child may soon belong to two families and it is perfectly all right if he feels closer to his other biological parent

IF YOU ARE A STEPPARENT

 

Do tell your stepchild to think of a cool, good and kind teacher or sports coach he admires, and ask him to treat you as he treats them

Do tell him you don't mind if he doesn't call you Mum or Dad

Do seize every opportunity to assure your child and stepchild that they are both very much loved and wanted

Do learn to turn away when your stepchild says hurtful things and get it off your chest before you go to bed

Do watch out for aberrant behaviour among your brood and give them permission to tell you about things that should not be happening

Don't expect to be treated as a beloved family member from the start. Let your stepchild warm to you at his own pace

Don't rush into wielding too much authority over your stepchild. You are a stranger who needs to earn his trust and love

IF YOU ARE A STEPCHILD

Do think 'How can I contribute to this family?' and not 'What can I get out of this?'

Don't compare the family you used to have to the one now. Both have flaws and fillips, and pitting one against the other hurts everyone

Don't stonewall your stepparent; you cannot manipulate your biological parent into ending a relationship and expect to win

STI: More exposure helps children learn languages

Oct 18, 2004
More exposure helps children learn languages

CHILDREN born in societies where many languages are used, such as Singapore, are at a distinct advantage as it allows them to acquire more than one language easily.

You should not worry your child will get confused by the many languages he hears around him. Given the right family support, most children do pick up languages faster when they are younger.

Children who grow up bilingual also understand better the concept of what a word is - that it is just a way to represent meaning.

So a child who learns both English and Malay will realise quickly the words bunga and 'flower' mean the same thing.

These youngsters will also realise the similarities and differences between languages.

In a case study, a 3 1/2-year-old child who grew up speaking English and Mandarin was asked by her Cantonese-speaking grandmother if she wanted to have lunch.

She tried to use the few Cantonese words she knew but was stuck after a while. So she replied to her grandmother in Mandarin, probably recognising that as it was a closer alternative to the dialect than English, her grandmother would understand it.

While it is good to expose children to many languages, chances are they will not be equally proficient in all. How well they speak and understand the languages they know will depend on several factors, including frequency of usage.

A good way to expose them to various languages is for each parent or family member to use one, as your family does.

The following activities can help your child practise using different languages:

Describe daily routines such as bath time. Initially, children hear lots of unrelated sounds but as the activity becomes more familiar and predictable, they begin to learn words such as shower and soap, and the objects or actions these refer to.

Name things together. A simple way is to look at picture books over and over together and ask your child to repeat the names of objects after you.

Vary your child's experiences by visiting different places - the bird park, shopping centres, Botanic Gardens and others. Every new experience provides opportunities to learn new words and different ways to express oneself.

Look at, listen and respond to your child. Besides bonding with him, you also provide him with a role model from whom he can learn to produce speech sounds.

Play games with your child. For example, when he is two or three years old, he may pretend to go shopping, visit a doctor or behave like a storybook character. This will let him practise expressing what he thinks and engage someone else in communication.

Read to your child and talk about the stories. He will pick up phrases, sentences and words, and how to use them. This is important to improve vocabulary and grammar, among other things.

Talk to your child at mealtimes. This will require him to use language in different ways, such as to recount events that happened at school. He will learn how to make information explicit so it can be understood by others.

Use different languages often, and well. If you want your child to learn English well, ensure you and other family members use the correct grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.

Finally, give your child plenty of opportunities to hear family members conversing with others in a variety of languages in his early years.

Besides acquiring new languages, your child will also learn to appreciate the cultural diversity that surrounds him.

Dr Christine Goh and Dr Peter Gu are assistant professors of English language at the National Institute of Education. Dr Goh is a specialist in linguistics and language. Her interest is how language is acquired and developed, especially in the areas of listening and speaking competence.Dr Gu is a specialist in language learning strategies, particularly in learning vocabulary.

STI: Mugging up on parenting

Oct 13, 2004
Mugging up on parenting

IT STARTED with four words. Then, it expanded to six, eight and now we are at 10.

I'm talking about spelling tests.

The week starts on a Thursday, with intensive training. A test, under strictly enforced exam conditions in the evening, indicates the level of work needed for Friday.

Saturday and Sunday is when we attack the problem areas, with occasional revision on Monday and a final review on Tuesday.

Wednesday is exam day. With 10 marks at stake, there's one child, a father, a mother, a grandfather and a maid all sweating on the outcome.

I have already been to school once - do I really have to go through it all again?

Last week must have been one of Singapore's lowest productivity months of the year. Islandwide, parents took leave to prepare their children for the Primary School Leaving Examination.

Using up valuable leave for such a reason was unheard of in my school days, albeit in another culture, on the other side of the world in Britain and nearly 30 years ago.

There may be a gulf between the PSLE and a 10-word spelling test but I already find myself declining social invitations to get home and ensure that six-year-old Haley remembers the 'e' in 'policeman'.

Should I make an advance application for PSLE leave now, just to avoid the rush?

What is happening to me? I vowed never to be one of 'those' parents.

And spare me that wry smile. I remain determined.

Surely it is the role of schools to educate my children. I am here to provide love and a nurturing background, not win spelling bees.

And in any case, I want to watch football.

Thinking back, my mother taught me to read using flash cards.

But thereafter, I cannot remember getting much help from her or Dad, unless I simply could not get my head around something.

But even then, the impetus came from me. They never asked to see my homework or coached me for tests and certainly never took leave or missed the football.

What of my other daughter, nine-year-old Amelia? Well, I did some research.

'Why have they started testing Haley? They never tested Amelia,' I asked my wife.

'Yes, they did.'

'Why can't I remember?'

'Wati used to teach her,' she replied, referring to our previous Indonesian maid.

'You mean Wati had more to do with my child's grounding in the written word than I did?'

'Apparently.'

All right. Analysis: Wati is not a football fan. That may not be the point.

More analysis: She spent more time with Amelia during the day than I could. That certainly is not the point.

The point is, somebody at home took up the slack. Amelia is a good student and seems no longer in need of our, erm...Wati's help.

That is just as well. Teaching English is so far removed from a maid's job description, that I am surprised we were never dragged before the authorities for inadvertent maid abuse.

Whether a six-year-old should even have homework, let alone have it focused on a midweek test, is dubious in the first place.

But that is what the poor girl is faced with, and as she is far too young to have the discipline to study on her own, somebody needs to help her.

I only hope that when she is old enough to work on her own, her already-stressed parents will not have been so sucked in that they are unable to let her do so.

Without the miracles that Wati worked, as Haley gets older, I am tasked with making sure that she is disciplined. She must study on her own and know its importance.

I must also make sure that she gets to study in a conducive environment and help schedule the time she needs to learn.

Having done that, surely, it must then be up to her. I can encourage, enforce and comfort but not much more.

That putting a magic 'e' at the end of a word changes the vowel sound is something I will mention, if she seems not to know. But I would certainly hope she picks that up at school.

She has so much energy and is fundamentally inquisitive. I must make sure that she channels it well.

But she is my child. How can I dodge responsibility?

All right, all right.

Dear Boss, please may I have one week's leave? First week of October, 2010.

STI: Yesterday, when we lived in Singapore...

Sep 22, 2004

Yesterday, when we lived in Singapore...
by Paul Zach

RECENTLY, my four-year-old son Sean began starting some of his sentences with a new phrase.

'Yesterday, when we lived in Singapore...' he says, whether he's asking questions or making statements.

My natural inclination is to respond: 'Was it only yesterday that we lived in Singapore?'

It's actually been less than a month since I uprooted my wife and son from their birthplace and moved us back to mine.

My wife is still reeling from the arrival of the Crown Line movers when she had barely begun packing late last month.

Even I am trying to catch my breath from the logistical nightmare of it all although I've spent most of my adult life moving from one end of the earth to the other.

I've gone from Israel to Indonesia to Jamaica and elsewhere to do stories for dozens of newspapers, wire services, TV and radio stations.

I've covered a hurricane in Florida, a war in the Middle East, a mass exorcism of the earth in Bali, a hotel collapse in Singapore.

I've flown over an erupting volcano in Hawaii, written a few books and appeared in some films.

But I did all that while I was a 'confirmed' bachelor without a care or responsibility in the world.

All of it pales in comparison with the emotional adventure of moving my family, and myself, from a country I'd made home for 20 years to a city on the other side of the world that I'd left behind even longer ago.

Singapore was the place I found the woman I knew would be a wonderful wife and mother, and where I became a father.

I first set eyes on my beautiful boy when a nurse put him on a scale at Mt Elizabeth Hospital, and wondered why I had wasted so many years being a childless bachelor.

It was in a house in Serangoon Gardens that I spent sleepless nights just watching Sean sleep.

There I also spent countless nights dancing and singing and rocking him back to sleep under cut-outs of a giant Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck I'd stuck on one wall and farm animals I'd pasted on another, and still felt exhilarated the next morning.

The Botanic Gardens was where I proudly showed off Sean on Sunday mornings at breakfast, and pushed him around the pond in his stroller. There too I later followed him closely as he rode his first bike to make sure he didn't steer it into that same pond.

He also loved the zoo where his eyes always widened at the sight of the giant pythons and crocodiles and he hid behind his Mum's knee, or mine, when a lion roared.

In Depot Road, he often spent weekends with 'Nenek', hiking up the cliff near Alkaff Mansion with her.

In Woodlands, he spent days playing cars with cousin Izzu and listening to cousin Izzi read to him.

Sean made many friends too all around Singapore - our friend's twin daughters Jing-Jing and Ning-Ning, Tyler and Shonagh whose parents had just moved into the neighbourhood, feisty little Zacc and others.

His best buddy, George, swam with him in Yio Chu Kang and together they ran around the halls of Suntec City as both sets of parents ducked in and out of concerts by Yes and Jewel.

At Chatsworth Kindergarten in Yishun, I left Sean behind for the first time, so reluctantly, in the kindly hands of Miss Cathy and Miss Loh when he began pre-K early this year. There he made many more friends like Jonathan, Hanna, Zheng Jie, Jnelle and Lincoln.

There's nothing harder in life than leaving the people who helped make such memories and the places where they were made.

Yet becoming a father also made me realise how long I had been away from my own father and mother. It made me want to spend time with them while I still could.

So my wife and I talked and talked about moving to the United States, but we also procrastinated.

I avoided telling people when we were leaving, and shook my head at suggestions of farewell parties, hoping to slip away quietly, without fanfare.

As the time to leave neared, we postponed one flight, then another.

Sean developed a cough and a slight fever after we had already moved out of the Chuan Walk home where he had grown up and into Nenek's flat. We almost postponed our departure again.

I dreaded the scene at the airport with my wife's family but there was no getting around it. The tears were infectious - I couldn't hold mine back either.

Tonight Sean is asleep under the Spider-man quilt his 'Grandma' bought him in a new bedroom here on the other side of the world. It's a cool clear crisp night.

A perfect crescent moon hangs over the Cuyahoga Valley. He's peaceful, dreaming. Yesterday, when we lived in Singapore...

Paul Zach is now a correspondent for The Straits Times and based in Cleveland, Ohio, in the US

STI: Most parents here don't cane kids, shows study

Sep 17, 2004

Most parents here don't cane kids, shows study
by Lee Hui Chieh

PARENTS here may not be as quick to use the cane as many believe.

A study of 230 Singaporean parents showed that 68 per cent disciplined their children just by reasoning with them.

Sparing the rod did not spoil the child. Instead, researchers found that these children were less likely to suffer from emotional and behavioural problems, especially delinquent and aggressive behaviour, compared with those who had been disciplined through caning alone.

About one in 10 of the parents used only caning, while one in five used a combination of both methods.

A team of six researchers from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) surveyed these parents, aged between 23 and 52, who had gone to seek medical attention for their children, aged between four and 12.

In studies done in the West, Asian parents have been frequently described as authoritarian and so are thought to favour physical punishment.

But there have been few studies on this in Asia and the researchers wanted to find out if this was indeed true and how different disciplinary practices affected a child's behaviour.

The results of this study debunks the myth of the Singaporean parent as being authoritarian, said one of the researchers, Ms Lee Yi Ping, a research assistant at the institute's department of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Based on the findings, the research team suggests that parents should adjust their disciplinary methods according to the type of problems displayed by the child.

For example, for a child with aggressive behaviour, parents might not want to resort to caning but look at other methods such as reasoning, said another researcher on the team, Dr Daniel Fung, deputy chief of the IMH's department of child and adolescent psychiatry.

The team stressed that this was a preliminary study and more research would be needed to determine which methods might be more suitable for certain children.

Agreeing with the study, Mr Alfred Tan, executive director of the Singapore Children's Society, said: 'Generally, we advise parents to use caning only as a last resort. Overdoing it may cause distress to the child.

'Reasoning, on the other hand, will build bonding and improve understanding between the child and parents.'

He added that there were other more effective disciplinary methods, such as withdrawing privileges from children if they misbehaved.

This is one of 450 research papers that will be presented at the National Healthcare Group Scientific Congress, which will be held on Oct 9 and 10 at Raffles City Convention Centre.

About 3,500 health-care professionals are expected to attend the annual scientific meeting, now in its third year.

At the conference, researchers from the National University Hospital will also be speaking on how they managed to isolate the DNA of a foetus just from samples of the mother's blood.

By running genetic tests, they were able to determine accurately the gender of 23 babies between six and 36 weeks of pregnancy.

This could then be used as a model to develop specific tests for genetic diseases such as muscular dystrophy and thalessaemia, said Dr Mahesh Choolani, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist.

It could then replace current invasive methods such as amniocentesis, which involves sticking a needle into the pregnant woman's stomach and carries a 1 to 4 per cent risk of miscarriage.

He added: 'In time to come, we could possibly inject a series of stem cells to correct those that cause genetic disorders even before the baby is born.'

STI: To grow with respect

Sep 1, 2004

To grow with respect
by Steve Dawson

TO SAVE for my not-so-extravagant student holidays, I used to work in a grocery shop during the summer vacation.

It was a small store in a south-east London province called Welling. Far from glamorous, it was downright dodgy at times.

Notorious skinheads, lacking in tolerance, loitered ominously. I was always amazed that old women risked leaving their homes just to visit the shop for a bag of tomatoes and a cucumber.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is the shop manager, Bill, a wise and witty man whose company taught me more than I realised at the time.

The highlight of a dreary day would be when the delivery lorry arrived with the day's supplies.

It provided an hour's deviation from the brain-numbing norm. Instead of stacking groceries in the shop front, I could unload the lorry and stack groceries in the store room - bliss.

As that time in the morning approached, when anticipation was heightened, I would shout across the shop: 'Ere Bill! How long will the lorry be?'

'About 24 feet,' he would yell back.

Apart from being an amateur humorist, he was a solid, working-class, family man who knew of values beyond the tangible.

You never got anything out of him without a 'please' and 'thank you'.

With his unkempt moustache, long hair and knee-length grocer's jacket, he was no lord of the manner.

But he could have taught the landed gentry a thing or two about politeness, respect and manners.

'Manners cost noffin',' he used to say, when empty-headed customers or staff took him or his environment for granted.

That expression, from among all his utterances, has stayed with me.

So far, I have not used it on my daughters. It was powerful for me, and I want to leave it for a time when it will be equally powerful for them.

My nine-year old, Amelia, is a well-mannered girl. But it took her a while to lick that terrible business of eating with your mouth open.

'What will you do when you meet the man of your dreams?' I used to ask her.

'He'll take you to a posh restaurant and you'll chomp away like a chimpanzee?'

She used to throw her head back laughing as I played out the scene.

But manners are no laughing matter.

For as long as we have discussed it, the incentive for Amelia to put a muzzle on her chomping has been dinner at The Raffles Grill; just the two of us.

She knows the deal.

I shall buy her a beautiful dress and don a suit myself.

And, on the assumption that she will be too young for wine, she can order anything she likes.

The seeds of this evening were planted some 10 years ago.

My wife Diana and I were celebrating our fifth anniversary at Maxim's, a restaurant in the Regent Hotel.

Halfway through, an elderly man entered the dining room with two women who emanated gentleness.

It quickly became clear that they were his daughters.

They sat him down and guided him through the menu.

What a spectacle they were. So beautiful, so caring and attentive. Above all their manners were impeccable.

How proud the old man must have been. What must he have done to have earned such love from daughters with such poise and carriage?

As powerful as Bill's take on manners, this memory stays with me. That table for three was the reason I wanted daughters.

Could anyone be treasured more than they treasured him?

I had a rough idea that Amelia would be primed for her Raffles Grill evening at the age of 12.

But I think now, she is just about ready - three years ahead of schedule.

I shall be the one to take care of her that night and it will be my great honour to do so.

But one evening, when she and little Haley have blossomed into young women, I look forward to them making me as proud and content as that old man at Maxim's must have been.

STI: Mum's the word

Aug 28, 2004

Mum's the word
by Sharon Loh

MY CHILDREN are still of the age when Mummy worship is quite the thing.

To them, I am the bee's knees.

I am powerful, wise and pretty.

I am, quite simply, the best Mummy in the world.

Enjoy it while it lasts, a friend said, before they grow up and the scales fall from their eyes.

While organising a retro party for her daughter's 12th birthday, she mused out loud: 'I wonder what I will wear.'

Her daughter Jessica replied: 'What does it matter what you wear?'

My girls still gasp when I emerge dressed and made up, and say: 'Oh Mummy, you look beeaauutiful!'

Gosh, but it's nice to be seen through rose-tinted glasses again.

All parents - especially mothers - get this grace period of a few short years during which they bask in the largely undiscerning affection of their offspring.

This is before the children grow up and realise that Mummy and Daddy are human after all.

Until that happens, your relationship with your child is a heady infatuation which excludes everyone else.

It's like being in love again.

So I am the recipient of extravagant expressions of affection, as well as real trophies.

These include cards, drawings and knick knacks made specially almost every day for me or their Daddy.

The house is littered with artwork which trumpets I Love You Mummy, or I Heart Mummy, written, you can tell, with the greatest care for all its childishness.

They protest when I leave for work, and whoop with joy when I am home on weekends.

At meals, they fight to have me sit in between them.

Actually, that's become a rather tiresome ritual.

And as with any infatuation, I am idealised, my virtues magnified, the flaws largely missed.

Isabel, especially, is Mummy-crazy.

Our farewells when I leave for work can take 10 minutes.

It's like Bergman and Bogart clinging to each other on the tarmac.

At birthday parties, she would rather play with me than other children.

Given half a chance, she's in my lap.

As she is tucked into bed, she will grab my neck and whisper, 'I love you more than anything in the world (pause) and also Daddy, and Gong Gong and Ma Ma and Jan Jan and Nana and Alexis.'

Then she says, 'Hold my hand', and will not go to sleep until I do.

Her hunger to be loved back is intense.

She will ask, 'I'll always be your baby, no matter how old I get, right?'

The last time I was this crazy about somebody, I married him.

And I certainly didn't expect such sweet nothings from another quarter afterwards.

One day, the dopamine rush they get from a true romance will surpass the feelings they have now.

But it's not surprising that Mummy is their first love.

After all, she is life itself.

For a good few years, she is everything in the world, the miracle-worker who makes sure your tummy is filled when you are hungry, who soothes every hurt and illness, who knows what to do in any situation.

As a child, I never told my Mummy that I loved her, because such verbal demonstration was unnecessary and alien, but I panicked when it dawned on me that she could die and leave me.

For years, as with many children, I lived morbidly with it as my greatest fear.

She was as necessary as air and water.

If she was not at home, the house seemed unbearably silent and empty.

When she was there, it felt different, alive, full of the comfort of the noises she would make as she worked in the kitchen. I would feel happy and secure.

It's no coincidence that Isabel has become more starved for affection ever since I went back to work.

She is anxious that the ground has been cut from under her.

It won't be long before my children's intense adoration is transferred elsewhere, as it should be, and those love notes for me turn into Valentines for new sweethearts.

But the sweet here and now should be savoured, though that is sometimes easier said than done, when you have a child clinging to you that you want to prise off with a crowbar.

Still, as you tell her to run off and play with friends her age, part of you instantly regrets it, because you know that one day all she will want to do is go off and play with friends her age.

As my mum-in-law says, with children, it's either feast or famine.

Already, Alexis is growing more distant.

She is developing a life that she doesn't necessarily want to share with me.

As with all honeymoons, this too must end.

One day, the kids will start saying, 'I love my Mum, but...'

They will start to realise that you do make mistakes, that you can disappoint them, and break your promises.

And as they make a break with you to find themselves, which happens with everyone eventually, the wonder years could become a wilderness of forgetting how much you used to mean to each other.

But till then, these years are a special dispensation - probably because parenting would be a mighty thankless task otherwise - when you are the most important person in the world, bar none, to someone.

That's something indeed.

STI: My baby is my bonus

Aug 26, 2004

My baby is my bonus
by Clarence Chang

IT'S past 2am on a Monday morning and I can't sleep.

My head's still spinning from the audacity of it all.

After an exhausting 15-hour workday covering Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's maiden National Day Rally speech, sorry news is awaiting me at home.

'Would you believe it?' my wife said dejectedly as soon as I walked in. 'They cancelled our application for Jay-Jay's endowment policy.'

'Jay-Jay' refers to Jason, my five-year-old autistic son.

'They' refers to the insurance department of a local bank, the same agents who, just the week before, had tried every trick in the book to get us to sign on the dotted line. Before we furnished them with Jason's medical details.

The official reason given for the change of heart? Jason's 'pre-existing condition' which may one day, according to their flawed understanding, become 'life-threatening'.

Or at least, there's 'no guarantee' it won't.

I shook my head and sighed.

It's a developmental disability, you idiots, I screamed quietly. It doesn't kill you.

It's times like this that I glance at my sleeping child with envy, wishing I could retreat for just one minute into his world - pure, innocent and complete.

A world where no one else matters except those who can relate to you. Where ignorance and prejudice are as alien as disease and death, because your brain refuses to allow you to believe they exist.

As the Prime Minister himself had said on rally night, 'no society is perfect'. And how right he was.

Yet, as a young father of two, I'm heartened by Mr Lee's resolve to be a Prime Minister 'for all', in an 'open and inclusive' Singapore. Heck, he had even gone to the extent of calling the disabled 'our brothers and sisters'.

Indeed, I crave the day when my son can walk tall into the Istana grounds to witness the swearing in of the country's next PM. And at the end of it, shake the hand of the man (or woman) who inspires him to see his own ability, not disability.

I crave the day when the so-called intellectually inferior like him can claim their rightful place as proud citizens, contributing to society in baby steps. And not be shunned or treated as a nuisance, a basket case and a liability to the State.

I crave the day when the usual two-year waiting list for entry into special schools here becomes unheard of, because places, facilities, resources and support structures have multiplied and educational priorities realigned.

Most importantly, I crave the day when parents in a similar position can feel assured that their children won't be unfairly judged and labelled in their absence, by those who ought to know better.

Like insurance planners. Medical professionals. Teachers. And letter-writers.

Which brings me to the recent troubling episode where a Straits Times reader actually called for a further liberalisation of Singapore's abortion laws to allow 'on-demand' operations beyond the second trimester.

Why? On account of potential defects in the baby. And a possible lifetime of financial costs that await the parents, and yes, the wider community.

My first reaction? Disbelief.

With all the talk about plunging birth rates, isn't it sad enough that some 12,000 babies (or foetuses, to use a less emotive term) already go through this fate every year, with or without 'defects'?

A number that adds up to a staggering 32.4 per cent of the actual number of babies born last year, which was 37,000?

But hang on, a little voice reminds me. If I'm urging others not to judge children with special needs like my son, what right do I have to judge the personal decisions of other couples?

None, except to ask myself: Would my wife and I have considered aborting Jason if we had known he would develop autism by his second birthday?

The answer's a no-brainer.

Suffice to say I'd gladly trade 20 years of my life just to spend 20 minutes with him, if that was all the time we had.

So far, every second of his existence has confirmed to me that a child, however imperfect, however withdrawn, however incapable of verbally expressing his thoughts and emotions, is still a blessing from above without parallel.

Think skydiving or bungee jumping's the ultimate thrill? Try parenting. No parachutes, no bungee cords, no safety harnesses.

And if we're talking about a child with special needs, no risk-free return policies or warranty cards either.

For now, a more pertinent question in the present context should be this: is Jason the reason my wife and I are holding back from having a third child? Regrettably, yes.

But happily, the reason is purely financial (combined monthly bills for occupational therapy and early intervention classes easily run into the thousands). And therefore temporary.

And not because the experience of raising him, emotionally draining as it is, has put us off more children indefinitely.

In fact, nothing in this world - extended baby bonuses, longer maternity leave and lower maid levies included - could spur us more than the innocent wish of an older child who loves his far-from-perfect sibling, yet longs for a second brother or sister he can interact with completely and dote on as dearly.

'Maybe if I pray hard, Mummy and Daddy's next baby won't be autistic,' Joshua, who's a year older, has said on more than one occasion.

It doesn't matter, my boy, I would tell him. To us, either way, he or she would still be the most precious little being on the planet.

That's a guarantee.

The writer is a TV correspondent with Channel i News.

STI: Can you find it in you?

Aug 26, 2004

Can you find it in you?
by Chua Mui Hoong

ABORTION has been on my mind of late.

No, it's not what you think.

But reading the letters on abortion, and recalling stories of people I know who aborted their babies, got me into this frame of mind.

The Forum page has seen several letters on the issue.

It was sparked off by a letter from Mr Teo Chun Sang, who wanted abortion laws changed to allow parents to abort foetuses after 24 weeks if they knew the baby would be disabled.

Mr Felix Ser, who has cerebral palsy, wrote in to counter this suggestion, in indignation.

'It is gross injustice if we deny babies with disabilities the opportunity to live beyond the womb by emphasising parental choice,' he said.

Mr Ser's point: There are different degrees of disability, and many 'disabled' people can still contribute to society.

The debate came home to me when someone I know decided to have an abortion because there was a chance the baby would have congenital defects.

I once heard of another woman who aborted her baby after finding out that it had both male and female sexual organs.

And then there are those who aborted their baby because they got pregnant while unmarried, or simply because a baby would cramp their style.

Now, I know it's not an easy decision. Women who have aborted once often feel guilty and have nightmares about it long after.

My concern is whether Singapore society is too lax on abortion: When we make it such a simple option, it becomes the default choice.

In some ways, the calculations are so easy: To a young woman looking ahead, a short, 15-minute procedure is simpler to go through than a lifetime of raising a child, especially a child who might be disabled in some way.

But that calculation ignores what abortion means: the aborting of a life.

Leave aside the question of whether life begins at Day 7 or Day 14 after conception. Any woman who has seen an ultrasound of her baby in her womb knows she has a life growing within her.

Aborting means putting a stop to that life growing in her.

I think mature women understand the implications of that decision. I hope teenagers and young unwed mothers also feel the weight of their decision.

Each year, over 12,000 babies are aborted. With Singapore experiencing a baby shortage, there have been calls to 'save' more of these babies.

National issues aside, there are human reasons for trying to keep the numbers down.

I know abortion is framed as a matter of a woman's choice.

In the United States, the debate is polarised between the catchphrases pro-choice or pro-life.

Many women I know are sympathetic to both sides of the debate.

Which is why the decision on whether to go ahead with a pregnancy that could lead to having a disabled baby, is such a wrenching one.

I don't want to judge women who choose to abort rather than risk having a disabled child.

Neither do I want to judge women who choose to abort simply because they feel it's their body, and their choice.

I just want to ask them two questions.

One: Abortion is your choice, but how about what the baby wants? After all, who will protect your baby's right to life, if not you?

Two: Even if you don't want the baby, can you find it in you to love the baby enough to give him or her a chance at life? Carry the child to full term, and then, if you still cannot raise him yourself, put him up for adoption.

At least give him a chance at life.

STI: Raising junior is easier now

Aug 26, 2004

Raising junior is easier now
by Sue-Ann Chia

LOOKING after junior just became more affordable.

Parents with children aged below 12 can enjoy a lower maid levy, those with babies get a new infant-care subsidy, and there is a new $3,000 relief which working mums can claim from the taxman if a grandparent is helping to care for the child.

These were among the measures announced yesterday to ease the cost of raising children so couples may be encouraged to have more.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang, chairman of the steering group on population, which unveiled a comprehensive baby package yesterday, noted that the Government cannot dictate when couples should have children.

'But, at the same time, we believe there is a role for the Government and the community at large to provide a conducive framework for couples and families to raise their children,' he said.

This is because government surveys and feedback given indicate that 'cost consideration is an important factor in the couples' decision for how many children they want to raise.'

The monthly maid levy will be cut from $345 to $250 for families with children aged below 12. The others who can pay the lower levy: those aged 65 or older or people with parents or grandparents aged at least 65 staying with them.

This will cover more than half of current households with maids, and the estimated loss to government coffers is $90 million a year.

The lower levy was first announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday.

One person who had been anxious to know how low it would get was administrative assistant Mrs M.S. Teo, 34.

'It may be just $95 less but any reduction is good as it helps to defray costs. It's really expensive to raise kids,' said the mother of two children aged five and seven.

Over the years, the maid levy has been a bugbear for many parents. Bank manager Ian Tan, 33, who has a maid to look after his two children aged four and seven months, said: 'A lot of people have said it is too high, but nothing happened for some time and I thought they were just flogging a dead horse.'

The Government had maintained that a certain amount was set to control the number of maids here. The $345 rate - set at 1998 - still applies to other employers who do not meet the criteria.

Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen who was on the panel delivering the good news yesterday conceded that the lower levy will increase the number of maids here 'quite significantly'.

Hence, his ministry intends to reduce potential problems such as the working ties between maids and employers and will announce measures to beef up the quality of maids soon.

A new centre-based infant-care subsidy was also introduced yesterday. It will be given to parents with Singaporean babies aged two to 18 months. The maximum subsidy is $400 per month for a working mother, and $75 for a non-working mother.

It is the Government's recognition that the cost of infant-care programmes is high compared to childcare. Childcare subsidies remain unchanged as they are deemed adequate.

Mr Simon Mok, 32, an IT regional manager with a working wife and a nine-month-old daughter in infant care, was pleased as he now pays slightly more than $1,000 a month.

On whether the changes will prompt him to have baby No. 2, he said: 'One at a time. My wife and I have to review it year by year. It is 60 per cent financial concerns; and 40 per cent of the concern is whether we have the time.'

The role of grandparents in caring for grandchildren has also been given a boost, with a Grandparent Caregiver Relief.

A working mother who seeks the help of her parents or in-laws to care for her children aged 12 or below can claim a maximum deduction of $3,000. But she must be the only person claiming the relief for the parent.