I would not say that Singaporeans “like” hiring maids. Rather, they are forced to employ helpers.
Singapore is a very expensive city to live in. Having lived a couple of years in Europe, I can safely say that Singapore’s cost of lifestyle is far more expensive than European countries. That, without even adding in the property and car costs here in Singapore!
And how do we survive this? Simple, whoever is able to work in the household, needs to work! And if you are a couple, majority of the time, both the spouses need to work to be able to pay for the lifestyle, property and if you have one, the car. Of course there are instances where one of the spouse’s remuneration is good enough so that both the spouses don’t need to work.
In a situation where both spouses are working, and you have a young baby/child to take care off, or even an old person who needs attention, how do you afford to stay at home to take care of them? Quite simply, you can’t. And this is the very basic reason why Singaporeans end up taking maids, or helpers as I prefer to refer to them.
Take me for example, I have an infant and a toddler at home. I need to work and my wife needs to work too. My toddler son needs to go to pre-school. We can still manage that, but it means that dropping him way earlier to his pre-school so both of us reach our offices in time. And in the evening, we have to rush back from the city to the pre-school to be sure to pick him up in time. And this is an extremely stressful task as we can be unexpectedly delayed at work or there might be a traffic jam etc. Most of the pre-schools here practice a system of fining a dollar a minute for every minute the parents are late in picking up their kids after 7pm. So, if you pick up your kid at 7.23pm, you have to pay $23 to the teacher who stayed back to take care of your kid. Be late a couple of minutes everyday in picking up your kid, and you are poorer by quite a bit in just a week.
That aside, what about my infant daughter? New mothers in Singapore are eligible for 4 months maternity leave. But the infant is still an infant after 4 months for sure! And she is still dependable on an adult. So what do we do? Hire a helper to assist us in taking care of the baby during these times.
Of course, with that you have other questions which raise up, such as, will the daughter not be so attached to the mother anymore? Will she pick up characteristics of the helper and not that of her parents? But this comes to the kind of parenting one does. Without going to in-depth into it, I would just say that spending quality time with your kids is more important that the quantity of time spent with them.
So yes, we do not like employing helpers, but we are obliged to employ them so that we are able to lead a certain level of lifestyle.
Translated by Google
我不会说新加坡人“喜欢”雇佣女佣。相反,他们被迫雇用助手。
新加坡是一个生活成本非常高的城市。在欧洲生活了几年,我可以肯定地说,新加坡的生活方式成本远高于欧洲国家。那,甚至没有增加新加坡的房产和汽车成本!
我们如何生存下来?很简单,谁能在家里工作,谁就需要工作!如果你是一对夫妇,大多数时候,配偶双方都需要工作才能支付生活方式、财产和汽车的费用。当然,在某些情况下,配偶之一的报酬足够好,以至于配偶双方都不需要工作。
在夫妻双方都在工作的情况下,你有一个年幼的婴儿/孩子要照顾,甚至是一个需要照顾的老人,你怎么能呆在家里照顾他们?很简单,你不能。这就是新加坡人最终选择女佣或我更喜欢称呼她们的帮手的根本原因。
以我为例,我家里有一个婴儿和一个蹒跚学步的孩子。我需要工作,我的妻子也需要工作。我蹒跚学步的儿子需要上学前班。我们仍然可以做到这一点,但这意味着让他早点去他的学前班,这样我们两个都能及时到达我们的办公室。而且晚上还要从市区赶回幼儿园,一定要及时接他。这是一项非常有压力的任务,因为我们可能会在工作中意外延误,或者可能会遇到交通拥堵等。这里的大多数幼儿园实行每分钟一美元的罚款制度,父母迟到一分钟晚上 7 点以后他们的孩子。所以,如果你在晚上 7.23 接你的孩子,你必须向留下来照顾你孩子的老师支付 23 美元。每天接孩子迟到几分钟,一周之内你就穷了不少。
除此之外,我年幼的女儿呢?新加坡的新妈妈有资格享受 4 个月的产假。但是4个月后婴儿肯定还是婴儿!她仍然可以依靠成年人。那么我们该怎么办?在这段时间聘请一名助手协助我们照顾婴儿。
当然,随之而来的还有其他问题,比如,女儿会不会对母亲不再那么依恋了?她会接受帮助者的特征而不是她父母的特征吗?但这涉及到一种育儿方式。无需深入探讨,我只想说与孩子共度美好时光比与他们共度时光更重要。
所以,是的,我们不喜欢雇佣帮手,但我们有义务雇佣他们,这样我们才能过上某种程度的生活方式。