I feel discriminated!

According to Dictionary.com, the meaning of discrimination is as follows:

“treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit”

A person can be discriminated against his/her age, gender, race etc. As a SAHM (aka non-working mother), I belong to a minority group of mothers who can’t help feeling discriminated against sometimes. Other than disapproval from those who believe we should be contributing to the economy, we’re also disadvantaged with regards to government subsidy and tax rebates.

Take child care subsidy for example. Non-working and working mothers enjoy equal subsidy of $150 for half-day programmes. However, for full-day programmes, working mothers enjoy a subsidy of $300 while the subsidy is capped at $150 for non-working mothers. Why? The answer from the MCYS website as follows:

“The main intent of the child care subsidy is to support mothers who need to put their children in child care centres as they continue to work. If a mother is not working, she is encouraged to be the main caregiver, and attendance at child care centres would be supplementary. Hence she is entitled to a smaller subsidy.”

Well honestly, I do not disagree with the answer given. After all, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 3 years – being M’s primary caregiver. But as we make plans for a second child, we realise how the above answer does not address needs of SAHMs with more than one kid.

One must work 56 hours a month to qualify as a working mother. That’s around 3 hours a day, given a 20-day work month. Doesn’t sound that bad right?

Guess that’s the whole intent. To drive us back into the work force.

There we go again… GDP still has precedence over birth rate…

Yummy New Year!

Chinese New Year (CNY) has to be about food, food and food. A lot of the significance of this festival to me is linked to the food we eat around this period. Growing up in an extended family, this most important festival to Chinese is also my favourite. And it’s got to do with how my Teochew family celebrated it when I was young.

Besides spring-cleaning every nook and cranny of a 2-storey terrace house (an enormous task for the household of 14 people), the food preparation leading up to the festival is also a very memorable one. I always tag along whenever my mum goes about her marketing and really enjoy the air of festivity at wet markets late at night – CNY is the only time they stay open this late. My mum and aunt home-made dishes like ngor hiang (seafood rolls), kay koy (vegetarian duck), cheng teng (a dessert) and even bake kueh bahru (a snack) the traditional way with metal moulds and charcoal fire.

After the reunion dinner where my other uncles and their families will join us, all the kids would line up to receive our angbaos from my grandfather. We had to say a festive greeting in order to get it. On the first day of CNY, we kids had to offer festive greetings to all adults first thing in the morning. After that, it’s a busy 2 days of receiving guests and then visiting relatives, which means lots of pok-chwee (carbonated drinks), sweets, snacks and of course angbaos!

Even though we no longer celebrate it to the same extend as in the past (after the passing of my grandparents), I still look forward to this festival every year. I hope M will enjoy it as much as I do and I’ve been telling her about CNY as we go around. Last week, we put up some CNY decorations while she was in school and when she reach the door, she asked “Mummy, why is there a sticker on the door? It’s upside-down??” It was an inverted 福 with pictures of a boy and girl.

She even surprised me with “恭禧发财”the other day, I asked her who taught her and she said 老师. Yesterday, she held two mandarin oranges together and said “恭禧恭禧”. She can even sing part of the “恭禧,恭禧,恭禧你啊”song!

How fun… I’m looking forward to bringing her around already!

新年快乐!

Knowing my drugs…

M has been taking medicines for her flu and cough for about a month now. It’s been her longest period of medication. She was just beginning to look and sound better over the past few days, only to start coughing again today! What a nightmare…

We really feel so helpless! It’s just beyond us, even doctors can only do this much.

In times like this, when my fridge is choke-full of medicines, I always only refer to my book ‘Concise Guide to Medicines and Drugs’ for better understanding of all those bottles.

I first bought this book when my dad suffered a minor stroke some years ago and was prescribed loads of drugs. He was constantly asking me what a particular medicine was for and I had no choice but to look around a medicine dictionary. I am a complete idiot with medicines.

Anyway, doctors sometimes do not have the time to fully explain all the medicines to us, including their side effects. I remember one time when M started shivering after she took a particular medicine. We were so frightened then, especially with her shuddering attacks history. Well, it turned out to be a side effect of the drug.

This book has proved really useful, sometimes even better than the medicine