Header image

Work from Home flexibility is diminishing in Singapore – sad for parents

Posted on by careyourpresent

Working From Home

After COVID, the flexibility work arrangement has definitely make many parents happier as they now can find some time to bring their kid to school and pick them them from school.

Their child (whose short time window where the parents are their only world only last for a short few years) will see their parent faces instead of their grandparents, helper or childcare/after school care teachers faces.

These precious moments will likely be gone as more and more employers are ask their employees to come back to office more.

Our own current work arrangements

Currently, both my wife and I are working. We are working 3 days from office and 2 days from home. Hence, we do rotational shift to pick my elder child (who end school at 1.30pm) on the days where we were working from home respectively.

We get to be physically around to bring him home, cook him lunch before heading back to work furiously on our laptops 2-3 times per week. Certain days of the weeks where the schedule couldn’t work out, we would take leaves to resolve the issue of who will be picking up the kid. It’s hectic, but we each get to have some time off to do some useful work, earn dual income to fight this every rising cost world, plus spend some meaningful time with the kid whenever possible.

Of course, we know that this is a privilege, not an entitlement, but the world trend is going this way. Since the government is also encouraging more involving parents and more child birth due to the world declining birth rate, this is a good progress for the world….however, we know that things won’t last…but didn’t know it came so soon…

An email just came…

An email came yesterday. It was announced to all employees of my company that we will need to shift back to 4 days in office and 1 day work from home from the current 3 days in office and 1 day from home. They given us few weeks to make the “necessary adjustment” if needed before they implement it.

Ok, now we have to make our choices / plans now or soon. I thought through the various options…

Choice 1

Many would ask us to send the kid to after school care.

Do you think this is possible after that child experienced not going to after school care since Covid time for the past few years? If we forcefully send him in, what if he hates us for life? On our end, likely we will also regret for life. Think further, this is analogous to your child send you to old folks while you don’t want to when you old. Is this option possible?

Furthermore, it means we moved back to the pre-COVID time for my younger kid who is in pre-school now. Currently she look forward for one of us to bring her to playground after her pre-school ends everyday. Pre-covid time where both my kids are in childcare, we picked them up at around 6.50pm (need 50-60 minutes to travel back after end work) after a long day of commuting and hardwork, do you think we still have energy to bring her to play?

Choice 2

Ask Grandparents to take care or hire helper.

Grandparents to take care is impossible. My mum passed away in Jan 2023 this year and my dad needs us to take care rather than the other way. How could we trouble him? In laws, impossible as stay far away.

Helper? We don’t want this option because it’s additional cost and do you want the kids to everything find your helper rather than you? I believe many can see this when you just go to shopping mall.

Choice 3

Look at my previous article: Careyourpresent: Frozen. Let it go!

I guess it is time to Let it go! One of us take a career break for few years before come back to work. I don’t think should FIRE as it’s always good to engage in some form of work. We don’t want to regret on our death beds one day. We need to do some calculation and makes sure we are ready. Luckily we still have some investments income to tide us over this period. Some lower income family really don’t have a choice, they need both dual incomes for survival. Are we progressing or regressing as a society?

Well…one less employee for Singapore for a few years but a happier family on Earth for few more years.

Irony…

It’s irony, but now I fully understand why the birth rate is declining in Singapore or in the world, and why many prefer to be DINK (Dual Income with no Kids).

This is because for those with kids, either has to sacrifice their careers to stay home to take care of kids, or sacrifice family time with the child on the years which they need you most by outsourcing the childcare to other people (schools, helpers, grandparents etc)…

A balance is impossible even with the world growing trend of flexible working environment…hence, I guess people continue with DINK better. Dual income is better (for survival), especially in this inflationary, everyday rising cost country…save enough for retirement better rather than give birth to future generations that suffer in this every rising difficult costly world…

Deal 1:

Webull – Get free money!

Good deal! Do not miss this! Sign up here now for free money!!

Deal 2:

Trust Bank New Clients → Free SGD$35 FairPrice Vouchers

  • Sign up using referral code KNDBPEPT (Free $10 FairPrice E-Voucher). Key in this code after you download the Trust Bank App from Trust Bank Website
  • Receive a S$25 FairPrice E-Voucher from your first card spend as a credit card customer or when you make your first S$500 deposit for Savings account
  • Many other attractive vouchers in the app – refresh every month
  • No minimum balance account and can earn up to 2.5% for the first 125k
  • No foreign transaction fee, great exchange rates when overseas. See my review via Trust Card – Excellent Card for overseas usage.

Deal 3:

FSMone – Cheap Comms and can transfer your shares to Personal/Joint CDP for Free

I am using FSMOne.com to invest in funds & ETFs (including money market funds). FSM is good due to the low comms and the free transfer from FSMOne to CDP (typically takes less than a week to transfer). If you do not have an account, you can sign up here. Please use my FSMOne referral code: P0413007.

Deal 4:

Eskimo – Best Option for Roaming!

For now, you can get 500MB for free just by signing up with my referral link, no purchase required (I get 500MB only too, but only if you buy a paid plan). Referral code: CHING104915

You can read my review here.

Money just buy you the chance of freedom but can’t buy back time. In life, there is no reset button. Time is limited but money is not.

When you are young and working, you exchange time for money. When you are old, you can have lots of money but you can’t buy time back, especially the things that you have missed (your strong health, time with young child) while busying striking out in career.

Your kids grew up and they no longer need you to accompany them. They no longer want to sit on your lap to share/do things with you…all these time you spent in your 9 to 6 or even longer cubicles…can the money that you have earned by you back these?

We always thought we have more time with our old parents, but we are wrong. Time with them is ticking away every day. One day it will suddenly be gone. There is no regret medicine, no reset in time. Gone is gone and cannot come back. No matter you are billionaires or millionaires, you cannot reset this.

We always thought that we have more time with our spouse every day, but we are wrong. One day they will be gone too. When you read this, please go tell your spouse that you love him/her and he or she is the best thing that you ever had in your life.

Love your life daily. You have one less day with your spouse, parents, children and yourself. Time is ticking away.

Focusing Careyourpresent & living a fulfilling life by supercharging your mind & investment/online income. Careyourpresent Series focus on things that one MUST know in their Life.

More articles can be found here.

For those who are interested in regular updates of my articles, please join the others to sign up for my free newsletter to has my newest blogposts sent to your mailbox for free!

For real time exclusive updates on market news/life (especially Crypto markets where the news move fast, important news will be shared directly via tweets or telegrams), do also join the platforms below and engage with other like-minded people!

You may also contact me via [email protected].

Category: Careyourpresent

2 thoughts on “Work from Home flexibility is diminishing in Singapore – sad for parents”

  1. I dont think your child will hate you just because you choose to send him for after school care. If it is, there will be alot of broken family in the world right now. Kids are more resilient than what we parents think. Both of you work in the same company? I read it that both of you are affected by the WFH change.

    If after school care is the only way to go, can both of you arrange your WFH days to be on different days? So at least either of you can pick the child up earlier twice per week.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: