Commentary: I wanted to be a better dad but paternity leave wouldn’t have made a difference

SINGAPORE: My father died of a heart attack when I was 13. Perhaps I was too young but I don’t remember crying when I heard the news.

By the time my third child arrived in 2013, dads finally got government paid paternity leave for the first time in Singapore. It was just one week and should have allowed me to spend time with the youngest but my business was running into trouble and my wife had to return to work. We had to hire a domestic worker to help with the children.

I saw this upfront when I took up an offer with a Korean firm in 2016. It was almost impossible for me to leave early, let alone take a week or two off to spend time with my wife and children. There was no concept of work-life balance. This is outlined in a research by the University of Edinburgh where the findings suggested that whether fathers take on a more active care-giving role depended heavily on workplace culture, relationship with their line managers, how their peers behaved and gendered leave practices .

A 2020 study by the Institute of Policy Studies also pointed out that measures should be taken to reduce the cultural stigma and gender norms around parenting, to support fathers in playing more active roles at home.Research shows how vital fathers are at this stage in not just bonding with their babies, but critically, supporting their wives. This is especially true when it is a first child and that whole roster of feeding, colic and non-stop crying can leave mothers exhausted.

Just because we want it to be different, doesn’t make it go away – men do earn more than women, they do shoulder more of the “work” responsibilities while their wives take on more domestic chores.

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