How To Build A Singaporean Woman: Share The Burden Of Caregiving

“How To Build A Singaporean Woman” is a Her World original docuseries which highlights the social and cultural issues that women in Singapore face, and asks: what does it mean to be a Singaporean woman today? In the third episode, “Share The Burden Of Caregiving”, stay-at-home dad Cliff and humanitarian doctor Wai Jia, a couple, and former educator and caregiver Grace Seah share their experiences around the challenges of being a caregiver, while also discussing the gender expectations and stigma caregivers endure.

Becoming a primary caregiver

For Grace, she became a caregiver as her husband’s health deteriorated. “Basically, [I] accompanied him to the doctors, reminding him of his medication”. She recalled. “As his condition worsen[ed], I literally had to help him even with his toileting”.

She also became a caregiver for her aunt and her mother. “Due to some family crisis [...], my Mom had to leave my brother’s home. And together with my aunty, they came to stay with us.”

Caregiving isn’t just limited to loved ones in ill health – Cliff and Wai Jia are a couple who returned to Singapore from Canada when they had to consider the best living arrangement for them. “We were exploring preschools, daycare, helper, all the possible options,” said Cliff.  “We have some friends who’ve been homeschooling their kids and taking care of it themselves, so I think that played a part in how we make that decision”. With the kids being very small, and Wai Jia having a bonded full-time job with the government, Cliff decided to become a stay-at-home dad. 

The emotions of caretaking

“Cliff’s transition to being a stay-at-home dad was very daunting for all of us because neither of us realised how difficult it would be,” said Wai Jia. “When we look back, I realise that it's the burden of stigma – and that can be crushing.”

Having been a stay-at-home mom for a year while they were in Canada, Wai Jia could relate to that. “Coming down from that pinnacle [of her academic and professional achievements] to suddenly being [...] in a foreign land with a stay-at-home mom label with no identity, people not even recognising my name or my title or what I did, it was almost humiliating in a way”.

While the role of being a caretaker can bring about complicated emotions, the act of caretaking can be taxing too. “Seeing the deterioration in their health, it really pains me,” said Grace. “Not that I have to care for them more, but more so the very fact that independence [they lost] was something that they value.”

But despite that, Grace recalls the idea of caretaking as coming naturally, saying, “We just want to give them our best, and we know that time is short.” 

The pressures of gender expectations

All three interviewees discussed the pressures of breadwinning being put on men, and the stigma women receive when they choose to prioritise their careers over caregiving.

“I told him he needs to stop work to take care of himself,” recalled Grace. “The typical life [...] is like the husband is the sole breadwinner and the wife is either the homemaker or something like that. But I told him firmly, we don’t have to follow what the world thinks, I want you to live as long as possible to be with me.”

Part of that pressure towards breadwinning means jobs like caretaking aren’t valued as much by society. “As a stay-at-home dad [...], I don't get paid, right?” asks Cliff. “Does this mean that I am less important in society or less important in our family?”

That pressure towards traditional gender roles can also mean that women are expected to make sacrifices in their career opportunities to be caregivers, which shouldn’t have to be the case – Cliff and Wai Jia brought up an anecdote of when Wai Jia was to be deployed with the World Health Organisation to Africa amidst COVID-19 for six weeks. 

“After making that very difficult decision to leave my young kids and husband behind, I received a text from a man who had spent decades of his life being an international coordinator,” Wai Jia recalled. “He sent me a text to let me know that he felt it would not be wise for a mother to leave her family for this sort of work. When I read that text message, I held back tears. When I finally found the courage, I texted him back: ‘Would you have said the same if I were a man?’” She thought about the hypocrisy in how he spent decades leaving behind his family to pursue his calling too. 

How should couples choosing the best caretaking arrangement manage societal pressures around gender? Respect being accorded to caregivers is vital; without that, the arrangement won’t work. Wai Jia shares her response to people asking if she’s honouring her husband’s masculinity: “I look at them with a straight face and I say it is precisely because my husband has the security of a man who doesn't need the trappings of how much income he makes, his status, his power and authority in society. And for that, he's the most masculine person I know.”

Receiving caregiving

“Discovering what I had, which was cancer, it was a change in thought and emotion also,” says Grace. “Now I’m the one who’s feeling bad.”

Just like her husband and mother before her, this change in her phase of life was the first time she lost her independence. “Suddenly being pushed, I felt kind of strange that I’m the one sitting on the [wheel]chair, they have to take care of me.”

Juggling caregiving

“One of the things I dread actually, when people look at me and say she's done it all, she's all these different things, she wears many hats,” confesses Wai Jia. “What I really want to say is that you can't have it all.”

As someone who’s been a stay-at-home mom, and a full-time career woman, Wai Jia emphasises on how it’s important to look past these gender norms, and be flexible in deciding priorities with yourself and your partner. “I want to encourage women that, instead of having this impossible expectation to fulfil, to look at our situation as like 

the spokes of a wheel. It's hitting the ground at any one point. There can only be one spot  hitting the ground at that time. But just like all the seasons change and evolve, [...] we too can evolve and change our roles as and when the situation calls for it.”

Transcription and article: Saw Yone Yone