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SIM ANN: THE ART OF TIDYING UP RUNS IN THE FAMILY
Ms Sim Ann, 44, used to dread a childhood chore that was part of her “domestic goddess” mother’s routine.
Her mother, retired television producer Choo Lian Liang, now 71, periodically felt the urge to tidy the home from top to bottom.
Married to retired university lecturer Sim Hock Kee, 79, Madam Choo would scold Ms Sim and her younger brother and sister if they did not pull their weight.
Ms Sim, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information, and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, says: “I used to think, ‘So what if the house is a bit messy? We can live with it, why can’t mum?’ I told myself that I would never do that to my kids and go into cleaning frenzies.”
But Ms Sim, a Member of Parliament for the Holland-Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency (GRC), changed her tune when she grew up.
“I found it’s pretty hard to stomach a messy house. Sometimes, I see my children pulling long faces when I mobilise my own clean-up operations,” says Ms Sim, who is married to hospital administrator Mok Ying Jang, 51.
The couple have two sons, aged 15 and seven, and a 12-year-old daughter.
Ms Sim says her mum values family relationships because of her own difficult childhood.
Between the ages of three and 13, Madam Choo, her elder brother and their parents were banished from Singapore to China, where the children were separated from their parents for some time.
Madam Choo’s father was viewed by the colonial authorities as a leftwing activist. He died in his late 40s after a brief stint in a labour camp near the Siberian border.
Now, Ms Sim, her siblings and their families spend several hours every weekend with their parents.
“My mum is the focal point of the family and she shaped our views (on spending time together),” she says.
Mother and daughter also have a shared understanding of the pressures faced by working mums.
Ms Sim says: “When I was a young adult, I met some of my mum’s former colleagues, who told me how my siblings and I were always on my mother’s mind. She would berate herself if she missed the start of the school holidays and hadn’t taken leave to spend time with us.
“I hadn’t known that. Some things about your parents, you find out only later, through other people.”
TIN PEI LING: VALUING EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES
Ms Tin Pei Ling, 35, Member of Parliament for MacPherson Single Member Constituency, calls her mother her best friend.
Madam Yong Yuit Ngoh, a 67-year-old housewife, was Ms Tin’s main caregiver, confidante and constant companion when she was growing up.
Madam Yong is married to Mr Tin Chew Hong, 72, a retiree who used to run a coffee shop. Ms Tin is their only child.
Ms Tin, a mother of two, says she has learnt, among many other things, “the importance of education and the need to be socially mobile” from the family stories her mother told her.
“It’s useful to understand the environment in which my mum grew up, which helped me appreciate what I have, and why she was doing what she did, for my education,” says Ms Tin.
Madam Yong’s father died when she was a baby and her mother, a construction worker, raised Madam Yong and her three older brothers alone.
Resources were scarce: Madam Yong’s mother used to pick up vegetables dropped by others at the market.
Although Madam Yong does not speak English, she ensured that Ms Tin kept on top of her school work and made her write English notes repeatedly in a jotter book as a child. Even in pre-school, she was concerned when she realised that Ms Tin did not understand the teacher’s instruction to queue up.
Ms Tin is similarly mindful of the value of education and languages for her children, though she says she is more “perfectionistic” than her mother.
“The differences are also generational. My mum was more worried about my English, while I’m more concerned about my son’s Chinese.”
Ms Tin is the chief executive of Business China, a non-profit organisation spearheaded by the Singapore Government and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
She is married to Mr Ng How Yue, 49, permanent secretary in the Law Ministry and second permanent secretary at the Health Ministry. Their sons are three years old and seven months old.
She has taught her elder son to recite poems from the Tang dynasty since he was two years old. The poems have themes such as filial piety and resilience, values that she
hopes to impart to her offspring.
RAHAYU MAHZAM: GETTING A HEAD START, WITH MUM’S HELP
Ms Rahayu Mahzam with her son Ayden and her mother, Madam Kasmawati Manijan. ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH
When it comes to her attitude towards early childhood education, Ms Rahayu Mahzam, 39, an associate director at a law firm, says she is largely influenced by her mum.
The Member of Parliament for Jurong GRC recalls how her mother scrimped and saved to send her and her two younger siblings to a good kindergarten.
“It gave me a boost, I feel, in terms of having exposure to subjects like music and dance,” says Ms Rahayu, who is married to a 42-year-old deputy public prosecutor.
She enrolled her only child, twoyear- old Muhamad Ayden Muhamad Imaduddien, who has Down syndrome, in early intervention classes when he was four months old.
Her mother, retired civil servant Kasmawati Manijan, 62, is Ayden’s main caregiver. Madam Kasmawati is married to a 61-year-old security officer.
Ms Rahayu says: “I think I’ll never stop being dependent on my mother, who is raising my child. Maybe it’s part of our family culture. My grandmother took care of us as well.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/what-i-learnt-about-parenting-from-my-mum
