PLP?

sorry what is PLP??? you mean pour lamp pah is it ????

A Singaporean, I studied in Canada as a 40 years old matured Master’s student where my wife gave birth to our first child. The Canadian government treated us with utmost respect – my wife had a full YEAR paid maternity leave, ALL our hospital visits, check-ups and delivery room charges were FREE. We were given free samples of many baby stuff and all subsequent immunizations for my child was FREE. Just imagine the extreme generosity that my wife and me can proudly talk about even to this day. My wife and me are expecting our second child soon in Singapore and the only thing we can think about is “how expensive it is to raise a child in Singapore” Everything here is about money – expensive childcare costs even in HDB heartlands, costly monthly visits to the gynae etc. . . In addition, there is a severe lack of social support groups for young parents. The “PITTANCE” given to families by the government is “DISGUSTINGLY SHAMEFUL” and ‘REALLY NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.”

“We prayed hard that my baby would be delivered earlier so that we were not miss PM’s speech.”

I hope every S’porean woman can have as smooth and painless child delivery as she does. =)

2) kid??? on August 23rd, 2008 6.07 pm sorry what is PLP??? you mean pour lamp pah is it ????

What does the word mean? Like me, most people do not know what the words you guessed means.

To me, it means Pay Long Pay.

To my fren it mean Pee Like Peter.

to others it means Please Lets Party

dun be so sensitive like a ….

it’s called, the art of tapping the govts coffers. great lesson here. thnks

Lets hope things will get better. cheerz

While some parents are so grateful to the government for the generous incentives, I hope that they spare a thought for the parents who missed out due to the cutoff date, and also those that cannot benefit due to their inabilty to enjoy the tax rebates and contribute to the child development account.

I wish that the incentives are distributed more fairly to all parents, rather than for people to pray that they are lucky enough to get the incentives.

We have so much trouble with the cutoff date for the Baby Package. The first cutoff date of 1 January 2009 brought a lot of protest from expecting mothers with babies due to be delivered this year. The revised cutoff date of 17 August produced another group of unhappy parents whose babies arrived earlier this year.

We faced this problem with cutoff date on many occasions during the past 25 years. Each time that new incentives were introduced, many parents felt disadvantaged by being on the wrong side of the cutoff date.

We never learned the lesson. Our birth-rate continued to decline over the years, in spite of the repeated efforts.

I met a Singaporean couple who worked in Perth and had their baby delivered there. The incentives given to parents in Australia are:

> AUD 5,000 on delivery of the baby
> 5 months of paid maternity leave
> An allowance to the mother who stopped work to look after the baby during the first two years

The incentive is simple, compared to our Baby Package introduced in Singapore.

Singapore has the unique system of incentives that differ according to the tax bracket of the parents, the working status of the mother, the birth order of the baby, the date of birth and other factors. We need to read a detailed booklet and to ask for explanation to understand the incentives.

2 days paternity leave?? Pathetic!

DO MORE – yes! But why can’t employers be more generous? There’s nothing in the employment act that says an employer CAN’T give more than 2 days’ paternity leave. This is when the government have to kinda FORCE IT ON EMPLOYERS to be more “giving”.

P.S. Congrats to this mother on her 4th child. Raise your kids well and lotsa happiness!

besides being pro-biz,
pro-creation is also more important.
if no one pro-creates due to lack of sufficient paternity leave,
even if get new citizens to replace us would take 9 months to create new babies.

thus, pro-creation is very important and the gubby should give more help to parents. Look at what the other countries are doing. Not difficult to go there on a study trip, ask them to teach us how.

they never learn do they ? initially the euphoria. then quietness. they wait for more. no end to this. We should address the fundamental problem – make our life less stressful so that we can cope with having more babies. otherwise we will continue to face this problem for many years to come.

I speak from the view that I come from the Corporate world, and at the same time, sharing responsibilities with my wife to look after our babies (changing diapers is only the tip of the iceberg). This includes, but is not limited to clearing nose dirts, diagnosing kid behaviours/ cries, bathing, feeding (including night feeds), language, value system and motor skills education, baby item sourcing, kids’ hygiene, playing and communications, safety workarounds, clothes washing, food/ milk preparations, vaccination trips and variations of all these sub-tasks. I am not likely to be the best, but I have taken that path to know it is not simple.

Someone may think I have a lot of time, but I can tell you the stress level is high. So high that sometimes, I wonder if everything is worth it when I am going through things. Given the urge from policy makers for fatherhood to increase in responsibilities, I don’t see why paternity leaves/ child care leaves and/ or benefits cannot be increased for fathers. Somebody mentioned the flip side of some fathers taking advantage of such leaves for personal/ company interests. That may be true in some cases, but the policy makers should not push the shared-responsibility argument too far, if they are not offering significant incentives to fathers.

Every day of failing to bring up the TFR is a lost cause. At the end, if the gap between our current demographics and the targeted one widens too much, the price to pay for population growth may be deemed too high by policy makers and the public, till no real solution can be found.

We are unique, even when we screw up we do it uniquely. That’s why we have a division one team. Unfortunately there is only one team playing in the league and thus even a guy who can walk without falling over can become the captain and be acclaimed as the top talent.

14) kf on August 25th, 2008 12.16 pm

You could have more clearly described changing diaper as wiping pooh for the baby also. That is hard work man! imagine, several times a day, everyday for several years. also, constant supervision in case the baby is injured at home which is very easy to be injured without second by second supervision. yes, i agree that taking care of the baby is hard work. these aspects, some working mums leave it to a initially stranger, a maid , to take care. While it alleviates the mundane work from the mum, close contact between the mum and the child is lost. unfortunate incidences include maids who abuse the child due to whatever reasons. I ever seen a maid who , either purposely or ignorantly or accidentally let the child face the high noon sun when she strolling with the child in a stroller and the child lying flat on the stroller facing the sun. she was talking on the phone and the child got free suntan for several minutes. other unfortunate incidences include forceful shaking of the child who, due to some uncomfort that he or she was experiencing but could not tell the babysitter as the baby cannot talk yet. 1 such shaking could leave permanent brain damage of some level. Another ufortunate incident known from the news is something too sad to be mentioned. Remember , a baby is innocent, fragile and very easily broken with permanent damage if left unsupervised. Career or a child’s future more important? I suggest, if cannot afford the time and money, don’t pro-create. 1 less tragedy.

clearer,
Your are right! While I was typing away earlier, I was wondering if someone would raise this (some people may think this is too grotesque for discussion).
Diaper changing may be categorised into those with pooh amd those without pooh. Then we have other variations : the baby pees right at your face while you are cleaning the pooh, the pooh comes out and gets stuck to you when you are still feeding milk, the pooh penetrates your cloths/ wipers to your hands etc.
Noted your point on accidents, which I classified under safety workarounds earlier.
Entrusting someone to look after your own kid, can have huge adverse consequences. Nothing beats parental care even though e.g. sahms are not financially compensated through policies while the working folks are.

Gleaneagles? These pple are pretty well off to even receive incentives

i think the policies are more at aiming at the general middle and above classes.
but i dont think its enough.
i am quite disappointed that the govt seems to treat citizens as machines or products.
does it mean that by giving more perks, we as human being will have to follow blindly on their policies?
1st before you can have child, you have to start a family.
so what is the root of the problem?
the problem is because people get married late?
they still have no realise it
And the next problem, even after getting married, why do people dont want to have kids?
They keep on thinking of money can solve everything.
I know that certainly we cant live without money.
but can we buy a marriage with money ONLY?
but can we buy a kid with money ONLY?

It’s the same problem with our “imported” athlete, can we buy a medal back?

What is the “real” problem behind it?

i sort of agreed with what “123″ said…

incentives only given to working mums only… how about those non-working mums who really take care of their children full-time??? this point was brought up in stratis times forum which i feel is a good point to raise…

i pity the non-working mums… sacrifice everything to give the best for their children and family… at the end of the day, government forgets about them… why don’t also give their husbands some tax incentives or benefits to also encourage them to have more babies??? why are they leaving the workforce when they can enjoy the benefits given by the government???

i am not sure what is government’s definition of singapore woman… are they superwoman??? government wants woman to contribute to the soceity so that more taxes can be collected and higher gdp for the country…. at the same time, also want woman to give birth to more babies… will this works??? time will tell…

i am still single in the mid-thirty… i will not just married because of money incentives given for sdu or any other forms… i feel that our society is slowly built and grown into a materialist society … our society has slowly forgotten the spiritual happiness about living… to live a life the fullest is not always must be quantify by numbers and conform to social norms…. what wrong with being single??? why are singles being penalised and viewed as aliens just because we are not married???

i agreed that without money, one can’t survive… but money is not everything in the world… how much money will be enough??? do you think people will stop asking more from government??? be patient and time will tell you the answers…