SG media showing video again and again and again and again and again and again and again on HAWKER

[ManOfTheHour]

48 minutes ago, classyNfabulous said:

sheeeesh dont elaborate tis to me

You dont like coco pops?

[ManOfTheHour]

51 minutes ago, classyNfabulous said:

i love to drink soup. sheesh got to think triple if i wana get in future. im sure some1’s sweat from any body parts cfm ever drip in 

 

🤢

Sometimes they fart while cooking then help make your food more fragrant

[classyNfabulous]

1 hour ago, ManOfTheHour said:

You dont like coco pops?

wat i like ish not per yr definition 🤢

[The_King]

finally SG media talk about hawker again

 

 

 

[The_King]

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/community/new-hawker-centre-is-first-such-facility-in-sembawang-in-30-years

 

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/new-hawker-centre-in-bukit-panjang-features-affordable-fare-and-michelin-rated-stalls

 

 

 

https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/newsandreviews/restaurants-cafes-hawker-stalls-closed-2022-729521

[The_King]

https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/jofa-grill-hawker-festive-platter-new-years-eve-724556

 

https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/tiong-bahru-five-spice-prawn-fritter-reopen-725776

 

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/two-daring-adventurers-how-chicken-rice-hawker-and-technopreneur-weathered-the-storm

 

 

 

[The_King]

 

[The_King]

 

 

 

 

[The_King]

[ManOfTheHour]

Western bbq is ky. Still consistent

[aaur4man]

6 hours ago, The_King said:

 

see how long they can last

[ODACHEK]

Becos PAP gov teared down alot of old hawker centres, and built newer cleaner ones to wayang, so need new hawkers to take over, they scared later became empty hawker centres.

[aaur4man]

10 hours ago, ODACHEK said:

Becos PAP gov teared down alot of old hawker centres, and built newer cleaner ones to wayang, so need new hawkers to take over, they scared later became empty hawker centres.

 

food republic, foodfare and Kopitiam can takeover all, the rest just pack up go home 

[The_King]

https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/bbraise-relocates-maxwell-food-centre-bak-kut-teh-mentaiko-731826

 

 

One Year After Being A Hawker, Ex-SIA Steward Expands Lor Bak Stall & Sells Bak Kut Teh

 

 

 

https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/ri-xin-snack-delights-maxwell-733016

 

‘Sad’ Kueh Uncle With Unsold Food At Maxwell Hawker Centre Is Actually Unbothered & Thriving

[Coffee_O]

last time some fucker says good to go ITE. now say good to be hawkers. KNN MIW really wants sinkies to be servant to the influx of FTrash CECA is it? 

 

KNN next time no ppl take over hawker stall. I hope those boomers, PG and MG who keeps voting for MIW can go jiak sai KNN

Edited January 11, 2023 by Coffee_O

[The_King]

Pig Trotter Rice Stall Opens At Old Airport Road, Owner Giving Away 2,000 Free Bowls

https://mustsharenews.com/pig-trotter-free/

 

 

 

Hawker Stall Customers Who Pay Via PayLah! App Can Get S$3 Cashback Every Friday

https://mustsharenews.com/hawker-customers-paylah/

 

 

 

 

 

[The_King]

30-Year-Old Ex-Accountant Specialises In Traditional Min Jiang Kueh, Finds It More Fulfilling Than The 9-6 Grind

 

 

The hawker grind is real for Eva, who gets up at 4am every day and is at the stall by 5am.

 

By 6.30am, her stall in Lor 4 Toa Payoh is open, and sometimes customers will already be queuing for breakfast before heading to work.

 

As the neighbourhood is a little out of reach from high footfall areas like Braddell MRT station, customers will dwindle by 1-2pm, which is when she starts closing up.

 

But the day doesn’t end then, as even after heading home, she still needs to prepare ingredients for the next day. By 10pm, she’s usually in bed to restart the grind anew.

 

Eva can only afford to take one rest day a week, every Saturday.

 

 

“I have to pay rent either way, so I have no choice,” she said.

 

She used to rest every other Saturday but found this schedule too draining.

 

 

https://mustsharenews.com/evas-pancake-hawker/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

exchange 9 -6 is better then 4 to 10. 20yr later your knee GG. ask the old hawker about their knee and their thick vein

[The_King]

Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee’s 3rd-Gen Successor Has To Learn How To Fry 20 Portions At One Go

 

 

here are quite a few family-run eateries with perpetual queues in Singapore, like nasi ayam goreng eatery Fiie’s Cafe at Lucky Plaza. Another famous stall is Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee, where the line is so long that customers had to be stopped from joining the queue as the food was already sold out.

The longtime stall is run by veteran hawker Ng Chin Chye, 70, and his wife, together with their two sons who are now the third-gen successors of the business. Chin Chye himself had taken over his father who started the stall in 1953, the year Chin Chye was born. “So I have been working here for almost 70 years,” he shares.

No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from 8days.sg.

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Frying 20 plates of char kway teow at one go

The family serves about 200 to 300 customers a day, which means that Chin Chye has to fry up to 20 plates of his delicious char kway teow at one go during peak hours. “Frying char kway teow is like practising tai chi — you need to know when to push out and pull back. You can’t force it, ’cos you won’t be able to get anything done,” he says.

It took him years to get to where he can whip up 20 orders at a time. “It comes naturally when you have had a lot of practice,” Chin Chye notes. But he remembers facing a lot of pushback from his father’s regulars when he first started cooking.

He recalls: “Some customers tried my char kway teow and cancelled their takeaway orders halfway through eating. When I asked my wife to sample some of my food, it was so bland! So I adjusted my recipe until there was enough flavour.”

But he has had customers requesting for “healthier” char kway teow too. “I said no. If I fry it with less soy sauce or lard, you wouldn’t want to eat it! It must have a balance of savouriness and sweetness,” Chin Chye says.

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Third-gen successor

Chin Chye’s son Huang Jun Ming (pictured), 37, is now facing a similar transition issue as the stall’s new successor. But he has an even tougher crowd to impress. “There were customers who saw that it was me doing the frying and said, ‘Oh I don’t want already’,” he shares. “I was sad lah, but I got used to it.”

Jun Ming’s father consoled him, having gone through the same tough handover phase in his own youth. “He told me it was normal lah. But some regular customers were very nice and gave me feedback to improve. There are also many nice people out there who gave me a chance,” Jun Ming says.

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Photo: Yip Jieying

His brother Jun Jie, 39, is working at the stall too. Both brothers were trained by their father to fry their family’s famous char kway teow, though Jun Jie also ran his own B2B travel arrangement company and shuttled between Singapore and China before pausing his operations during the pandemic.

It is still uncertain if Jun Jie plans to resume his own business. In 2019, Jun Ming, a SHATEC-trained chef, left his own seven-year job as senior sous chef at a homegrown bakery chain to take over his parents’ stall. “My dad proposed that I work for him instead,” he recounts.

Chin Chye had observed his son leaving for work early in the morning and returning home only late at night. “I felt it was very tiring for him. He might as well come and work for me. It’s better if you slog for your own business,” he opines.

Initially, Jun Ming, who is married with no kids, turned down his father’s offer. Chin Chye recalls: “I asked him, but he didn’t want to. He wasn’t ready. I saw that he was doing fine at his job, so I thought, okay lah. There was nobody to take over me.”

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Jun Ming taking orders from customers in the long queue at his family-run stall.

The turning point 

Very matter-of-factly, Chin Chye later mentioned this sentiment in a media interview. “I didn’t know my father felt that way, until someone sent me the article. I can’t recall which one it was, but that was a real turning point. That was when I told my wife, I will quit my job and help my father,” Jun Ming shares.

It came full circle for him, as Jun Ming had actually wanted to work at his parents’ stall after graduating from SHATEC, where he discovered his love of baking. “But my parents told me to pursue my own interests. Go out and see the world, gain some life experience,” he says.

Chin Chye explains: “He was too young to work here as a hawker. He should go out and make his mark in the world first.” 

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“There’s no such word as ‘hardship’ in my vocabulary”

But even with third-gen successors, Chin Chye intends to continue working at his stall as his family can take turns to work in shifts. “I have no plans to retire, because I can still work. But I would like to take things easier,” he says. “Now that my sons are helping me, I have time to enjoy my meals. I’m more relaxed. Before that, I ate at 6am.”

Chin Chye is one of the few - if not only - char kway teow hawker who starts serving his customers at 5.30am. “Taxi and bus drivers who are hungry will come to our stall in the morning, because they know we open early,” he says. “I wake up at 2am every day, and I’m here by 3am.”

That is when he starts frying pork lard for his char kway teow. “I finish frying at around 4am. If anyone shows up wanting a plate of char kway teow, I will serve them,” he shares.

Despite the punishing working hours, Chin Chye avers: “There is no such word as ‘hardship’ in my vocabulary. You can’t be afraid of hard work or fear being tired. Human beings tend to give up when they are tired. So you have to keep pushing ahead even when you are exhausted.”

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Learning how to fry char kway teow

When he joined his parents’ business in 2019, Jun Ming started out frying two plates of kway teow at a time. Now, three years on, he has become sufficiently proficient and can cook “10 over plates at one go”. But he reckons: “It’s still too little [to cater to the demand]. You need to be consistent with the quality of each plate. My father does that very well, but I still need time.”

Chin Chye chuckles. “My son can fry a few plates, but not 20 plates at one go like me,” he quips. “So my father wasn’t confident that I could cook for our customers during lunchtime,” Jun Ming shares, as Chin Chye swoops in: “Too slow! When he’s more familiar with the frying, I will let go and let him do it.”

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What is challenging is that there is no written recipe for Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee’s famous dish. “All by feel one. Ehehehehe,” giggles Chin Chye (father-and-son share the exact same infectious laugh).

Jun Ming responds: “So I had to figure out a lot of things by myself when I started learning. Where I went wrong, and so on. I felt very sorry when some plates I fried were not up to standard.”

But Chin Chye is a patient teacher. “I’m relak one lah. Not fierce. You can’t be very aggressive when teaching someone. Just slowly teach,” he says.

On some days, Jun Ming still misses his old job as a baker (he had mainly specialised in making croissants). “I find baking very therapeutic, but it’s nice to work with my parents and spend time with them, and they need the help too,” he reflects.

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How to get your Outram Park char kway teow faster

When we ask if he intends to sell char kway teow permanently, he laughs. “Of course. I sold my soul already!” he chortles. While most hawker stalls struggled during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ngs had “okay” business with steady takeaway orders. “I don’t want to do food deliveries, because the riders would want to collect the food immediately when they get here. Then we can’t serve our walk-in customers who have been queueing up,” Jun Ming says.

There is an average waiting time of 30 minutes in the stall’s queue. “The delay is because we have to cater to different order requests. Like less chilli, more soy sauce. So if you want your food fast, it helps to have fewer requests!” shares Jun Ming.

He also doesn’t have plans to expand his family’s business into a chain like their stall neighbour High Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle. “My focus is to get the hang of this,” he says. “If you open outlets, you will need to find capable people to run it properly.”

Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee is at #02-17 Hong Lim Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross St, S051531. Open daily except Sun, 5.30am-3pm. 

[The_King]

Authentic $2 White Coffee Brewed By Ipoh Native At Bishan Kiosk; Tamago Sando Sold Too

 

 

Ipoh, the capital city of Perak in Malaysia, is a foodie destination with a number of popular dishes like curry mee, hor fun and white coffee. The famous brew gets its characteristic fragrance and hue from coffee beans slow-roasted with margarine so that it’s a lighter beige but not ‘white’ per se (as opposed to the darker blend of typical Malaysian coffee roasted with margarine and also sugar). It made such an impact on hawker Janson Chew (left in pic) on his recent visit to the city that the 35-year-old “immediately decided that it was something [he] wanted to explore”.

“In the very first Ipoh coffeeshop we went to, when my wife and I took our first sips, we looked at each other and I knew we were thinking the same thing,” says the At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy culinary school grad.

After several more trips to nail down a supplier and months of planning, The Daily Cup was born. The takeaway-only kiosk has been selling both traditional and modern takes on Ipoh white coffee, alongside a simple menu of toast and buns, since January 7 at Bishan North Shopping Mall (which, despite its name, is an open-air complex and not air-conditioned).

No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from 8days.sg.

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Not his first attempt as a biz owner

It might seem like a hasty decision, but Janson (below, left) has more than a decade of experience in both cooking and running a hawker business. He was first an intern, then an entry-level chef at various restaurants in The Ritz-Carlton, Millennia Singapore for about two years before working as a cook for the next three years at “coffeeshop Western stalls and cafes” to gain exposure.

His first business venture was a Western food stall in Hougang kopitiam, which unfortunately “failed after a few months”. But he bounced back with Big Boys Western Steakhouse on the fourth floor of Beauty World Food Centre in 2018, which saw snaking queues after receiving media coverage.

But it was when he started to expand the business that he faced a new issue – hiring and training skilled manpower. “I opened a second outlet at a canteen in Nanyang Technological University, but it didn’t last long. The cooks we hired would often take shortcuts when preparing the food, and we got a lot of complaints. It was a big headache (laughs).” The original outlet in Beauty World Food Centre is still operating and it’s where Janson cooks daily.

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Ipoh-born barista in charge at The Daily Cup

Naturally, hiring someone who would “care as much as me about the food or drinks they’re making” was one of his key considerations when it came to hiring a head barista to manage The Daily Cup. 

Enter Ipoh-born Hinrich Hee (right), 30, whom Janson was introduced to by a mutual acquaintance. The introverted Malaysian citizen was a “perfect fit” for the job – after all, coffee runs in his veins. He first started brewing white coffee in his late teens at his father’s kopitiam in Ipoh, before moving to Singapore to work as a barista at various Toast Box outlets (under the BreadTalk group) as well as eateries belonging to Fei Siong Group.

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Heartland vibes

It cost Janson around $40K to set up his no-frills takeaway kiosk at the sprawling neighbourhood complex in Bishan, which he chose for its proximity to residential areas. “We wanted to be smack-bang in the middle of the heartlands, as we would be able to reach the most people,” he says, gesturing to the nearby old-school bakeries and fresh fruit stalls.

Indeed, the ‘shopping mall’ is jam-packed throughout our 90-minute shoot, despite the light drizzle during our mid-morning weekday visit. Janson estimates that they sell about 150 cups a day.

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Sock brewing method used here

Expect a largely traditional kopi and toast experience at The Daily Cup, with coffee pulled through a sock rather than a fancy espresso machine, alongside classic brown toast or soft buns layered with kaya and butter.

The bread and spreads come from local suppliers, while the beans – a blend of “Arabica, Robusta and Liberica” roasted the classic Ipoh way – are supplied from an Ipoh-based company that’s been “running for more than 30 years, and supplies many kopitiams in Malaysia” (Janson declines to reveal its name).

With their signature white coffee starting at $2, The Daily Cup’s prices are fairly affordable compared to local outlets of Malaysian white coffee giant OldTown White Coffee, where a cuppa costs $3.40 – though of course, those come with seats in comfier air-conditioned malls.

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Signature Butter Kaya Toast, $2 (8 DAYS Pick!)

A thick slice of brown toast is crisped up in a petite toaster oven and split into two halves before being slathered with sweet, pandan-y kaya and a slab of salted butter. An unfussy and satisfying classic.

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The Set

Going for the set costs an extra $2.50 for a hot drink of your choice and soft-boiled eggs.

We sample the signature Ipoh White Coffee ($2 a la carte), which Hinrich froths with a whisk prior to serving. “Everyone in Ipoh does this,” he explains. “It mixes the coffee well, cools it down and brings out the fragrance, similar to how some places tarik (Malay for pull) their tea.”

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The aromatic brew has a velvety mouthfeel, with slight bitterness that’s mellowed out by the sweet condensed milk, allowing the chocolatey, caramelly notes to shine through. The kopi isn’t exactly white though, as it’s only a shade or two lighter than usual. That said, this tastes almost as good as a cuppa at the famous Nam Heong coffeeshop in Ipoh’s Old Town.

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As for the eggs, they are cooked sous vide in a big batch to make operations easier for Hinrich (who usually runs things alone, or with the help of Janson’s wife). Unfortunately, due to the kiosk’s lack of seating, the eggs have to be cracked into a plastic cup – which doesn’t make for ideal eating, even with the spoon provided.

No wonder Janson tells us that many opt to get just toast and kopi instead. “It can’t be helped. If we were to get a place with seats, the price for our food won’t be where it is anymore,” he explains.

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All Time Favourite Bun Toast, $2 (8 DAYS Pick!)

That same kaya and butter combo feature on a soft Hainanese bun, which, when toasted, turns crusty on the outside while remaining utterly soft and fluffy within.

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Traditional Peanut Butter Toast, $2

This simple sandwich features a generous schmear of peanut butter, paired with the usual chunk of butter – which quickly melts due to the residual heat from the toasty white bread, creating a gooey, sinful, and delicious mess.

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Tamago Sando, $4.50

There are a couple of fusion items on the menu to “attract the younger crowd”, including this IG-worthy Japanese-influenced egg sando. Fluffy white bread cradles mashed egg mayo plus a strategically positioned jammy-yolked boiled egg. Tastier than most cheaper egg mayo sarnies from kopi chains, though we feel that the traditional toast sets here make better companions for the white coffee.

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Signature Ipoh 3-Layer Tea, $3.50

Another newfangled item: a three-layered beverage comprising milk tea (made with ground Ceylon leaves), layered over evaporated milk, on a base of gula melaka syrup.

Thankfully, you normally get less palm sugar syrup than what’s pictured above (which was just for the camera) – the actual drink strikes a nice balance between the fragrant, caramelly notes of palm sugar and bittersweet tea. FYI: there’s a three-layered Ipoh kopi offering of this drink too.

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Ipoh White Coffee Frappe, $4

An ice-blended version of Ipoh white coffee that’s still a “work-in-progress”. No wonder — there were larger chunks of under-blended ice in the mix. Nonetheless, a decent drink with added richness from a whipped cream topping.

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Bottom line

The Daily Cup offers more than decent Ipoh-style kopi cheaper than a cuppa from its famous rival chain brands, though you don't get to enjoy it in the comfort of a cafe setting. Its traditional kaya toast and other made-to-order sarnies are worth trying too, if you don’t mind snacking on the go.

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The details

The Daily Cup is at #01-105 Bishan North Shopping Mall, 282 Bishan St 22, S570282. Tel: 9383-7475. Open daily 7am – 8.30pm. More info via Facebook & Instagram.

 

 

https://www.8days.sg/eatanddrink/hawkerfood/daily-cup-bishan-ipoh-white-coffee-kaya-toast-743371

[The_King]

 

 

 

 

[coffeenut]

This huan not MSM though ..

 

 

[The_King]

https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/best-hawker-food-singapore-grumpy-seller-348876

[The_King]

https://www.asiaone.com/lifestyle/street-food-haven-no-more-singapores-char-kway-teow-ranked-100th-world

[coffeenut]

11 minutes ago, The_King said:

https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/best-hawker-food-singapore-grumpy-seller-348876

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by coffeenut

[The_King]

https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/women/stay-home-father-kris-tan-just-ok-dad-349106

 

 

“Ican fulfil any role that a mother can, except breastfeed.” This was one of the things that struck me about my conversation with Kris Tan, a 41-year-old stay-at-home-dad.

Over the years, I have heard many women declare that they can do whatever men can. But I can’t remember hearing men make a similar proclamation, especially when it comes to primary caregiving.

 

Few men have experienced the challenges of being a primary caregiver, and fewer it seems, aspire towards it.

Tan however, takes a very different view. As a father of two young girls aged six and three, he gave up his work as a freelance social media community manager to care for his children on a full-time basis.

Since his two daughters were born, Kris Tan has been their primary caregiver. In this photo, he is carrying his eldest daughter Kyra after her birth. (Photo: Kris Tan)

Over the past six years, he has been there not just for the major developmental milestones, but also all the diaper changes, night feeds, sleep regression and meltdowns.

He has also cycled through clinical depression, partly caused by severe sleep deprivation and the stress of childcare. Yet, despite his struggles, he would tell you, without missing a beat, that it is all worth it.

BECOMING A FULL-TIME DAD

 

Tan did not set out to be a stay-at-home-dad. Before children, he was working from home as a freelance social media community manager. His wife, Li Ruifang, is a third-generation hawker at 545 Whampoa Prawn Noodles at Tekka Centre.

Li, 38, would work six-day weeks (although she has since cut back to five-day weeks), leaving the house around 2.30am and only returning around 3pm to 4pm.

Since Tan did not want to hire a maid, when the couple was planning for a family, it was decided that Tan would take care of the baby while Li was at work, and she would pitch in whenever available.

However, when they welcomed their eldest daughter Kyra in 2016, Li suffered from a tailbone injury during the delivery process. So after the confinement nanny left, Tan found himself taking over baby care entirely.

“My wife’s tailbone injury lasted for a year or more, and it caused her a lot of pain, so even when she started work after four months of maternity leave, her weekends were spent recuperating, and childcaring was left to me,” he said.

 

Tan tried baby-led weaning with his eldest child, which is known to be quite messy. She is pictured here after feeding herself rice. (Photo: Kris Tan)

At that time, Tan was managing two social media accounts and worked at home from 9am to 5pm. “When Kyra was still a newborn and her movement was limited, it was quite manageable. But when she started to crawl and needed interaction, I felt the strain,” he recalled.

“From the moment children learn to crawl … it’s up to us parents to find a safe spot for them to learn to push their limits without hurting themselves,” he said.

As Kyra’s primary caregiver, his daughter was always on his mind. “It was a constant mental load that I had throughout the day,” he added.

 

Tan sleep-trained Kyra when she was two months old, but the baby started having sleep issues at five to six months old. She would have problems falling asleep and would wake up many times at night.

Tan found himself waking up throughout the night to try to put her back to sleep.

 

The sleep deprivation and stress began to wear him down, and he started to experience symptoms of depression. “Even though I was experiencing torrents of emotion, in front of my child, I had to fake my emotions and put on this joyous attitude so that I wouldn’t affect her.”

Things got worse when Kyra was around a year old. By then, Tan was waking up at 45- to 90-minute intervals to pacify her. This was when he cut his workload from two social media accounts to just one account.

Subsequently, shortly after Kyra turned two, Tan gave up his last client to become a full-time stay-at-home father. “I was ready to give up work because as Kyra got older, she needed more time from me, and I really couldn’t juggle work and childcare,” he said.

When we go for meals, it’s also very natural for the server to present the bill to the man, and I would have to direct the server to my wife since she is the one paying for the meal.

Around that time, Li also had an opportunity to expand her business to South Korea. She asked her husband to help her with social media and public relations but the opportunity did not pan out, and Tan began to care for Kyra full-time.  

“My child is constantly looking for me to do stuff, including daytime activities and putting her to bed. She refuses to let my wife do even simple things for her. I felt this inability to provide and stay around, because my mind was going through thoughts of self-harm,” he said.  

Two months later, Li accompanied her husband to the hospital where he was diagnosed with clinical depression. Tan started on anti-depressants in October 2018, and two weeks later, he began to feel a little better.

In October 2019, Tan and his wife welcomed their second daughter Ella. (Photo: Kris Tan)

Embracing their new family dynamics, the couple had another daughter, Ella, in October 2019 and Tan began juggle caring for two kids. He continued to struggle with depression for several years, only finally going off medication a couple of months ago.

A NEW VISION OF EQUALITY

It was a difficult journey, but Tan would not have it any other way.

“I believe that the connection between parent and child is very important for a child’s confidence and growth. That’s why I made the conscious decision not to engage a maid or send Kyra to infant care. We only sent her to preschool when she was around 19 months old,” he said.

My children trust me and want me to do things for them. It’s me they look for if they are upset, and me they tell if they have something they need to share

“I also never considered asking my wife to stop doing her job so that she will have more time with the children because I see how happy she is as a hawker, as compared to when she was working at a desk from nine to five.

”So I’ve played more of a supportive role in our family. My wife does what she needs to do and I cover the rest of the bases,” he added.

“I can see that my wife really loves her job so I never considered asking her to quit,” said Tan. In this photo, he surprised his wife at her stall with their kids. (Photo: Kris Tan)

Tan belongs to a new generation of men who truly embrace gender equality.

“I've always appreciated women and seen them as equals,” he said. “But only after becoming a father did I understand how difficult my mum's role was.

“She would always mention in passing how difficult I was as a baby because I refused to sleep; she would push me on a stroller in the middle of the night to get me to wind down.

“But it was only after having children and experiencing it that I understood her struggles. So now, I have a very deep appreciation for anyone taking care of children,” he said.

Tan however does not believe caregiving should be a woman’s role. He observed that even though primary caregiving still falls mostly upon the mother, many dads are getting more involved and perceptions are gradually shifting.

Except for a handful of older folks, most people he encountered, especially women, have been very supportive of his role as a stay-at-home-dad.

In December 2022, Tan and his wife went on their first staycation as a family of four at Resorts World Sentosa. (Photo: Kris Tan)

In fact, he even thinks he is given too much credit for his role. “I am celebrated too much by my relatives, mother-in-law and wife, who is very proud to tell her friends ‘My husband is taking care of the kids. He does everything’,” he mused.

“But mothers have been doing this since the beginning of time – juggling work and children, or juggling children and household chores. I am performing very much like any other primary caregiver,” he said, explaining why he named the Facebook page where he shares his parenting journey Just An Ok Dad.

 

NEW DYNAMIC, NEW CHALLENGES

Being a stay-at-home-dad means that Tan has not been unable to contribute to the family financially. “Now that we have two children, we are definitely feeling the pinch. We live a pretty normal life, but we don’t have any rainy-day funds and have not thought about retirement,” he said.

Where money is concerned, Tan has had to relinquish some control.

“Whenever I need something for my children or myself, I’d have to ask my wife. When we go for meals, it’s also very natural for the server to present the bill to the man, and I would have to direct the server to my wife since she is the one paying for the meal,” he said.

“Now that my children are grown, I do wonder when I should go back to the workforce to contribute to the household income, and have my own financial means to buy things for myself and my wife,” he added.

Tan (fourth from left) used to enjoy cycling and gaming, but he has given up these hobbies to spend more time with his children. (Photo: Kris Tan)

But being out of the workforce for so long, Tan admitted that he finds it hard to get back into the swing of things. Feeling that social media is no longer a good fit for him, he tried doing Grab delivery. However, his children fell sick for two weeks shortly after he started, putting a premature halt to his gig work.

He is currently considering other flexible part-time work while trying to learn programming on the side to keep options open.

Nonetheless, he has no regrets. “My father was very uninvolved in my care since my birth, except for times when he punished me over stuff that I’d done, hitting me with a belt and making me do the horse stance. He left when I was in Secondary One. I don’t want to be anything like him,” he said.

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“I felt really proud to see Kyra wear her (kindergarten graduation) gown. I felt like I had overcome a lot of obstacles to come to this point,” said Tan. (Photo Kris Tan) “I feel I have done what I can for my children so I don’t have regrets,” said Tan. (Photo: Kris Tan) “I felt really proud to see Kyra wear her (kindergarten graduation) gown. I felt like I had overcome a lot of obstacles to come to this point,” said Tan. (Photo Kris Tan) “I feel I have done what I can for my children so I don’t have regrets,” said Tan. (Photo: Kris Tan) “I felt really proud to see Kyra wear her (kindergarten graduation) gown. I felt like I had overcome a lot of obstacles to come to this point,” said Tan. (Photo Kris Tan)

Because of his love and sacrifice, Tan enjoys a very close relationship with his children. “My children trust me and want me to do things for them. It’s me they look for if they are upset, and me they tell if they have something they need to share,” he said.

“I would say that everything I have done is worth it. Despite my flaws, I still think that I am the best person for the job – to raise them and guide them until they don’t need me anymore,” he said.

Where to get help:

Samaritans of Singapore Hotline: 1767

Institute of Mental Health’s Helpline: 6389 2222

Singapore Association for Mental Health Helpline: 1800 283 7019

You can also find a list of international helplines here. If someone you know is at immediate risk, call 24-hour emergency medical services.

CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email [email protected].

Source: CNA/pc