A single mother wrote in the papers recently and asked why unmarried mothers cannot have the same benefits and privileges that go to married mums. These include tax breaks and other financial incentives like the baby bonus.
To some expectant mothers they cried with joys of pregnancy, but some spends sleepless nights wondering where they will live once the baby is born.
This is the story of this women who are unmarried and their long road ahead as single mum.
One of the women had her boyfriend threw her out when she refused to have an abortion. He had proposed to her last year and she abandoned the PhD programme she was pursuing overseas. She lost her well-paying contract job as a human resource specialist at a multinational company. She says she was fired for not telling them she was pregnant when she was hired the previous month.
I thought: Single mothers, including unmarried ones, face double the burden with half the resources needed. Their sons will do national service and their daughters will bear and nurture future generations, right? So why the differences?
The writer who wrote the news article just want a little help from the government.
Unwed mothers are not entitled to baby bonus or tax relief if they work. Those under 35 cannot buy Housing Board flats unless they go through a process of seeking special permission. They are entitled to buy flats if they team up with parents or siblings - a mother and child are not considered a family unit.
To the writer, she and the child are a family.
They may have made a mistake, but they are taking responsibility for their actions by being in the role of both a father and mother. So why discriminated against for having and raising a child in a country that needs kids so much?
The mothers do need financial incentives more than those in complete family units.
For many of them, the fathers refused to bear responsibility. Some of these women are victims themselves, being abandoned by partners they trusted. If unwed mothers are not given the same benefits as married ones, this will affect the child.
Home ownership rules could be made more flexible, at least by recognising a mother and child as a family unit.
One MP said, 'The family unit with a father, mother and child is the fabric with which we weave our community.' 'That should not be compromised.' ( Of cos' the mothers want that complete family unit as well)
Not surprised that there are more unwed mums, he said 'Being better educated and financially independent gives them the choice to raise babies single-handedly.'
But he felt that having made alternative lifestyle choices, they should not then ask the Government to bend rules to accommodate them.
'No baby will be deprived of milk powder or a roof over his head,' said the MP. 'If a single mother is really in need, of course, we will make exceptions'.
But the exception cannot become the rule.
His parliamentary colleague, shares similar views. 'Government policies are made on a macro level - they set the tone for society,' she said.
(I find this amusing) If the mother gave the baby up for adoption, he would become someone else's 'legitimate' child. So to the single or unwed mothers, if they had their babies, loves them and wants to raise them, their babies will always be illegitimate in the eyes of the state.
Or is it better to chuck the baby at the door of a community centre, then their separate lives would probably be better off than for the mother to take up her moral responsibility, and be shunned.
It seems that being responsible is worse off than being irresponsible.
Granted that allowing some leeway with the public-housing policy may open up possibilities not intended at its inception, but, surely, there should be a small scheme to help such mothers?
Not so much to condone what they had done, but to stop the cycle of punishment and blame and to give the child the best chance to grow up happy, like every other child.
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