Forum: Caregiving support must include fathers and sons too

I have been a caregiver to my mother for 19 years, since I was 21. I am 40 this year, which makes me a young caregiver by most definitions, though that framing was not available to me when I started. I co-founded SG Assist partly because of that journey, and partly because I have seen how profoundly caregiving shapes the life choices of those who carry it, often in ways they do not fully name until much later.

I welcome the formation of the Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup and the Government’s commitment to a societal shift. But I hope the conversation will be broadened in two important ways.

First, the caregiving dimension of family life deserves explicit recognition in this reset. Many younger Singaporeans are not weighing only career against parenthood. They are simultaneously managing the cost of living, their own career pressures, and the very real likelihood of becoming a caregiver to an ageing parent.

Many have already watched their own parents or grandparents carry that weight, sometimes for decades, and not always for the most visible forms of dependency alone. Dementia, mental health conditions, and chronic illness can draw caregiving journeys long before a parent needs help with bathing, dressing, or getting around.

Having grown up alongside that reality, some younger Singaporeans carry a quiet wariness about what family life may ask of them. Caregiving preparation and support should be part of the parenthood conversation, not a separate one.

Second, if caregiver support is an identified area for action, it must be gender-balanced. When Minister Indranee Rajah spoke about making it the norm for working mothers to take time off for their children, many responded by asking: What about working fathers? What about those caring for elderly parents, not just young children?

These are fair questions. The number of male caregivers in Singapore is rising. Their lived experiences mirror those of female caregivers – the health risks, the financial strain, the career precarity. Yet male caregivers are less likely to seek help, more likely to face stigma for stepping back from work, and often fall outside financial assistance criteria because they remain employed, however tenuously.

A genuine societal reset on family formation must see the full picture of what families carry. That includes eldercare alongside childcare, and male caregivers alongside female ones. All caregivers deserve to be seen and supported equally.

Adrian Tan Guan Chong