PETALING JAYA, July 27 ― As more young parents share child care duties, DAP MP Hannah Yeoh has suggested a shift from the traditional mother-focused approach towards child rearing.
Speaking to Malay Mail, the deputy minister of women, family and community development said government policies should also be geared towards fathers, such as by setting up day care centres in male-dominated workplaces.
“A lot of fathers now, they have to look after their kids as well. Even if you’re in an agency wth a lot with men, you should still provide that,” Yeoh said in a recent interview.
Yeoh had earlier this month said that all government agencies must be equipped with day care centres for children by 2019, while the private sector should join in to reach this target.
“It’s not something that is foreign to me, instead it is foreign for me to find fathers who don’t care, anymore… That should be the new norm,” she said.
Yeoh, a mother of two daughters, said she is a proponent of paternity leave for fathers ― at least the initial two weeks after childbirth, so a father can support the mother as both adjust to their new life.
Following the tragic death of five-month-old Adam Rayqal Mohd Sufi who was found stuffed inside a freezer at his caretaker’s home, Yeoh had also announced that the private sector will receive tax exemptions to meet the target.
She explained that the public sector can also provide subsidies for their staff at nearby childcare centres, if they lack space to set such centres in situ.
Yeoh said that the civil service has been relying on a circular calling to provide day care since 1989, but only 205 centres are available so far due to the reluctance of some agencies, either over funding or manpower.
“I can think of 1,001 reasons why we all should slash the budget. But I think this is non-negotiable. You just have to make do,” she told such agencies, explaining that the scale of the centres can correlate with their respective budgets.
She also listed down several other options that can be implemented, such as flexible working hours ― which she said can encourage productivity while at the same time cut operation costs of certain workplaces ― or a policy for parents to work from home several days a week.
“We have to look into that child friendly environment,” she said, explaining that the two above mentioned measures must come as a package.
Yeoh admitted that she has received feedback from some in the private sector to call for legislation to make policies such as paternity leave mandatory, but she cautioned against such a move for now.
“For the beginning, we cannot yet at this point implement them by way of legislation, simply because you need the corporate sector to buy in. They must not feel they’re being forced into it,” she added.
