S'pore needs more informal occasions for family bonding: President Tony Tan
11 September 2011
President Tony Tan Keng Yam says Singapore needs to create more informal occasions for multi-racial and multi-generational family bonding.
President Tan said this to reporters at the Singapore Zoo on Sunday evening where he attended the "Moon Night" celebrations for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The festival is an occasion for family and friends to gather and admire the harvest moon.
With a host of educational activities about the moon's effect on animal behaviour, the event also raised awareness about biodiversity and nature conservation.
As part of the programme, President Tan released fireflies into the Zoo's mangroves, as part of ongoing efforts to reintroduce the insect into Singapore's mangroves.
He said: "I don't think wildlife is a charity but it's an attraction. I think it's something which is well worth supporting. And of course I'll be very happy to help the Wildlife Reserves in their effort to attract more corporate sponsorship from companies. Not only the Zoo of course, but the Night Safari, and of course the Bird Park. I think all of these are wonderful amenities for Singaporeans."
Tony is correct to say that family bonding is important and there is a need to create more occasions for it.
But he did not mentioned how to achieve it. Talk is always easy.
With a high standard of living, Singaporeans are hard at works putting in longer and longer hours to make ends meet. We have become slaves for the Nation, a digit and contribute to the annual GDP.
Many don’t even have time to make babies; those which do don’t even have time for them. They just leave them to the maids.
The build on family bond, the government has to look at more concrete measure.
Lower the cost of living, have a pro-family work environments, have more public holiday or even have a 4 and a half days working week.
Singapore has one of the lowest numbers of annual public holiday in the region. 11 days.
While in Hong Kong they have 17 days, Indonesia and Malaysia have 19 days, even Brunei have 14 days.
The question is does our government really want to scarify some economic growth for a more family orientated environment? I doubt so. How can they afford the millions dollars pay cheques to the cabinet if so.
Talk is easy my friend.
