HANDS up how many of you have dinner with your family at home every night?
Not many will have the luxury to do so, especially in such a busy society.
And that is why Madam Loo Pei Fen makes sure she sets aside time to have dinner with her husband and her two-year-old daughter at least three to four times a week on weekdays.
This is despite her busy job as the assistant e-commerce director at lifestyle portal 12buy.sg, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Challenger Technologies Limited.
She is also pursuing a Master of Marketing degree at the University of Newcastle, Australia, via the Internet through Raffles Education Centre.
The 27-year-old told The New Paper On Sunday: “I’m juggling so many things at the same time, so it’s even more important to slot in a designated dinner time. Otherwise, my family will never get to see me.”
Madam Loo is one of the many Singaporeans who is supporting the Eat With Your Family Day campaign, an event in the month-long National Family Celebrations that is organised by the National Family Council.
Into its eighth year, Eat With Your Family Day falls on Thursday.
Dining with husband
Before her daughter Kristy was born, Madam Loo said dining together with her husband, Mr Edwin Seah, a 40-year-old civil servant, was not “that important because we know what each other is doing”.
With Kristy in the picture, Madam Loo said she recognises the importance of coming together as a family “to be really there for her and not be a weekend parent”.
She added: “We already don’t see our daughter for lunch, and breakfast is always a rushed affair as we’re trying to get to work.
“Dinner is the only time for us to unwind. It also reminds our daughter that Mummy is still around for her.”
Madam Loo admitted that all too often, it is easy to get caught up with work and school demands.
This sentiment is echoed by Mr Lim Soon Hock, the co-chairman of the National Family Celebrations 2010 organising committee.
Said Mr Lim: “Globalisation has lead to an increased workload. With the pace of today’s busy lifestyles, it is sometimes easy to take our family for granted.”
He added that Singaporeans need “to schedule and set aside family time like what we do for business meetings, as strong family bonding does not happen by chance”.
Family ritual
For Madam Loo, it helped that the ritual of having meals together as a family was inculcated since young.
“Growing up, my dad was always busy trying to grow his business. We didn’t see my dad a lot on weeknights, but he would make it a point to take us out for dinner once a week or we would just go somewhere and hang out.”
To this day, she is the one who is designated to make the dinner reservations.
The tables have turned somewhat as she is now the busy one who has no time for meals with her parents.
Said Madam Loo, whose elder brother has a son who is of the same age as Kristy: “It has become more important to meet up now as we’re all so busy during the weekdays that we don’t have time to take the kids to visit their grandparents.
“My dad has this thing about going out to eat, so sometimes in the middle of the week, he’ll go, ‘Let’s go makan!’ But I’ll be like, ‘I’m too busy.’
“It’s also difficult at times as the place may not be kid-friendly or it’s past my daughter’s bedtime. So that’s something we’ve to balance.”
This article was first published in The New Paper.