What?! Better Fathering Index?

Who says Singapore is a boring country? We may be just a tiny dot on the map, but we are definitely not tiny when it comes to “interesting/absurd” ideas like BFI aka Better Fathering Index.

Here I am worrying that in 3-4 years time, my Joey will have to face the cruelty of streaming in Primary school. Now, fathers have to be “stream” too. Good or Bad? Pass or Fail? It is already a headache for an aging Daddy like myself to be bothered with my BMI (Body Mass Index), now the Centre for Fathering says it wants to come up with a benchmark to measure the involvement of young fathers in raising their children. Click here to read more.

The Index is expected to be ready by the end of the year after a comprehensive survey of dads in Singapore. It will be taking into consideration the amount of time that fathers spend per day, per week, per month, per year. And the kind of activities fathers engage in with children.

Here are my views:
1. Using an index to measure a person is never going to work, everyone is different and everyone is unique.
2. To measure the quality of fathering is outright impossible. There are just too many factors to be considered before a fair and accurate reliable report can be generated.
3. Good fathering cannot be trained. Fathering is all about love and not skills. Love cannot be trained, it is a choice!
4. Fathering is just one side of the coin. Effective and good parenting involves both the mother and the father.
5. This BFI idea sounds more like the involved organisation trying to hit some KPI (fertility rate) instead of truly wanting to improve fathering issue.

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I only say good morning to my girls, hug and kiss them before rushing off to work every morning.
I reaches home on certain nights late and my girls are both asleep. On nights that I reaches home early, I will sit down with them, listen to what they have to say, and spend a bit of time playing with them.
I will step in to discipline the girls when they are mischievous and over-stepping the boundary.
Occasionally when my wife is not able to coach them for school work, I will help out.
On Saturday morning, I will bring my girls out for breakfast (usually their favourite McDonalds).
Every weekend, I will try my best to bring the girls out for some outdoor activities so that they won’t be bored staying at home for the entire week.

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So, am I a good father? What is my score?

I am blessed to have a wife who understands my line of work and we are able to adjust accordingly our time for the kids. I am blessed to be working in an organisation where we promote good parenting needs. I am blessed to have 2 healthy children who are happy. I am blessed to have parents staying with me and they are able to help. I am blessed both my wife and my parents are healthy.

Consider another father who has to travel in his work. Consider another father who has ailing parents to take care of. Consider another father who needs to work 3 jobs to support the family. Consider single-parent fathers.

They are not able to spend much time with their children engaging them in different activities, are they then bad fathers? No, I think not.

I am not an anti-fan of Centre for Fathering. I am just bewildered why is there a need for such an Index. Numbers count, but in this case, I don’t think it counts that much.

Black & White Jayne

If you have not realised, you should after this post. This year I am into Black & White photography. All along I have always prefer to shoot B&W, but it’s not easy to really shoot well. So this year, I am determined to take more and improved along the way.

One of the key factor in B&W photos is lighting. Love how the sunlight falls on Jayne’s face and create that tone. You can see that glitter off the sweat on her face too.

#iambias

Jayne is super cute!

Talipot Palm @ Botanic Gardens

Highly recommended by my mother who visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens on New Year’s Day, we (wife was thinking of an afternoon nap instead) brought the girls out over the weekend to check out the 80 years old dying tree.

The Talipot Palm (Corypha umbraculifera) is a rare tree that only flowers once in it’s entire lifetime of 60-80 years. And for this few weeks, one such Talipot Palm is nearly that stage, flowering for the first and the last time after 80 years of growth. During this short period, it will produce some 24 million tiny flowers, and hopefully, some seeds, before finally dying off.

Closer look at the tiny pale yellow flowers.

This is how it looks when it has fallen down.

Since we are there on a rare sunny afternoon, the girls took the chance to scoot around and enjoyed “the greatest day of our lives” as acclaimed by Joey.

The Christmas feel is still pretty much alive around the gardens.

Just besides the Talipot Palm is this gigantic tree with its roots spread out in almost every direction. I am guessing the tree should be more than a hundred years old.

Every time we go to the Botanic Gardens, there are always new flowers to discover.

The viewing of Talipot Palm will end this week, check out the dates and make sure you don’t miss such a rare opportunity. Have fun!

Tokyo Trip - Tsukishima 月島

This is a series of the places I have visited in Tokyo when Kless and I were there in October.

Tsukishima 月島, is a man made island in Tokyo Bay, just across the channel from Tsukiji Fish Market. In the last few decades, areas of the island were redeveloped into high rise residential complexes, however you can still find remnants of the atmosphere of old Tokyo if you poke around the back alleys and lanes, especially around Sumiyoshi Shrine.

How to get there
Akihabara Station is served by the Odeo and Yurakucho Subway Lines.

From Tokyo Station, take the JR Yamanote Line to Yurakucho (2mins, ¥130) and transfer to the Yurakucho Line for Tsukishima Station (5mins, ¥160).

From Shinjuku Station, take the Odeo Subway Line in the direction of Roppongi directly to Tsukishima Station (25mins, ¥260).

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Tsukishima is best known for monjayaki, a kind of runny pancake with different ingredients such as seafood, meat and vegetables, mixed into a batter. A large concentration of monjayaki restaurants is found along Nishinaka Street, just a few steps from Tsukishima Station.

Some of the shops found along Nishinaka Street.

With all the selection, we finally settled in this restaurant and ordered our monjayaki.

We have no idea how to do it but the friendly shop assistant was more than ready to show us how. Actually, there are only 3 steps: mixed up the ingredients, pour it on the hot plate and lastly turn it over to complete the entire pancake. Give it a try and let me know if you succeed for step 3 =)

Ta da! Yummy yummy!!

Coupled with a beer as usual.

After the meal, I would suggest that you don’t rush off, take some time to walk around the area and explore the older residential houses, you will be surprised to find gems among them.

One thing we found in Tsukishima was the number of older folks were much higher than all other areas we have been to.

 

We found a wonderful home-based cafe hidden amidst the residential area. This should be the most localised cafe we experienced in Tokyo. Super nice!

The place is just big enough for less than 8 pax.

We ordered the home-made cookie which was so nice.

I love this photo, an Obaasan enjoying her lunch.

Love this quiet town. If you are looking for something different from all the shopping crowd, I would highly recommend Tsukishima.