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Should your job require you to outsource parenting to a domestic helper?

Domestic helpers can’t be the default solution to parents’ work-life conflict.

If the only viable way to stay employed is to outsource parenting, then we have not resolved the work-family conflict, says the writer.

A working mother recently shared online that her employer required her to work overtime for three evenings each month. She struggled – not because she was unwilling, but because she had no childcare support in the evenings.

Her direct supervisor excused her from the evening duties. But her colleagues did not. They questioned why she should be treated differently simply because she had a child. Online, the response was harsher: She was labelled a liability. The most common advice was blunt: Hire a live-in domestic helper.

That response reveals something deeper about how many Singaporeans expect tensions between work and family to be resolved: privately. When workplaces cannot accommodate caregiving, people automatically expect the burden to be quietly shifted elsewhere, and often to hired help.