Featured on the Hong Kong Economic Journal (November 5, 2015)
One of my friends from Singapore messaged me out of the blue one day saying that she was coming to town and could meet up for lunch. I was expecting to see her husband and her two kids (aged 5 and 8 at the time) in tow but she sat at a table for 2 waiting for me to sit down. This mum is a hands-on mum who made a decision when she was pregnant that she wasn’t going to have a helper and that she would take care of the kids and the house herself. She has a supportive husband and she even managed to work part-time. Knowing that she didn’t have a helper, I was surprised she was traveling without her kids. When asked what she was doing in town, she nonchalantly replied “to have some time out”. Turns out, she makes annual ‘time out’ trips where she goes alone and just enjoys some ‘me time’. She had plans to meet up with some girlfriends, go to the spa, do some r