I am fat.  This is a simple fact.  The baggage brought to this fact, however, isn’t so simple.

Me sitting on my first car in 1996

I’ve never fit the image of the perfectly thin female body type.  Even as a little kid, I was thin everywhere but for a tummy.  Until after I injured my back at 16 and stopped being active, the best description of my body type was stocky with a bit of extra fat around my stomach.  Looking back, I see a lovely young girl and young woman.  At the time, I hated my body-loathed it-because it wasn’t the super lean body of my peers.  Over the past 18 years since that injury my body type has gone from stocky to fat.  I’m not going to explain, justify, or pathologize that change.  I don’t owe an explanation for my body.

I could fill a thousand blog posts discussing my experiences from childhood until now that relate to weight, my relationship with my body, the psychological impact people’s treatment of me (from friends and family who genuinely care, but in their well-meaning comments) have hurt me and deeply impacted my self esteem, popular misperceptions about weight and weight loss and my body, and so forth.  But for the purpose of this post, we’ll pick up right before we moved to Singapore.

Ravi, myself and Ellie, Singapore Zoo, Feb 2010

Prior to moving to Singapore, I read a lot of books and blogs about life here.  I knew, walking in, that Singapore isn’t the easiest place to be fat.  When we came for our look-see visit to Singapore, I did some looking and couldn’t find one plus sized store.  The British Chain Marks & Spencer carried up to a US 18 (UK 20) but that was too small. At the time, though, the only way that it affected me was to ensure that I bought a lot of clothes before moving here.

The first photo of me that I posted on the blog-E and I at Palawan Beach in SG, 2010

Over the years, I have mostly rejected the idea that my life would be better when I was thin, or that weight loss would make me a better/more worthwhile person.  So in my day to day life, I just can’t be bothered to worry about what others will think of my outfit of choice, or that I’m daring to be fat in public.

However, this is not to say that being fat doesn’t affect my life-in general and in Singapore.

I’ve gotten emotionally devastating comments from doctors in the US. Two days after losing my first pregnancy, my OB (at the time) said I’d never carry a pregnancy to term while fat-that I’d effectively killed my wanted pregnancy with my fat.  I still kind of want to show up at her office with my two girls and say “SEE!! F**K YOU!!”–that’s how much it damaged me at a fragile moment–that it still profoundly affects me almost 6 years later.

Knowing that doctors in Asia have the reputation of being extremely hostile to fat patients (and have a lower number than the west for what constitutes healthy), I avoided doctors as if they carried the plague here.  Until I decided to get pregnant, the only time I sought out medical care was when I needed antibiotics.  I made a point of finding a medical practice with expat doctors because I thought they’d be less hostile.  The irony, then, is that while it has taken a bit of effort (5 OB’s before I found one I liked) the doctors who have been the least hostile toward my weight have been Singaporean.  Not without exception, but the doctors I trust most today are Singaporean, not Western.

In the pool, 2010

I have a great deal of privilege in Singapore.  As a white expat, my weight may be unattractive, or even mock worthy, but there’s a perception that Westerners-and perhaps especially-Americans, are fat.  My local friends get far more crap than I do about weight for being a lot thinner than I am.

The reality is that I can buy clothes in the US and have them shipped to me–privilege.

I’m married, which means I don’t have to swim in the dating pool here.  From what I’ve heard, this would change my relationship with Singapore and my weight.

2010-Photography Class

I’ve had a few encounters where someone has fat shamed or mocked me.  There have been  instances where a child has called me “fat” in a cruel or mocking tone.  I’ve had a cab driver try to give me weight loss advice. I’ve had a doctor or three strongly suggest Weight Loss Surgery without admitting that there were risks.  People here are sometimes/often blunt to the point of what Westerners would consider rudeness about all kinds of things-not just weight.

At the same time, these last three years have been a time of education for me.  While I’ve had a far healthier relationship with my body in the past 9 years than ever before, it’s only been the last few that I’ve begun to learn about the politics of fat, largely thanks to the writing of Lesley and Marianne on xojane.  This year has been a year of breakthrough for me in finally learning to separate the notions of weight and health, and have been introduced to the idea of Health at Every Size.

I think that my entry into fat politics was well timed.  Because while I haven’t experienced a lot of direct antagonism about my body, living in Singapore can be very damaging to a person’s self esteem.

One of a million similar signs

When it comes to Singapore, the most damaging aspects of being a fat person here is dealing with the everyday cultural landmines.  The thing about getting shamed/bullied by an individual is that (mostly-with noted exceptions) I can write an individual off as rude or an asshole.  A deeply entrenched social norm?  That’s far harder to distance yourself from, especially when there’s no counter voice to shout it down.

The photo above is from my gym.  My gym is also a spa that offers “slimming” services.  Slimming centres are huge here.  They have a big ad presences-even ads that wrap entire buses. These aren’t the equivalent of Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, but centres that focus on slimming treatments like the one above.  If I want to hold a vibrator against my body, there are other places where it will accomplish a far happier result than against my stomach.  While I do roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out of my head when it comes to these centres (including the displays of slimming cream I walk by every day at the gym) I’d be lying if I didn’t say that they wear on a person.

I mentioned above that I knew that I wouldn’t be able to buy clothes in Singapore before I moved here, although it’s not quite true.  I underestimated the effect this would have on my psyche.  While I’ve been shopping at plus sized clothing stores in the US for years and my size has fluctuated, I’m not in any danger of being sized out of the ability to shop.  Department stores carry my size, and upscale department stores like Lord & Taylor carry designers like Michael Kors in my size.  Clothing sizes do vary country to country (I’m usually 1 size larger in the UK and Australia than I am in the US).   However, Singapore (Asia as a whole to my understanding) has radically different sizing–bluntly stated, I’ve been in a store with a 6x size and it’s still too small (I’m a 2x in the US).  I have friends here who are a Small/Medium in the US are an XL here.  The sizing differential is damaging to the point where I’ve gone from seeking out the few boutiques that carry “plus” sized clothes only to learn that their notion of clothing for fat people is barely plus sized in the US, or had a 6x not fit me to actively avoiding them because I know it will lead to serious body dysmorphia.

source

Singapore does not have employment discrimination laws.  A job may legally require that you be a certain sex, age, nationality, or have a specific appearance.  A few weeks ago there was a an article that the government was “not ruling out” anti-discrimination laws…but this article implies that the only discrimination that they are considering legislating is to disallow hiring foreigners before Singaporeans. (There is legitimate criticism of nationality based preference, but that’s not the focus of this post).  Many applications require that you submit a photo as well as your CV.  Let’s not pretend that requiring a photo won’t weed out candidates for all sorts of superficial reasons, including weight.

source

The above roast has men’s (larger) and women’s (smaller) portions.  Clearly this is not just sexist, but anti fat.  Yes, I’ve ordered the men’s portion and gotten the “look” because of it.  Because I’m transgressing sexual or weight norms? Your call-but mine is both.

Fat and Happy in Singapore

So how to conclude my story?

I’d say overall I’ve reached a point of peace with Singapore.  When I get fat shamed it kind of blindsides me because I’ve made myself oblivious to it/have conditioned myself to roll my eyes at it to the point of desensitization.  I often find the sexism, racism (particularly aimed at foreign workers-maids and construction workers most, and all expats to an increasing degree) anti-gay sentiment far more troubling.  Yes, the entrenched sexism relates to fat bias.  Yes, the fat bias is aimed far more at women. But I’m far more worried by Elanor saying that “girls can’t do x” (which happened a few days ago and had me seeing red) than I am by someone insulting my weight.

That said, you may want to me to admit that other countries also have fat bias.  They do.  The US is no stranger to fat bias.

But one of the things that strikes me every time I go home is this feeling of my gut unclenching.  For while I may get fat shamed in the US, it is at least common to see someone who looks at me.  Most malls have a store or five I can shop at.  In Singapore I compartmentalize/repress/desensitize myself as a coping strategy to the point where I don’t realize how tense being fat in Singapore makes me until I feel that relief.

The key difference, I think, between the US and SG is that in the US there’s a community.  There is a fat activist movement back home.  The notion of Health at Every size is gaining traction.  When a professor tweets that fat people don’t have the willpower to complete PhD programs, it created a PR storm of anger and condemnation (including domestic and international coverage/condemnation of the remarks), as well as a response from the body acceptance movement in the form of a tumblr called FuckYeah Fat PhD’s.

My belief is that there wouldn’t be a huge backlash against a professor who said that here.  As an example about sexism as opposed to fat bias, last year a 27 year old PhD candidate asked the man credited with founding modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, “Given the big influx of immigrants here in a short time, and a dilution of the national identity, what can we do to create a sense of belonging and foster social cohesiveness?”  LKY’s response was a discourse on how SGean women aren’t having babies, badgering personal questions about her personal life, and a warning about the declining quality of her eggs, ultimately telling her to get her PhD AND a boyfriend. (source–blog article quoting a newspaper article and critique)  While the national (government controlled) newspaper published a letter from AWARE (a local women’s NGO) text here, I went through many pages of google results without even one mainstream media article coverage of the event.  Most of the responses that I did find were that those who had an issue with LKY’s comments were making a mountain out of nothing at all (source).  Not exactly the same thing as fat bias, but a clear enough example to demonstrate why I don’t believe there would be any mainstream backlash for a comment regarding weight.

Would I leave Singapore over the fat bias? No.  There’s no utopia-not when it comes to weight bias, racism, sexism, homophobia, and so forth.  There are plenty of positives about life in Singapore, which I’ve devoted hundreds of blog entries to. Today I am pointing out a negative.

That said, due to the sensitive nature and high trolling potential of this blog post, I’m making the rare choice to close comments.  

Namely the story of how becoming an expat saved my marriage.

Ravi and I first started dating in early 2005.  Our relationship weathered my first back surgery a few months after our wedding.  It weather the loss of a wanted pregnancy.  What almost broke it was the aftermath of Elanor’s birth.  SHE is not to blame.  But the experience of almost losing her and the medical drama we went through as a couple did push us to a point where our marriage very nearly ended.

Elanor’s medical care and the strain it took on us as individuals bled over into our relationship.  We lost what had drawn us together, and who we were apart from our roles as Ellie’s parents.  Sadly, this is not an uncommon phenomenon-parents of very sick/chronically ill kids have a higher divorce rate than average.  Having a child as sick as Ellie was is a huge emotional drain on you as a person.  It impacts all of your relationships-I was fairly absent from my friendships, and I didn’t write very much during that time.  When Ravi got home, I just wanted a break after all the non-stop parenting (which is par for the course, but I can speak from experience now that it’s a bigger strain when you’re trying to be the liaison for a giant team of doctors and trying to decide which of the 10 different courses of action that 10 different doctors advocated for will be the one your family goes with), and to be alone for a while.  It was a lot like when nurses change shifts-we’d update each other but didn’t give care and attention to our relationship.  Date nights were extremely rare.  Ravi getting laid off did not help things, nor did the stress of a job hunt.

Ravi and I eventually sought counseling, as neither of us wanted a divorce.  At the same time, we didn’t know what to do to fix it.

In the midst of all of this came the job offer.  Did we want to take the local job and keep our support system, and hope that things would get better?  Or did we want to take what was likely the riskier move of moving to Asia where we would only have each other?

It is an oversimplification, of course, to say that becoming an expat was the sole savior of my marriage.

But having a helper at first, which enabled us to have a weekly date night helped.  Having to count on each other helped.  Having things that were not Elanor to discuss helped.  Having new personal challenges helped (especially for me–I’d lost almost my full identity other than E’s mom).

Were there aspects of being an expat that were problematic?  Absolutely, especially being here on the same “dependent’s” pass that my child was on-that was a sting to my sense of self.  Ravi works a LOT, which can make connecting a challenge.

The difference is that we have realized that we need to reconnect as a couple.  We have prioritized our date night.  We try to hang out daily, even if it’s just to talk for five minutes (or if we’re really tired, we can watch Daily Show).  We touch base via text or instant messenger.

We waited to feel confident in our relationship before we chose to have Rhiannon.  While the pregnancy was a challenge, we were able to ride it out.  One of the differences between the two children is that we walked into the second pregnancy knowing how crucial it was to stay connected with one another as Crystal and Ravi and not just the girls’ parents.

I think that we would be okay if we moved home in the future.  I don’t think that the US is toxic to our relationship.  I think that we needed to learn how to be a couple again, and that needing to count on each other in such an intense setting as an expat posting was key to us getting there again.

I chose to black out my blog and join the online protest because I am very disturbed by the new MDA licensing regulations. According to this article I was one of 130+ who did.

If you don’t know already, the MDA licensing regulations state

Ten online news sites that report regularly on Singapore and have significant reach will be required to follow the same regulatory framework as traditional media.

According to a statement issued by the Media Development Authority (MDA) on Tuesday, the 10 online news sites, which include sg.news.yahoo.com, will from Saturday need an individual licence just as traditional news platforms now have. Currently, the online news sites only have a class licence under the Broadcasting Act.

The new licence makes it clear that online news sites are expected to comply within 24 hours to MDA’s directions to remove content that is found to be in breach of content standards, the Singapore media regulator said.

The sites will also be required to put up a performance bond of S$50,000, like all other individually-licensed broadcasters.

MDA said the new licence provides greater clarity on prevailing requirements within the Class Licence and Internet Code of Practice, and also explains what would be considered “prohibited content” in the existing Internet Code of Practice – content that undermines racial or religious harmony, for example.

“As the sites are already subject to these requirements, no change in content standards is expected to result,” MDA said.

Under the licensing framework, online news sites will be individually licensed if they report an average of at least one article per week on Singapore’s news and current affairs over a period of two months, and are visited by at least 50,000 unique IP addresses from Singapore each month over a period of two months.

When the licensing framework is launched, MDA said it will be issuing licensing notifications for the following ten sites: asiaone.com, businesstimes.com.sg, channelnewsasia.com, omy.sg, sg.news.yahoo.com, stomp.com.sg, straitstimes.com, tnp.sg, todayonline.com and zaobao.com.

Aside from the Yahoo! Singapore news site, all the other nine sites are run by Singapore’s two biggest media groups, MediaCorp and Singapore Press Holdings.  (source)

 

However, this does feel like it’s just the tip of the iceberg.  The Economist is reporting that Singapore has every intention of expanding this framework.

Yacoob Ibrahim, the communications minister, told reporters that the move provided “some form of parity between online news sites and traditional mainstream media newspapers and TV broadcasters.” On the face of it, that might make sense. Why shouldn’t online media be subject to the same regulations as those that pertain to other media platforms? Well, apart from the fact that those existing regulations have resulted in Singapore’s abysmal ranking in the world’s league tables for press freedom—it comes 149th out of 179 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ list; 153rd out of 197 countries in Freedom House’s. Licensing aside, content online is already subject to laws concerning libel and slander; incitement to public disorder; sedition; and more.

“What the authorities call “light-touch” regulation has been replaced with the mailed fist. The only certainty is the continuity of this approach online,” says Choo Zheng Xi, Co-founder of The Online Citizen, a popular self-styled “social news site” which receives visits from some 150,000 to 200,000 unique IP addresses monthly, most of them from within Singapore. The new regulations, many online users believe, is just a preview of things to come.

Mr Yaacob told The Business Times that at present the new regulations need apply only to Singapore-based news websites. But there are plans afoot to to bring foreign websites under the licensing framework next year.

“If [foreign media] are transmitting news to Singaporeans and Singapore is their target market, then we will have to do something about it,” said Mr Yaacob  (Emphasis mine, source is article linked above)

I find this all very troubling.  When a state controls all communication, the citizens suffer.  States that have ranked lower than Singapore on the Press Freedom Index  include such countries as Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and North Korea.  These are not countries that Singapore aspires to be like in most other salient ways.

I would urge you to read other wiser people’s thoughts on this matter

Kirsten Han

• MDA’s licensing scheme: So many questions, no real answers
• Comparing the MDA licensing scheme to the UK debate on press freedom
• #freemyinternet why the big hoo-ha

The Online Citizen’s response to the MDA licensing scheme

Mr Brown– Yaacob wants you to read the right things

If you are a citizen or PR, you may want to join the protest on June 8th in Hong  Lim Park.  More details here

There were a lot of arguments in favor of that choice.  For one, Ravi couldn’t keep taking time off from work because of my illnesses.  For another, Rhiannon was having a lot of trouble adjusting to daycare.  The financial strain of our cleaner, our babysitter and daycare were starting to look like they weren’t worth the cost.  We were constantly low on our food necessities, and I was cheating with crap food (mac n cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, McDonald’s, and so forth) instead of making dinner.  I was tired, and struggled to make it through the day.  Support might make a big difference on a day to day basis.

The arguments against hiring another FDW were simple.

Firstly, needing support didn’t change the fact that I am not a well-trained manager.

(reference-The movie “Office Space, source of photo)

Secondly, we were remain uncomfortable with the idea of someone who isn’t immediate family living in our home.

We went back and forth over the course of a week.

• I asked friends for recommendations–would knowing the helper (or knowing the family) help us feel more comfortable with the person we would hire?  I was not comfortable with my instincts after they had steered me wrong before.
• We looked at our home-we did not feel comfortable with asking a helper to live in the maid’s room.  There were practical and moral reasons for this.  How could we shift things around to free up a “real” bedroom?
• We talked about what concerns we would have in terms of training and dealing with cultural differences.

In the end, we just kept coming back to the conclusion that we just didn’t want to hire a live-in helper.  We decided to give things another month to see if they’d get better.  Slowly, they seem to be.  Rhiannon is adjusting to daycare, and is no longer crying, which relieves me of a great deal of guilt I felt.  Food is still a disaster, and I’m more tired than I’d like to admit.  But with luck things will sort themselves out to the point where we don’t have to go that route.

Many of you are long-time readers.  You will know exactly how hard it was for us to even consider the possibility of another helper.  There’s nothing like having made a big mistake and knowing that you aren’t good at something crucial to make you skittish about trying again.

I’m relieved that we were able to find an alternative this time, but I worry about a situation where it wouldn’t be practical to continue avoiding hiring another FDW–if I do end up needing spinal fusion surgery, for one.  My in laws were able to come out for two months, but we can’t ask them to do that again and again and again.  Moving isn’t on our radar-we’re happy.  The conclusion is that in certain, extreme scenarios–yes, we might hire another FDW.  But it would be a last resort.

The reason that Dirty Dancing fails is that it doesn’t try-at all. It is, with very few minor changes, a word for word copy of the movie.

The music is the same-This Magic Moment, Do You Love Me, Hey Baby, You Don’t Own Me, etc. Most of it isn’t even sung by the cast-it’s audio of the original artists (and while I love those songs and those artists, I’m not really enamored of paying to see musical theater only to hear canned music). Several numbers are sung by the cast, but again, it’s not original music.  I don’t personally know if I’d call it “the musical” as there isn’t original music.

When the movie has a scene change, the stage musical has one too. The problem is that while scene changes work in a movie, they play out clunkily on stage.

Compare this with Hairspray, the Musical-it has the same story at heart as the movie. However, some characters are moved around or don’t appear in the stage show and some plot points are changed to keep the story flowing (for example there’s no amusement park-rather Amber’s mom is the producer of the Corny Collins Show, keeping the focus at the tv show, instead of tangenting off). The music is original and clever, but again, furthers the plot.  Like the music of Dirty Dancing, it’s meant to sound period specific, but rather than pull music from the radio, the music is original.

The acting is fine, although there were no standout performances (as compared to Suzie Mathers-Glinda from the touring cast of Wicked in the 2011/2012 season-who was hands down the best I’ve seen in the role since Kristin Chenoweth–review is here).

My final conclusion? Just watch your dvd of Dirty Dancing. You’ll be much happier seeing the original for a fraction of the cost of this thin imitation.  Save your theater money for the upcoming production of Phantom of the Opera (get your tickets now)

On the plus side, they allowed children to come to the show. I had a spare ticket, and I decided to use it to bring Elanor, who did wonderfully. Which means the next time a kid friendly show comes through (Annie was here last year, Lion King the year before) I know she’s ready to see a “big” show.

Upfront-I received no financial compensation to write this post. I did however, get food while at the event, and we received a total of four Hello Kitty plushes at no cost.  All opinions are my own.

Ellie and myself sporting our Hello Kitty glasses (which Rhi refused to wear, although she did check if they were edible) and holding the Little Red Riding hood plush.

This year the plushes will be Fairy Tale themed, and will go on sale this Thursday, May 30th. The featured stories will be-

• Wizard of Oz Hello Kitty (30 May to 5 June)*
• Little Red Riding Hood Hello Kitty (6 June to 12 June)*
• The Frog Prince Hello Kitty (13 June to 19 June)*
• The Ugly Duckling Hello Kitty (20 June to 26 June)*
• The Singing Bone Hello Kitty (27 June to 3 July)*
• McDelivery Hello Kitty (Only available through McDelivery, will be sold from 30 May)*

Clockwise from top right-The Ugly Duckling, The Cowardly Lion from Wizard of Oz, The Frog Prince, and Little Red Riding Hood. Not Picture-The Singing Bone and the McDelivery Hello Kitty plush.

If you tried to collect the Hello Kitty plushes last year, you may remember that they sold out fast. This year there will be a Go Play website (not live at the time of writing) that will tell you which locations have the plushes and where they’re selling fast/sold out. The website will also tell you at which stores Ronald McDonald will be telling fairy tales, and when, feature a Hello Kitty Caption contest, and other features.  Some of the information (including links to the website) will be available on the McDonald’s Singapore Facebook Page.

Ellie loved Little Red Riding Hood

Rhi was a fan of The Frog Prince

We weren’t just at McDonald’s to meet the new Hello Kitty Plushes. We also got to try the new shaker fries flavor, the new nugget dipping sauces and the new McFizz flavor. I loved the curry shaker fries-they were flavorful but not overpowering. I’m not a huge fan of wasabi, but if you are, you may like the dipping sauce-fairly spicy. The honey mustard is pretty sweet, although I’m a bbq sauce girl. The Strawberry McFizz is a fun flavor if you’re a fan of the McFizz drinks.

Curry Shaker Fries, Wasabi and Honey Mustard dipping sauces, Strawberry McFizz

Rhi pretending to be a witchy Hello Kitty, just before she smushed her nose flat against the plasticEllie was a big fan of the balloons, the toys, and the play place playground outside.

If you have kids (or are a Hello Kitty Fan) you’ll enjoy this year’s plushes. $4.60 with the purchase of an Extra Value Meal, $10 otherwise.

Thanks for having us at the event-we had a blast!

Group Photo

Oxfam (helps people worldwide)

• Pay for a midwife’s training for a donation of 150 USD
• A dozen chicks for a donation of 45 USD
• A school meal program for a child for a donation of 35 USD
• Help to build/rebuild a preschool for a donation of 35 USD
• Help fund women in West Africa’s organic shea butter production for a donation of 35 USD

Post Partum Support International-helps women suffering from perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum depression, the most common complication of childbirth. We also work to educate family, friends and healthcare providers so that moms and moms-to-be can get the support they need and recover

Go here for 10 charities that promote reading.

Go here for charities in Singapore.

The idea of writing a post about assimilation and at what point, if ever, you stop being an outsider in a new home began to percolate.

Then came the Boston Bombings.  I spent that week glued to my tv, and since the death of Tameralan Tsarnaev and arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I’ve been keeping up on events via an e-subscription to the Boston Glob as well as other news sources.

It’s ironic, really, then, that the article I’d already wanted to write was now applying to my home country as well as my adopted country. In the news coverage I’ve read, Dzhokhar’s American citizenship is almost never mentioned, although his foreign birth constantly is.  More frequently I read about his brother’s troubled past and while it is noted that Tamerlan was denied US Citizenship (when it is mentioned), it is not mentioned that he held a green card (PR).  The distancing of the Tsarnaevs from their American citizenship status is furthered by referring to Tamerlan’s wife as his “American wife.”

You can argue that a silly dustup online calling my Singaporean-ness into question isn’t anywhere on the scale of the attacks that has inspired the media’s court of public opinion to ignore or metaphorically revoke the American-ness of the Tsarnaevs.  At first glance, they do seem very different.  But they share one similarity-there was an infraction committed by one party, and the other party decides that the infraction is large enough to revoke their claim to Singaporean-/American-ness and does so.

Is being born a citizen enough to ensure that your nationality-ness is not questionable? Ask Barack Obama. Although entitled to American citizenship via his mother, his foreign parent has been the foundation upon which many lies about his citizenship have been built, to the point where a portion of the US believes him to not actually be an American. Further, his time abroad seems to call his American-ness further into question. As the parent of a third-culture kid, I have watched this phenomenon with interest and concern. I believe that my children would never commit such an act, nor do I expect them to run for president, but I’d be lying if I didn’t haven’t stopped to think that were my kids in either set of shoes, there would be some amount of “foreign-raised” or, in Rhi’s case “foreign born” rhetoric getting tossed around as well.

Americans are a very insular people. Less than half of Americans even hold a passport, much less have left the country, for perspective. Evening news is very local centric, and the only real international news is that which somehow involves the US.  Even given that, I’d argue that a large percentage of Americans couldn’t find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map if you offered them cash, and we’re involved in military actions in those countries. We also believe ourselves to be unique and special in the world-having drank the “America is the best” kool-aid.  As I’ve written before, the picture of an American is a white person, and persons of color do not enjoy the privileges I do as a white American, so my perspective is skewed by that position of privilege. Further I am in the position of privilege of having been born American, so it’s easier for me to critique my home country.

By comparison, in Singapore I am very aware that I am not a citizen and that I do not hold a similar position of privilege here. I will never physically pass as a local-I am all too clearly an ang moh, and plenty will look at me and always see an outsider even if I converted my citizenship. I can call Singapore my home, but I don’t know what it’s like to go through a local school as a student. But I do love Singapore as well, and I am invested in Singapore’s future, regardless of my citizenship.

Personally, I don’t believe that there’s a magic formula as to when you get to care about a country enough to voice an opinion. I am an American and I care about the future of the US. But after three years, I feel that I have the right to voice informed opinions about Singapore and to care equally about the future of my current home as well. It’s not acceptable to call someone’s worthiness to have an opinion into question (whether that opinion is valid, sure, but not the right to have an opinion).

What do you think? Do you get to claim ownership of a country only when you hold a passport from that country? Do you have to live there for x amount of time? Take permanent residency or some other demonstration of loyalty? If you’re an expat (in any country) do you feel a part of/ownership of your non-passport country?

On another blog, an expat mum writes: “Were we to hire a new helper, I’d bring my purse into my bedroom at night, and I’d be more aware of my cash, removing temptation.” She wrote this after her maid allegedly stole some money in 2011 and her blog relays in exhaustive detail the investigation, firing and eventual deportation that followed.

For context, I am being lumped in with a blogger who posts names, nationalities and the last 3 digits of work permits of “bad maids” as well as demeaning rules for maids, and a blogger who is worried that her maid will bring back contagious diseases from her day off.

You could knock me over with a feather.  I have never portrayed maids as anything but human beings that deserve our respect.  That we are not better than our FDW’s.  Yes, I wrote about the night we fired B–because my blog is about my experiences in Singapore.  Firing her will always remain one of the strongest memories of Singapore–because it threw everything into question–how I had not seen what was happening, how off was my judgment, what had I done wrong, did I really need a maid just because everyone told me to.

I wrote a rebuttal and emailed them

Dear webmaster

One of your bloggers-Farah-cited a blog post of mine in her article “Why are Singapore mums demonizing maids online?“.  Yes, this post is very detailed about what happened when we learned that our maid had stolen from us-it was written within the next 48 hours.  My blog is about my experiences in Singapore-and that includes my experience of being an employer.  I tried to always be respectful of my helper, even after we had a bad experience, by using an initial and not her name as it wasn’t mine to share.  My blog is my truth.

I resent, strongly, being categorized with people like Tamarind, whose blog I’m familiar with and am horrified by.  Saying I wouldn’t leave my purse out at night is hardly in the same line as Tamarind’s nonsense.

Farah chose to ignore this post written two month after we fired our maid where I talk about all the ways in which I failed as an employer.  My helper absolutely holds some culpability, but I failed too.  This post, not the one cited, is my post popular post on the blog in part because I take responsibility for my failures.  Not as popular, but it is also worthwhile to note that in my post written one year after, I realize that I am a better, more involved mom without a maid–not demonizing her, criticizing MYSELF.

Clearly, Farah did not any other post of mine in my “helpers” category.  I have never demonized having a helper-I constantly remind readers that one bad experience does not mean helpers are bad.  I do remind people that it’s okay to not have a helper–there is tremendous pressure on expats to have one, whether we are prepared to be good managers or not.  Most of us who come from countries where a maid is not common are NOT trained to be a good manager.

The points that I have been advocating strongly are that

A-You shouldn’t bow to pressure to have a maid if you don’t want one or feel ill prepared to have one.

B-People who have never had a maid before need to receive more support and training as they hire a maid.  A test that my (now) 4 year old could pass doesn’t constitute training.

C-Just because I had a bad experience and have chosen to go a different route doesn’t mean all maid are bad. That every family should choose what’s right for them.

Please remove the paragraph related to myself and my blog or amend it to reflect that while some of us have bad experiences, not all of us are demonizing maids and take responsibility for our own actions.  The way in which you portray myself, and my attitude toward helpers is misleading and wrong.

But there are many other examples I didn’t include in that post that Farah chose not to ignore…
I wrote a post highlighting the scheme run by some agencies that there are two sets of paperwork filed–one with the Philippines Embassay saying that the FDW’s pay is 600 SGD a month and another with MOM listing their actual (almost always lower) salary.  When we found out that, we increased B’s pay to reflect that and gave her back pay.  I deserve no applause for that, but the maid agencies deserve to be called out for that lie.

I advocated for maid’s rights, writing to MOM on behalf of the day off policy that many strongly opposed.

Farah says no one is writing about the positive experiences–I would refer her to the following posts–it’s there, but it doesn’t fit her narrative of me as a demonizing vindictive mom).
I talked about this mismatch of cultural expectations and cultural misunderstandings and how employers (which included myself at the time) needed to be aware of what they’re projecting on to and expecting of someone who is not of the same cultural background.

I wrote about how when getting vaccine updates for all adults in the household when a new baby arrives, not to forget your helper.

I wrote about how mother and child offers first aid classes for parents and helpers and that I’d signed B up for classes.

I’ve never written about it, but I held safe sex classes for B and her friends once a month on a Sunday to educate on condom usage, clear up misinformation, and to answer questions.

I didn’t write many posts about B in the months before because she deserved her privacy.  My blog is about myself and my family and she was not and is not a sideshow attraction for readers to gawk at.  I would reference that she was somewhere with us, but overall I tried to keep her off the blog because her story isn’t my story to tell.  Even though we’ve fired her, I still have tried to maintain her privacy because her story still isn’t mine to tell.

I am disheartened and a bit angry to be lumped  in with the other employers cited.  I don’t think that the advice to have your wallet in your room at night is wrong, nor does it demonize an FDW–I stand by that statement.  But choosing to highlight a post that was, until today, not all that popular instead of taking 5 minutes to skim my helper category is a misleading portrayal of who am I.

Ironically, TWC2 is an organization I believe in and would encourage readers to support.  I just wish in this instance they hadn’t used sloppy journalism.