Life as a Singaporean parent is hectic. There’s frankly never enough hours in a day to get things done. With the unbearably long and demanding working hours, your household is sacrificed for career obligations.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice, clean house (at least once in a while). The key here isn’t perfection, but maintenance.
If you have piles of laundry, dishes in the sink and a home that has seen better days, you may need some clever mum hacks to put things in order back again.
We took to Reddit to find out how our Singaporean super-mums are juggling a high-demand career and domestic. Here are some of their life-saving hacks that you could try.
Electronics Are Your Best Friend
In a world of automated conveniences, us humans don’t really have to struggle that much with household chores. Not when they can be outsourced by our semi-sentient robot friends.
Before their inevitable global takeover, Reddit mums suggest investing in several electronics to help make motherhood that much more manageable.
The first is a robot vacuum cleaner. While it doesn’t get to all the nooks and cranies of your home, it does take over the bulk of the household chores.
You may still need to spring clean your house every few weeks but it does take quite the load off during those busy weekdays when you just can’t imagine doing a once-over through the house with a noisy vacuum cleaner.
Work Smart Not Hard
In the same vein as the previous hack, there are plenty of neat tricks you can do with other home electronics to streamline your chores. They don’t magic away all your responsibilities, but they do buy you more time.
One Reddit parent suggested not waiting for laundry to be done when you’d rather do something else.
Simply load your clothes at night, set the timer to finish your wash in the morning when you wake up, then throw it into the dryer (or hang). And by the time you get back to work, there, fresh laundry ready to be dealt with!
Another hack is to get a dishwasher. Some people don’t give dishwashers much credit. This is especially convenient if you prefer to cook at home.
Yes, this does mean that you have to fork out a few Dollars for convenience. So, start saving up because having something to cut the time you spend on cleaning is definitely an investment worth your money.
Don’t Always Say ‘No’ to Frozen Meals
Frozen meals get a bad rep in recent times. People throw out all sorts of scary words like ‘processed food’ and ‘preservatives’ to keep you stuck slaving over a stove when you should be helping your kids out with homework.
The truth is there are many brands that offer safe, healthy and nutritious food all through frozen meals. They are packed with all your child needs to stay strong and healthy.
And to be frank, most of these frozen meals have better nutrition sizes than what you can hope to accomplish without weighing your food to the Nth degree.
Moreover, flash freezing means that the nutritional value is also preserved better. Much better in fact than leftovers in the fridge.
All you need to do is pop in the microwave and there, you have a full warm meal for the whole family. And speaking of time-saving, invest in a microwave if you don’t have one (that’s another mum hack you may want to try).
Focus on Work-Life Balance
I know what you’re likely thinking: ‘Work-life balance? What’s that?’
But don’t despair quite yet.
While Singapore is still very much stuck in that corporate rat race, this does not mean the mythical work-life balance isn’t attainable.
It all comes down to setting proper boundaries and even changing jobs or settling on more flexible work arrangements.
In fact, more and more Singaporeans are taking a stand against the frankly unhealthy corporate culture and demanding hybrid arrangements and fewer working hours.
Embrace the Mess
One Reddit user makes a good point about motherhood (or really parenthood in general).
They quoted home organising expert, Marie Kondo, who said that once you have kids, it’s pretty much impossible to keep a clean home. At least not 100% of the time, and especially not without hired help.
The advice is basically close one eye and go about your day. Instead of obsessing over having a cookie-cutter Stepford dwelling, save that time to focus on your parenting.
As every parent should realise by their second and third child, domestic perfection is impossible. But that’s the beauty of parenthood, you realise what matters more to your family.
You’ll find that ‘spend more time with children’ becomes your top priority and ‘neatly folded laundry’ will slowly fall to the bottom of that list.
Perhaps this is the most important ‘mum hack of them all’: stop obsessing over chores.
This does not mean to just let your entire house turn into a pigsty, of course. Do what you can and allow yourself to drop the ball every now and again.
It’s not like you have a home tour scheduled with Architectural Digest the next morning or a celebrity guest coming every day.
Say ‘Goodbye’ to Domestic Perfection
The truth is any mum hack that promises to give you a perpetually clean home without outside help is lying.
And getting extra hours of your day isn’t supposed to be spent more on continuing your work, or to get more unnecessary chores done. In fact, you should dedicate as many many hours as you can squeeze out of your day to bond with your kids.
The truth is there is no magic bullet to make all your domestic and household worries go away. Besides, we promised a few extra hours of your day, not domestic perfection.
That said, this doesn’t at all downplay the value of these hacks. So, try them out. Maybe you can finally have those few golden hours to yourself at the end of the day. To soak in a bathtub, watch some television, help your kids with their homework, with plenty of time left to tuck them into bed for the night.
You’ve got this, mummies!
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice from Mamahood. For any health-related concerns, it is advisable to consult with a qualified healthcare professional or medical practitioner.
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