Spaces of silence: single parenthood and the ‘normal family’ in Singapore

Abstract

AbstractAlternative family forms have begun to emerge in the Confucian societies of East and Southeast Asia, concomitant with widespread demographic changes and new socioeconomic conditions. In Singapore, the state tends to configure ‘single parents’ – including divorcees, unmarried parents and widowed parents – as ‘unfortunate’ and constituting an unhealthy trend, in opposition to the normal, dual‐parent household. This paper examines how single parents in Singapore reconfigure their definitions of the family both discursively and through practical means, in response to the ‘traditional’, Confucian concept of the complete family propounded by the government. Through in‐depth interviews with middle‐class Chinese Singaporean single mothers and fathers, this paper also explores how single parents employ strategies at two levels: in practical decisions relating to childcare; and discursively, through the articulation of remarriage and fertility desires, in which patriarchal notions of the roles of husband/wife and mother/father are embedded. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.