After saying that one-third of men and women in Singapore            were single "and quite comfortable

with their lives", the Minister Mentor said: "My daughter is one of them. What can I do?"

Then in an unusually emotional mood, Lee

told  the young audience: "When she was in her

early30s, I told her, never mind all this."

My wife and I used to tell her, what you want

is a "Mrs"

(to her name).             

            She didn't think it was

funny.     

Now, she is 50-plus. I'm getting old. I have a

pacemaker.         We've got this big house, everything is looked after now, but what happens when we are no longer

there?

"Who's going to run this place? Who's going to

make sure that the maids are doing the right thing and so on and so forth?

That's the price she (Dr Lee) will               have to

pay."

She says, I'll look after myself, but she has not

been looking after herself all these years."She went

abroad for her studies. And her cooking

was just to take the salmon and put it in

the microwave and heat it up. You can do it and then

go to the canteen, but

when you do that day after day ...     

"It's a choice she has made and a choice that

35% of our women

are making."

Lee Wei Ling (Lee Kuan Yew's daughter)

as to the reason why she remained single - a good

read.           

My parents have a loving  relationship, but I knew I

could not live my life around a husband.My father became prime

minister in 1959, when I

was just four years  old.

Inevitably, most  people know me             

as Lee Kuan Yew's daughter.       

My every move, every word, is scrutinised and

sometimes              subject to criticism. One

friend said I lived in a glass house.   

After my father's recent comment on my lack

of culinary skills, another observed: 'You live in a 

house without any walls.'     

Fortunately, I am not easily embarrassed.   

               As long as my conscience

is clear, what other people 

say of me does not bother me.       

Indeed, I am open about my life since the more I

try to conceal from the public, the wilder the speculation

becomes.             My father said of my

mother two weeks ago: 'My wife               

was...not a traditional wife. She was educated, a professional  woman... We had Ah Mahs(helpers,

maids),

reliable,professional,dependable. (My wife) came back every lunchtime to

have lunch with the children.'       

Actually, my mother was a traditional wife and

mother.             She was not traditional

only in

one respect:   She was also a

professional woman and, for   many years, the

family's main breadwinner.   

One of my mother's proudest possessions is a

gold pendant           

that my father commissioned for her. He

had a   calligrapher engrave on

the pendant the following characters:       

'xian qi liang mu¸'and

'nei xian wai de'.The first four characters mean virtuous wife and 

caring mother.

The second four mean wise in looking after the

family, virtuous in behaviour towards the

outside world.   

My mother lived her life around my father and,

while we were young, around

her children.       I remember my mother protesting gently once

about something my father had

asked her to do... 'It is a partnership, dear,'

my father urged. 'But it is not an equal

partnership,' my mother replied.             

The partnership may not have been exactly equal

at particular points in time. But over the years,   

especially after my mother's health

deteriorated after she suffered a stroke, my

father was the one who took care of her.   

She clearly indicated she preferred my father's

care to that of the doctors', in itself a revelation of the

quality of his care.             

He remembers her complicated regime of

medications. Because she cannot see on the left side of her

visual field, he sits on her left during meals.   

He prompts her to eat the

food on the left side of her plate         

and picks up whatever food her left hand drops

on the table.         I have always admired my father for his dedication

to Singapore, his determination to do what

is right, his courage in standing up to foreigners who try to tell us how to

run our country. But my father was also

the eldest son in a typical Peranakan family. 

He cannot even crack a soft-boiled egg -

such things not being expected of men,

especially eldest sons, in Peranakan

families.       But when my mother's health deteriorated,

he readily adjusted his lifestyle to accommodate

her,took care of her

medications and lived his life around her.               

I knew how much effort it took him to do all this,

and                I was surprised that he was able to make the

effort...         If my parents have such a loving relationship, why

then did          I decide to remain

single?       Firstly, my mother set the

bar too high for me. I could not         

envisage being the kind of wife and mother she

had been. Secondly, I am

temperamentally similar to my father. 

Indeed, he once said to me: 'You have all my traits

but to such an exaggerated degree that

they become a disadvantage in you.'       

When my father made

that pendant for my mother, he also   

commissioned one for me. But the words he chose

for me                were very different from

those he chose for my mother.             

On one side of my pendant was engraved

'yang jing xu rui',

which means to conserve energy and build up

strength. On the other side was

engraved

'chu lei ba cui', which means to stand out

and excel.The latter was added just for completion.   

His main message was in the first phrase, telling

me, in effect, not to be so

intense about so many things in life.       

I knew I could not live my life around a husband;

nor would I want a husband to live his life around me. Of 

course, there are any number of variations in

marital relationships between those extremes.     

But there is always a need

for spouses to change their               

behaviour or habits to suit each other.     

I have always been set in my ways and did not fancy changing my behaviour or

lifestyle.   I had my first date when I was 21 years old. He was

a doctor in the hospital

ward I was posted to. We went 

out to a dinner party. I noted that the other

guests were all rich socialites. I dropped him like a hot

potato.           

In 2005, while on an African safari with a small group of friends, one of

them, Professor C.N. Lee, listed the men who had tried to woo me. There were three besides the

first. Two were converted into friends and another, like the first, was

dropped.     I am now 54 years old and happily single. In addition 

to my nuclear family, I have a close circle of

friends.              Most of my friends are

men.

But my reputation is such 

that their female partners would never consider me a

threat.          More than 10 years ago,

when there was still a slim chance

I might have got married, my father told me:   

'Your mother and I could be selfish and feel happy

that you remain single and can

look after us in our old age..           

But you will be lonely.'       

I was not convinced. Better one person feeling

lonely than two people miserable

because they cannot adapt

to each other, I figured. I do not regret my choice. But I want to end with a warning to young men   and women: What works for me may not work for

others. Many years ago, a young single woman asked me

about training in neurology in a

top US hospital... advised her to 'grab the

opportunity'. She did and stayed away for eight years. She returned to

Singapore inher late 30s and now

worries that she may have missed her chance to get

married.Fertility in women drops dramatically with

age, and older mothers run

the risk of having offspring with   

congenital abnormalities.         

Recent studies show also that advanced paternal

age is associated with an

increased risk of neuro- developmental disorders

in offspring, such as autism and

schizophrenia, not to mention dyslexia and a

subtle reduction in intelligence. Men can also

suffer from diminished fertility with

age although there is wide individual variation.   

I would advise young men and women not to delay

getting married and having children. I say this

not to be politically correct.I say it in all sincerity because I

have enjoyed a happy family life as a

daughter and a sister,and I see both my brothers

enjoying their own families.   

Dr Lee Wei Ling           

The writer is the director of the National Neuroscience.

TrinityOctober 2009