A recent survey by the Child Welfare League Foundation found that mothers with young children are not happy with their performance as parents and feel economic pressures are a major challenge in raising children.
The survey of 1,312 mothers with children under the age of three showed that the women gave themselves an average grade of 73.95 out of 100, with 18.9 percent saying they were not capable of caring for their child and handling housework at the same time.
A majority of respondents (62.3 percent) said they faced pressures in raising their children, including 10.6 percent who said they are under extremely high pressure.
Answering a multiple-choice questionnaire, 65.5 percent of respondents named economic issues as a major challenge, 53.3 percent found it difficult to get rid of stress and exhaustion, 39.3 percent said they could not do their work and take care of children at the same time and 20 percent said that the role of motherhood was beyond their abilities.
The foundation urged family members to give mothers more support, such as giving mothers at least a day off a month by offering to look after their children.
It also suggested that the government provide more facilities for parents and children and a more helpful subsidy scheme, since 45.2 percent of respondents said that they were unaware of any childcare subsidies.
Only 29.8 percent of respondents received childcare subsidies for unemployed parents, 22.1 percent were on subsidies for those on unpaid parental leave and 16.1 percent received subsidies for hiring a nanny, the survey found.
Although the government has appropriated NT$7.4 billion (US$248.78 million) for such subsidies this year, the foundation said the support system should be changed to universal childcare support so most families can be covered. Different subsidies could also be offered depending on a family’s needs, it said.
The survey was conducted between March 15 and April 15.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater