You may have heard of children writing to Santa Claus with their wish list, but have you ever imagined writing to Prime Minister Lawrence Wong instead?
That’s exactly what six-year-old Sarah from Singapore did — and instead of asking for presents, she had only one request for the prime minister, whom she referred to as “Lorens Wong”: no more siblings.
In the handwritten letter posted to social media by her mother Humairah Suhaimi, Sarah ‘appealed’ to PM Wong, telling him that she did not wish to “be a big sister” as she was worried she would no longer be allowed to sleep next to her mother.
“Even though you want to give us a lot of money, we don’t need more money,” she wrote.
What she wanted instead, was to spend time with her parents, as well as her older brother Adam — whom she made sure to include in the ‘appeal letter’.
Urging the prime minister to not take her nine-year-old brother’s side — who had hoped for another younger sibling, Sarah wrote: “Also don’t listen to Adam if he wants more siblings, because I don’t want. Please Lorens Wong.”
The six-year-old then ended the letter expressing her love for the country.
“I love Singapore. Love Sarah.”
But what exactly prompted the little girl to write to the prime minister?
Apparently, it all started with a joke from Humairah — who had teased the six-year-old with the topic of pregnancy last Wednesday (Aug 26) — something she knew would usually upset the six-year-old, the mother told AsiaOne on Monday.
“Sarah was lying down on my tummy and she said she could hear some sounds. I jokingly said the sounds were made by her baby brother and sister whom I’m pregnant with,” she said.
Though the six-year-old had “tried to call her bluff”, Humairah told us that as the National Day Rally (NDR) had just happened recently, she used the topic to substantiate her joke.
She told her daughter that PM Wong had called on Singaporeans to have more children during the NDR and claimed the prime minister would give their family “a lot of money” for it.
This in turn caused Sarah to react by crying and asking: “What should I do?”
Playing along, the Vice President of Operations, Brand and Communication of SSA Group, then told her daughter that if she truly did not want any younger siblings, she would have to write a letter to PM Wong “for permission”.
“She took her brother’s foolscap paper and started writing,” the mother of two told us, adding that her daughter had asked her how to spell the prime minister’s name.
“I said I couldn’t help her because if he finds out that I helped her, he would not grant us permission,” she quipped.
“So she just winged it.”
After writing the letter, the six-year-old then “dug” through a drawer and found an envelope to put it in.
Humairah eventually gave her the address of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to mail to.
“I thought I should just enable her and really post it out,” she told us.
The letter was eventually mailed the next day, and Humairah emailed PMO to explain the backstory of the letter.
PM Wong’s response
To the family’s surprise, the prime minister responded.
In an email on Sunday, PM Wong thanked Humairah for the email, as well as Sarah for “taking the trouble” to write to him.
He then reassured that the six-year-old did not need his permission to “remain the youngest in the family”.
“We will continue doing our best to make Singapore a good place for families to raise their children — whether they decide to have two, three, or more!” the email read.
“I wasn’t expecting a response at all honestly. And the fact that he actually did, and on a Sunday night — I think that’s very sweet of him. It’s a safe response,” Humairah said.
Humairah added that she has yet to share the response with her daughter as she had only managed to check her email after the six-year-old went to daycare.
“I’m taking this [experience] to further pick her brains on other policies which she may feel strongly about or triggered by,” she told us, adding that it was the “first time” Sarah could sit down and write, as it was usually “very difficult” to get her to cooperate and do exercises during nightly revision times.
‘Singapore’s big daddy’
This was not the first time the prime minister had been invoked in the household, said Humairah, who refers to PM Wong as “Singapore’s big daddy”.
This was because the children still could not understand the concept of a prime minister, so the parents used the term when explaining certain policies to them.
“Recently, he said children should not be given too much screentime… That helped my husband and I a lot in managing their screentime because we just told them, ‘Cannot watch the television because ‘big daddy’ said cannot,'” Humairah said.
Despite Sarah’s concerns, the mother also told us that she and her husband “have always only wanted to have two children” — even before Sarah decided that she “did not want to share” her parents with more siblings.
She added: “We are at the point in our careers which demands quite a bit from the both of us. So having more children would not be fair to the children themselves and the people we work with.”
But why is Sarah so opposed to having more siblings?
This is because the six-year-old is the youngest of two children — and also the youngest cousin on both sides of the family, Humairah said.
“She isn’t willing to give that up,” the mother explained.
That being said, the 36-year-old added that if the couple ever changed their minds about having more children, they would “definitely manage” Sarah’s expectations.
“I think it’s also good that she is able to express her feelings and speak her mind,” Humairah added.
This comes on the back of PM Wong recently announcing a series of new measures to support parents and families during the NDR on Aug 23.
Among them is the new SG Child Support Package, under which each Singaporean child will receive up to $62,000 in direct support, as well as more childcare leave for working parents and lower fees at government-supported preschools.
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