This article was first published in The
Sunday Times.
Eleven people - nine adults and two children - live in the four-
room HDB flat of Madam Iris Koong's parents in Bedok.
She, her project supervisor husband and their four-year-old son
sleep on mattresses on the floor in her parents' master bedroom and
they do not mind it.
'My mum can look after my son while my husband and I are at work,
and we can have healthy, home-cooked meals and Cantonese soups
every day,' says the 34- year-old.
Meanwhile, the four-room HDB flat in Jurong that she and her
husband own is unoccupied.
'We bought our flat in 2005 when we got married and it has always
been like a holiday home for us. My mother-in-law and I take turns
to clean it every week,' the self-employed Madam Koong says of the
fully furnished flat, which has not been rented out.
'I stayed there with my husband and son only during my confinement
period after giving birth.'
Besides her immediate family, the other eight people in the 112 sq
m Bedok flat are her grandmother, father, mother, elder brother,
sister-in-law, niece, younger brother and their Indonesian
maid.
She is among the increasing number of Singaporeans aged 21 to 54
who are living with their parents in HDB flats after marriage. The
figure has gone up from 10.7 per cent in 1998 to 14 per cent in
2008. This was revealed in the latest five-yearly Sample Household
Survey of about 8,000 households conducted by the Housing
Board.
The number of people in Madam Koong's household is probably above
average, though.
Like her, her elder brother Rick and his family have their own
five-room flat in Sengkang. According to her, they have also chosen
not to live there because they 'prefer our current living
arrangement and my niece, who is seven, is very attached to my
parents'.
She insists that the situation in the flat is not as cramped as
others might think.
'My father runs a wonton noodle stall in Geylang from night till
morning, so he is usually not at home when we are home,' she
says.
The second bedroom is occupied by her elder brother's family of
three, and the third by her grandmother and their maid. Her younger
brother Melcus, 31, sleeps in the living room.
With so many people under one roof, tension sometimes runs high, as
is to be expected.
'In the morning, when we are all rushing to go to work, the two
bathrooms are always occupied and when the taps are all turned on
at the same time, the water supply becomes slow,' Madam Koong
says.
But she is quick to add: 'We try to give and take, so some of us
will wake up slightly earlier to use the bathroom because we know
one another's schedules very well.'
The matter of who gets to watch his favourite programmes on the
46-inch TV that the family bought two months ago is no matter at
all - the bedrooms have TVs, too.
'If someone is watching a TV programme in the living room, we'll
just use the smaller TVs in the rooms,' Madam Koong says with a
shrug.
Some married couples choose to live with their parents out of a
sense of duty.
Personal assistant Anisah Samsiah has been living with her in-laws
since marrying her gym manager husband Mohamad Fazli six years
ago.
The family of six - including the couple's two children aged five
and three - live in his parents' three-room Kembangan flat. His two
elder sisters moved out after marriage.
'My husband is very filial and wants to take care of his parents
who are both 70 years old,' says Madam Anisah, 33.
They have no plans at the moment to buy a larger place of their
own.
Assistant manager Joyce Yong's mother- in-law, Madam Ong Siew Khim,
moved in with her family to their five-room flat in Yishun in 1999
after the elderly woman suffered a stroke.
'She has since recovered and now looks after my kids and helps out
with some household chores,' says Madam Yong, whose two daughters
and a son are aged between 10� months and eight years.
Madam Ong has since rented out her three-room flat in Ang Mo Kio.
Her husband died more than 20 years ago.
When Madam Yong has disagreements with her mother-in-law, her
analyst husband, Mr Alex Tan, 39, steps in to play mediator.
She says: 'Recently, my mother-in-law cooked porridge, put it in
the fridge and reheated it in the evening. It is not good for the
children, so my husband and I talked to her nicely and told her not
to do that again and she agreed.'
When her children are older, her two daughters will share a room
with her mother-in-law and their maid, while her son will occupy
the third room, she says.
Engineer Jayven Koh, 29, is waiting for his Punggol flat to be
ready in 2012. Meanwhile, he and his wife have been living in his
parents' four-room HDB flat in Bedok since getting married in
2008.
The household has been largely blissful, save for one
occasion.
He says: 'Once, my mum told me that my wife did not attend to some
of our relatives who came to visit. So I talked to my wife about
it.'
He has an elder sister who works in China and returns to Singapore
twice a year.
Security manager Cliff Yap, 35, is living with his in-laws because
'my wife is officially one of the owners of the flat along with her
parents, so we can't apply for our own place'.
He says: 'Although my wife can get her name taken out of the
housing deed, we have no plans to do that now as she is very close
to her parents.'
Marriage and family counsellor Ang Thiam Hong, 57, notes that
'husbands who live with their wives' parents often feel like they
have 'married out' and as a result may be overly sensitive to the
remarks and behaviour of their in-laws, which could lead to
conflicts'.
In Mr Yap's case, he admits to enjoying some perks of his present
living arrangements - meals and household chores are taken care of
by his in-laws - and says there is only one problem: 'My in-laws
like to feed my silky terrier with whatever they are eating even
though I've explained to them that this is not good for the
dog.
'But there's nothing I can do except to bear with it because the
house belongs to them after all.'