THREE children, a professional career and a social life.

How does Dr Lually Phua, 40, do it? Family support, she said.

Dr Phua, who runs her own dental clinic, Lu Ally Dental Surgery at Raffles City, credits her mother, 64, and father, 70, for allowing “everything to run like clockwork at home”. They help raise her three daughters, Jade, 6, Jean, 11 and Jill, 14. And that allowed her to be a working mum.

The Prime Minister’s Chinese New Year Day message struck a chord with the dentist. In his message, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said family support is crucial in bringing up children, especially in light of the country’s dismal fertility rate.

Singapore’s total fertility rate slid to its lowest level of 1.23 last year, down from 1.28 in 2008. This is below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Mr Lee said: “Family support will give many of our women the opportunity and confidence to pursue their careers and interests and to build families.

“With state and family support, I hope young people will think seriously about getting married and starting families earlier.”

Dr Phua agreed with PM Lee that without the support of her parentsit would be “very tough and trying” to juggle motherhood and career.

She said: “When I’m working it helps to know that my kids are in the good hands of my parents. That gives me the peace of mind that they are well taken care of. I’m extremely lucky and can’t ask for anything more.”

She lives with her husband, Dr Chew Ming Tak, 40, and children in an apartment in Bukit Timah. Dr Chew is the senior consultant and director of the orthodontic department at the National Dental Centre.

Dr Phua said it helps that her parents live in the same block of apartments but on a different floor.

While they are at work, her parents would pick up her two older daughters from their school in the afternoon. They would then take all three for their extra curricular activities like ballet, music lessons and tuition.

After that, the children usually head back to her parents’ place where the entire family gather daily for dinner.

She said: “The three generations coming together for dinner is a daily routine. The fact that we live in the same block definitely makes it extremely convenient.”

There is another plus: The children develop a close bond with their grandparents. Apart from support from her parents, Dr Phua also has a domestic helper who does the household chores.

This frees her up, so when she’s at home, after work, she spends more time with her children. The couple typically work on the children’s homework after dinner. Sometimes, the family may head out for ice-cream once dinner and homework are done.

She also tries to carve out extra time for her daughters during the work week. For instance, Dr Phua who works a five-and-a-half day week, might take an afternoon off during the week to ferry her kids around for their after-school activities.

Being a working mum, however, is a tricky balancing act, she said.

She said: “Is it difficult? Always. There are occasions where you find that you feel like you don’t spend enough time with them – as a working mum you always feel guilty.

“Usually when something happens and my girls are unhappy about in school, it’s usually the grandparents who are the first to know about it.”

On the weekends, the family usually has dinner with Dr Phua’s in-laws and the family plays football with their relatives near their home on Sundays.

Her brood of three kids may seem to buck the falling fertility trend over the years. Joked Dr Phua: “I always thought three was a great number.”

On a more serious note, she added: “I would say it’s great to have three children or even more if you have the family support and financial means.”

And never mind if they’re born in the year of the tiger.

Her middle child, Jean, was born in January 1999, just at the tail-end of the tiger year. She said: “For me zodiac signs don’t matter, my child is my child.

“My job is to raise her well and protect her. It doesn’t mean that because she’s a tiger she’s going to be this or that way.”

This article was first published in The New Paper.