An insight into the nation’s most important couple
Published on: Sunday, May 19, 2019
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A little known fact is that a significant part of his hectic life is planned to the detail by his wife Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, 92.
Siti Hasmah outlined how a day in her husband’s life looks like in his second stint as the prime minister in a recent NST interview.
Unlike his previous long-serving term of 22 years, she revealed that Dr Mahathir has now changed his daily work hours from the previous 8am to 5pm to an extended period of 8.30am to 6pm.
“He needs time to do his correspondence. There are piles of letters to answer. He goes through it himself and there is no other time to do it in the office as there are appointments and interviews,” she said.
“When he comes home, he goes upstairs, sits in front of the television, switches on Al Jazeera and watches the news about Syria and the troubles in Europe and the Middle East until he dozes off.”
Dr Siti Hasmah said her husband would then shower and pray after he wakes up from his nap, adding that they would then usually have a late dinner around 9.30pm. She says that Dr Mahathir is free during the weekends, to do or go as he wishes.
She chairs a meeting every Thursday with his “programmers” to go through the multiple invites that Dr Mahathir gets and to decide which programmes he would attend.
“He has many invites, not only political ones, but also social invitations, like weddings, his school alumni and others. I will be the one to tell them ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
She noted that Dr Mahathir would want to go through Cabinet papers at home on Tuesday or Thursday nights, ahead of the weekly Cabinet meetings the next day.
Dr Siti Hasmah said she would have her husband attend events that she is invited to if she thinks he would be able to “relax” there.
“That would be his downtime. I tell the programmers’ meeting that I am taking him along and they will slot it in his programme,” she said.
She takes pleasure in carrying out her responsibility of ensuring that all is well with her husband.
Dr Siti Hasmah, has been married to Dr Mahathir for about 62 years.
She has previously shared the key ingredients to her long-lasting and happy marriage with Dr Mahathir, which includes trust and love.
She also revealed about her own up bringing.
She said her mother could only read Jawi but that did not stop her from raising 10 children and improving herself.
“She encouraged us (the daughters) to go to schools, even though the Malays then were afraid to send their children to missionary schools for fear they would become Christians.
“My mother even taught our amah from China to speak Malay,” said Siti Hasmah about her late mother who studied in Malay schools.
Her mother Siti Khatijah Ahmad was a woman of few words “but she worked hard”.
“She was orphaned as a child in Melaka and her uncle then raised her in Kuala Lumpur. She was married off at 16 to my father (Mohamad Ali Taib),” she said.
The Prime Minister’s wife recalled how her mother would get on a rickshaw to attend classes on how to make pastries at the Young Women’s Christian Association despite not speaking any English.
“As I was the youngest daughter, I would be taken along when she visited her relatives who were sick or had just passed away.
“She had this yellow shawl she reserved to drape over the coffins when any of our relatives died. I always got frightened when I saw the shawl,” she added.
Her message for young mothers?
She said they must take care of themselves.
“God blessed us with the equipment to procreate and take care of the babies that we deliver. As a mother, you have to take care of yourself as it is a heavy duty to look after your children,” she added.
Siti Hasmah also advised women to undergo routine check-ups, mammograms and pap smears.
Mothers, she said, must be wary of unwarranted parenting information out there such as those from the anti-vaccine groups.
“I know some mothers get so confused that they do not know what to do. You must be very cautious of the people who are dishing out such advice.
“There is an anti-vaccination campaign and I am appealing to all mothers to not be influenced by them because diseases that killed children during my time (as a doctor in the 50s) will come back with a vengeance,” she noted.
She listed diphtheria, tuberculosis, polio, whooping cough and measles as the diseases that are now making a return due to non-vaccination. She further advised mothers to keep a good relationship with their children “even when they have turned 60”.
Siti Hasmah also spoke of the 1950s when many of the Malay girls were only sent to religious schools and later married off.
“My father said ‘if I educate my son, it is like educating himself only but if I educate my daughter, my daughter will educate a nation’.
“As our girls become educated, they understand that they must compete with the men. We are at the stage where the slow tortoise is already ahead of the hare,” she said.
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