The headline caught my attention because it isn't a social construct I fully understand. The heterosexual relationship between husband and wife, and the division of labor in their family unit in Japanese society is something rather frightening, to me. I’m glad I made the choice of not having children. I made that call at at 10 years old, or was it 12? Whatever it was, I never looked back. These two months made me seriously thankful for that decision. Every facet of my life doesn’t involve any desire to include children in this equation. I’m not one of those strong women who could care for children or have a big heart to put their needs above mine. If I’m in a lockdown managing children, it would likely drive me suicidal.
Motoko Rich wrote 'Stuck at Home, Men in Japan Learn to Help. Will It Last?', published in The New York Times on May 16, 2020. She wrote three examples of what three families are dealing with, and how they're coping during these two crucial months of staying at home and the prefectures in varying states of emergency. The writer doesn't go deep into analyzing the government policies or what it isn't doing to help families get by for the duration COVID-19 is raising red flags globally. She keeps it focused on the humans, and these three families, who are a typical representation of the average Japanese family in Tokyo.
For working couples, Japan’s efforts to combat the spread of the virus — encouraging teleworking and asking residents to stay inside — have highlighted disparities in the division of domestic work that shape households across the globe but are especially pronounced in Japanese society.
Angles of articles, even when written by journalists, could always fit the intended angle of a story. The writer isn't exactly generalizing about Japanese society and its chauvinism. She doesn't look at it through rose-tinted glasses either. People seem to truly believe in gender-divided work, and should the males help with any tasks at home non-related to the electricals, plumbings and mortagage, it’s viewed as ‘extra’ and deserving of praise. Well.
What about our Singapore society? That’s not for me to comment on publicly. It doesn’t matter to me anyway since I don’t have children to bother about; and I most certainly do not make it my business to care about what happens in the friends' families if they have children, unless there's physical or mental abuse going on. I can only offer my beliefs that child-rearing is a two-way street, equally shouldered by both partners, and helpers and grandparents should stay out of it. (Helpers help with chores and errands, and grandparents ought to visit and play.) The logistics of cooking and cleaning, and the changing of lightbulbs are gender-neutral lifeskills. Chauvinism can be partially blamed on mothers who didn’t raise their sons ‘right’ and mollycoddle them.
Remember the old advice some women used to sagely dispense to newly married women? 'Give and take.' Which translates into women giving it all, and the men taking/accepting all, and some men give thanks, and then nothing else changes. It's not about women's rights. It's about fairness. The head of the household is not necessarily the breadwinner, neither is it always be a man. I don't subscribe to that.
Sure, the dynamics and work of the family unit is a personal matter to be decided between long-term heterosexual and homosexual or non-binary couples, but fairness and appreciation should underline these decisions, not gender. The article asked, 'Will it last?' For the sake of Japanese women, I hope so. Laying it out onto a spreadsheet certainly does. I hope the men open their eyes to the value of work within the home.
Susumu Kataoka was just looking for a diversion from long days sheltering at home with his family during the coronavirus outbreak. He grabbed his drone and took it for a spin around their Tokyo house, snapping some pictures and posting them on Facebook.
His wife, Aki, was not amused. If he had time to play around like that — revealing their household clutter, no less — shouldn’t he have time to take on more domestic chores and child care?
Mr. Kataoka, a marketing web consultant, believed he was already doing his share. He gave his wife a list of tasks he regularly performs: bathing their two pre-school-age children, washing dishes, overseeing tooth brushing.
How little he knew. In a meticulous spreadsheet, Ms. Kataoka, a nursing student, enumerated her 210 tasks to his 21.
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