Desperate Hunt for Day Care in Japan

[citzera]

By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: February 26, 2013
TOKYO - Ayaka Okumura was barely pregnant when she began fretting over how she would hold on to the management job that would have been out of reach just a generation ago, when Japanese women were often relegated to dead-end “office lady” jobs pouring tea and greeting guests

Comments

[hola_meg_a_cola]

The eikaiwa I work for has a nursery in the same building and once a week, I go and do a two hour lesson there. While a lot of kids have left (some are beginning kindergarten, others are going abroad because of their parents' companies), there are at least one or two new trial students a week. The youngest age they allow at the nursery is eighteen months, so I can only imagine how many students they would have if they allowed newborns :/

[__planitbremix]

ah, so they make you do extra lessons* huh?
In the area I worked in, I had two co workers who had to teach at pre-schools.

[hola_meg_a_cola]

Hi there!! I should mention that I'm no longer working for Peppy! I'm at a different eikaiwa now. The nursery lessons are OT for me :)

How are you btw? Did you end up leaving the company?

[__planitbremix]

oh, when was your contract up?I also finished my contract and went back to the states. I miss my students though, would love to visit them next year. Planning on sending them all a box of goodies.And are the nursery lessons like the mama classes at Peppy? Those were my fave!!

[__planitbremix]

Yeah...reminds me of America. My friend was only given like a month to be with her newborn than had to go back to work....
My mom was able to take 4 years off of her job until I was read to go to Kindergarten and I don't think the company she worked for allows that anymore. Seriously..for a world that treats women like
all we are good for is pushing out babies, you'd think they'd have more common sense resources for us. And they wonder why the birthrate is
going down in Japan and want to push for anti-abortion..hah

[hinoema]

Where is that icon from? It looks like Lion Chan!

[__planitbremix]

lol its from Bleach. Its Kon!

[velvetunicorn]

This is such a depressing post. It's great that they have the option of public daycare. However, if they can barely accomodate the demand with the birth rate as low as it is why would they been pushing to increase it? I love the mentality that when women have jobs it's considered optional. The implication is that it's just for a bit of fun and to be able to buy fancy shoes. The truth is having the option to stay at home is a privilege. I wish more women had the option of whether they wanted to return to work or not. It's just not economically possible for a lot of people.

[randomtasks]

And yet, Japan is doing all kinds of campaigns and even thinking of banning abortion just to increase the birth rate when they don't even have enough day cares and etc?