New fathers, like all men, are completely unpredictable.

Post from: Babylune

“There’s Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, so how come there is no Children’s Day?

And the answer is always the same.

“Oh! Every day is Children’s Day.”

To be honest, that cliché answer pretty much sums up how I feel about Fathers‘ Day. A recent study reported in The Guardian adds a few figures to back up my perspective.

In Japan, nine out of ten men with children under a year-old do nothing, or almost nothing to care for them. This was not the only statistic to inspire PPD.

• The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research found that 82.4% of husbands perform few child-rearing duties, while 9% do none. More than 20% of men whose wives work full-time do nothing in the home, and almost a third help with less than a 10th of household chores. Women who work outside the home say the lack of support puts them off having more children because they would probably have to leave their own job. Last year Japan’s birthrate hit a record low of 1.25 children per woman.

To be fair, Japanese men tend not to get home from work until after 10pm, but they also spend a lot of time socializing with their colleagues. I have so much sympathy for Japanese women right now that I can’t articulate it properly. At the same time, the statistics are so frightening based on the current state of labour relations and parenting in Europe and North America too that I fear the future holds even less paternal involvement. I really, really hope to be proven wrong.

Post from: Babylune