Japanese salaryman learns parenting not child's play

TOKYO - Clad in a dark suit, 38-year-old Masato Yamada goes on a morning commute like most Japanese men his age. Except he has a one-year-old son in the backseat of his car and the first colleagues he greets are mothers bringing their children to nursery school.

Yamada's perspective has changed after doing what was once unthinkable for a Japanese man -- taking paternity leave.

Yamada and his wife Atsuko, 37, are both high-level officials at Japan's trade ministry. When she had twins three years ago, she went on leave.

When they had another child, Yamada decided he should stay at home.

Faced with one of the world's lowest birth rates, Japan offers generous one-year paid leave for all new parents in the hope of making child rearing more attractive.

But the incentives are not working. The population last year fell for the first time since World War II. One problem, experts say, is that Japanese men are not pitching in at home as they are expected to be loyal first to the office.

Yamada, who has returned to work, says he met with hostility when he told his boss he planned to take paternity leave.

'Are you serious?' That's what my direct supervisor told me. Although I'd been talking about my plan of taking a paternity leave for almost a year since my wife conceived, he didn't take my words seriously at all," Yamada recalls.

Paternity leave

Domestic helpers are expensive and uncommon in Japan, which strictly controls unskilled foreign labour. Yamada's wife took an obligatory eight weeks off after giving birth but then returned to work.

More than 70 percent of eligible mothers applied for their full year maternity leave in the 2003 fiscal year, although many complain that their jobs disappear once they attempt to return to work.

By contrast, a mere 0.56 percent of fathers applied for paternity leave, according to the labour ministry.

"Maybe it's because a lot of people believe that taking leave could hurt your career in the Japanese working culture where people are expected to show loyalty to one organization in a lifetime-employment system," Yamada says.

Yamada thought being a stay-at-home dad would be child's play compared to the cutthroat pace at his elite ministry job. Instead, he nearly had a nervous breakdown.

"I had been a workaholic who was ready to work 24 hours a day, a species quite frequently seen in the central government's bureaucracy," he recalls.

"The first two months were mentally tough, terribly so," he says. But by six months he had adjusted, "and I really appreciate that I took the child-rearing leave."

"I became more generous, efficient and multi-dimensional," says Yamada.

A recent government survey showed that many more Japanese fathers would be willing to stay at home if they were able, showing that only 6.5 percent of fathers who have young children could reduce their working hours while 29 percent wished they could do so.

AFP

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