Father’s Day in Japan and changing roles for Japanese fathers

June 20, 2009

Father’s Day in Japan and changing roles for Japanese fathers


Father’s Day is less recognized and observed in Japan despite increasing awareness about fathers’ important roles. The day honoring fathers has not officially been designated as a holiday in Japan, though various organizations are promoting related activities, including an anti-prostate cancer campaign. Japan was largely a male-oriented society until a few decades ago, but Japanese fathers are trying to find their desired positions in the family following changes in people’s social behaviors.
Japanese men are asked to do more for child care, education for children and housekeeping as a whole. Many young fathers are aware of such requests and ready to cooperate with their spouses. But there are actually a number of barriers for them to clear. In 2002, the government introduced targets for increasing the percentage of workers taking child care leave, 80 pct for women and 10 pct for men. The figure for females has already been met, but that for males remains far below the target. The percentage for male workers rose to a record high in 2008, but only to a meager 1.56 pct, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey.
Labor affairs researchers cite various reasons for the slow progress, including employers’ lack of knowledge or reluctance about using the child care leave system for male workers and fears about declines in income on the part of employees.
The situation is not necessarily pessimistic for Japanese fathers as a whole. “Men! Do not enter the kitchen,” once a frequently uttered word, is almost dead now. Many cooking books written for men are available at bookstores. Japanese fathers feel free about working in the kitchen now. Whether they can cooperate in housekeeping is becoming a requirement for good fathers.
Father’s Day events form part of the gift-giving season in Japan. This is a happy season especially for elderly fathers. An eighth century waka poem made by a young “sakimori” soldier sent to a remote area goes:

Dad and Mom!
Momoyo-gusa (a hundred years flower) in the backyard of your residence.
Please be alive for a hundred years just like them, until I return home.
(A personal translation)

Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology, Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves), devotes one of its 20 volumes to a series of poems composed by sakimori soldiers. These soldiers, mainly farmers from Eastern Japan areas, were drafted into armies in regions facing Korea from the seventh to eighth centuries. After finishing a three-year term, they were allowed to return home, but on their own expense. Some of them could safely return home, but others perished on their way home. It is unknown actually how the sakimori poems were collected for the anthology. It is unseen, either, whether the poem of the young soldier reached his parents.
A poem made by a different sakimori soldier follows:

I have come over here after leaving my kids who cried while clinging to the hem of my trousers, the children who are motherless.
(A personal translation)

A Happy Father’s Day Card came from my daughter staying in California, almost a week before the actual Father’s Day, June 21 this year. “It’s arrived so early. She is always smart and attentive to anyone.” my wife said. She has found not only a job but also a partner-to-be there. The card came with a message from the man. The addressee read it with a mixed but slightly happy feeling, while recalling a waka poem composed by Yamanoue Okura, an eighth century court official, about his kids. His poem follows:

There were no ways at all.
I felt distressed, so I tried to rush out of the house and leave quickly,
but my children were an obstacle.
(A personal translation)