By Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 8, 1999; Page A13
TOKYO Japanese fathers spend an average of 17 minutes a day with their young kids.
That statistic, contained in a recent government report and printed on posters aimed at getting men to do more at home, has touched off the latest round of finger-pointing between the sexes in Japan. Fed-up women are demanding men learn how to put on a diaper; annoyed men say the government should butt out.
"I live in a rural area and many fathers start working early and work until late, and mothers take care of the family and respect the father," said Yasuo Ichikawa, 57, a member of the national parliament. He said he was "shocked" that the government campaign suggesting that in "the model family" men should split child care with their wives.
That $4 million campaign of television ads and posters features a hip young Japanese dancer, one of the most famous fathers in the country, holding his infant son with the caption: "A man who does not help in child rearing cannot be called a father."
"That is not true; we just don't have time," said Noboru Yamada, 56, a banker and father of two grown children. Yamada said that when his children were young, he changed a diaper about every six months, and he spent more than a few minutes a day with his kids once every "10 days or two weeks."
The Health Ministry, which sponsored the ad campaign, has been the target of angry calls and letters from men who told the government to mind its own business. That response has caused a media uproar here that has once again focused on the relationship between the sexes in this male-dominated society.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi even took to the floor of parliament to defend the ad campaign, saying it has deepened his understanding of the importance of men's involvement in child care.
As more women join the work force, sexual equality has become an increasingly discussed topic on TV talk shows and in offices and homes. A just-released prime minister's "white paper" on sexual equality noted that a 1996 United Nations survey concluded that Japanese men significantly trailed men in other advanced countries in the time spent helping at home.
According to that study, Japanese men did about 6 percent of the housework and 20 percent of the child care, while American men pitched in for about half the chores and child care.
The Japanese government's survey showed that employed Japanese men between the ages of 30 and 34 spend about 9 minutes a day with their kids and five minutes doing household chores. Employed women of the same age spent nearly three hours on children and house.
"In general, men are not cooperative," said Takako Katayama, 28, an unmarried female accounting clerk in Tokyo. "Men think housework and child care is women's work. I don't."
Fathers' reluctance to help with child-rearing is viewed as a key reason that so many women are delaying marriage and children. Japan's birthrate has dropped to an all-time low (1.39 births per woman) prompting deep fears about who will make up the work force of this rapidly aging society.
Japanese women in recent years have made significant strides in education, politics and business. But the division of household labor remains a deeply contentious obstacle on the road to gender equality. Last year a man even sued (unsuccessfully) his wife for divorce on the grounds that she wouldn't wash his socks, cook and do other household chores.
The new "fatherhood" ad campaign poster features a dancer who goes by the name Sam, husband of superstar singer Namie Amuro. It was clearly aimed at attracting younger people's attention. More and more young Japanese men are already starting to share housework and child care, in contrast to their fathers.
Economic upheaval in Japan is forcing social changes. To provide the same comfortable middle-class existence they had, young couples are finding that the price of a college education for the children, a car or two, a home and a vacation, is a two-income family. As a result many young Japanese men are pitching in at home because they need their wife's paycheck.
But too many are not helping out, and change is not coming evenly. Some young Japanese men who were raised in homes where their father never cooked, shopped or read a bedtime story, do not like the social pressure to do so.
"This whole discussion is one-sided, with men being ignored," said Takeshi Mito, 33, an electronics salesman. "Guys are hurting, too."
Kazuaki Maeda, 58, who owns a printing company, said it was healthy that Japanese men were taking on a greater role at home.
"It's a good trend, but I don't really want to be like that," said Maeda, who said he rarely saw his two children when they were young because he left for work at 6 a.m. and got home after 11 p.m. "It's a beautiful, admirable poster," he said of the government ad. "But maybe the reality is not so beautiful. A daddy's life is not that pretty."
Masaki Matsuoka, a Health Ministry official, said he was delighted at the national conversation the campaign sparked and said it is proof that Japanese society is changing. A campaign like this "might not even have been possible 10 years ago," he said.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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