3. What it means to take care of two young children on my own

No longer able to monopolize the mom she had all to herself. For my two-year old daughter, it seems the sudden arrival of a little brother was a big shock and also stressful. When I was breastfeeding my son, she would interrupt and hit, scratch, pull his hair, or cry loudly close to his ear, nonstop. As soon as he was born, my son was being subjected to an unforgiving environment as if he were a lion cub born into the law of the jungle. In the middle of the night, if one cried, the other would also wake up and cry. As a mother, I could barely sleep, and it made me want to cry. In fact, there were times when I too, bawled with them. Even then, if I could get through it by calling it “difficult,” it wasn’t too bad.

But one evening, I took my eyes away for a second and my daughter ran on the mattress and fell on top of my two-month-old son’s head. “Bonk!” it was a hard sound. The sound of two skulls hitting each other. Hurriedly, while icing their heads, I called the night time emergency service and followed the pediatrician’s instructions. I was told that as long as he didn’t throw up, I could wait till the next morning to go see a doctor. But from the middle of the night to the morning, he threw up several times, which made me concerned. Fortunately, there was no effect on the brain, but this made me realize the limits of taking care of them on my own.

4. Looking for a babysitter

In an effort to find a babysitter who could help in the mornings and evenings, I called every provider listed on the website of the Center for Gender Diversity who would accept the university’s babysitter discount coupon (issued by the Child Future Foundation). However, it turns out, mornings and evenings were the times that had the least number of available babysitters. In the end, not one provider could find a person who would be able to help on a daily basis. Looking at the price, for two children, it would cost anywhere from 3,500 yen per hour plus transportation fee, from a minimum of two hours. Even if I could use the discount coupon, it would be impossible to utilize this service daily. I had to find another way. Incidentally, Nagoya city’s “Nobi Nobi Support” program was rather affordable at 800-1,000 yen per hour plus transportation fee but the problem was that the number of member providers (babysitters) was significantly less than the members requesting the service. I registered when I started my job but still have not been able to find anyone.

Ultimately, I placed an advertisement on the student notice board and ended up asking the spouse of an exchange student who was able to help during the hours requested. She was a significant help to me, but this didn’t mean that all my problems were resolved. My daughter who had completely babied clung to me whenever someone came to our house. Having to constantly carry her meant I couldn’t do anything. I thought that if I gave it time, she would get used to it, but her clinging didn’t change at all and in the end, I had to decline the help.

After much trial and error, I realized that for our family, rather than asking for help, it was better to utilize convenient home appliances and handy products. I decided to focus on saving time on housework and replaced the fully automatic washing machine that I had barely used a year and bought a washer dryer machine. I prepared food in advance over the weekend and just heated them up during the weekday. I ate oily foods on paper plates, and so on.

Even then, there are still many parts to raising a child that cannot be resolved with the help of convenient appliances and babysitters. Obviously. For those parts, there is no choice but for parents to accept it.