Rubber Baby Rugby Bumpers

Balancing childcare and work always presents a challenge... even when one lives in a culture conducive to childrearing.  In some ways, Japan's culture facilitates childcare.  In others, it does not.  In recent years, the birthrate in Japan has been falling steadily.

Japan boasts low-cost, public day-care.  However, there exist waiting lists and an elaborate point system for potential attendees.  Resistance from nimby neigbors who regard daycares as a noisy nuisance stalls the construction of new facilities that might alleviate the burden on extant centers.  And the birthrate falls.

Japan still suffers from a chronic expectation that new mothers will quit working and stay home for all time (i.e. give up their lives).  Company policies, written and unwritten, encourage this.  Friends, family, and society at large place enormous pressure on women to fall in line with this malarkey.  In a culture where one's nakama (仲間）attain virtual godhood in one's life, peer pressure and social ostracism can compel comparable to the threat of violence.  Yet, oddly enough, the birth rate continues to fall.

National insurance in Japan affordably covers many, many things.  However, it doesn't cover the uncomplicated delivery of a baby.  Prenatal care, yes.  A cesarian section, yes.  Neonatal care, yes.  Children's healthcare in general, yes.  Just not the delivery.  Also, many hospitals don't offer epidurals or other pain-management for pregnant women.  It seems female suffering (avoidable or otherwise) receives a full endorsement from this patriarchal society.  It expects women to give up career and selfhood, bear children in Old-Testamenty pain, and struggle with the availability of daycare services.  The birthrate continues to fall... and some people actually have the wherewithal to wonder "why?" aloud in public forums.

On another note, most other teachers at work put in absurd hours doing much administrative paperwork of little observable worth.  They devalue an erstwhile rewarding education career into depressing wage slavery.  Some of these "fathers" rarely see their children.  Can't play that game.  Forget it.  Anyway, for a foreign employee, advancing up the administrative ladder just doesn't happen.  Therefore this carbon blob ensures that work ends at quittin' time.  No promotions to fret about, so go home and see the family.  Then the baby gets handed off like an adorable, little rugby ball so the better half can go to work.  Just lucky this arrangement works, in light of the daycare situation.  Really, wouldn't have it any other way.  Toss that baby over here, would you kindly?

These are radish people.

I've always been a doodler.  I can't say I'm a particularly gifted artist in the grand scheme of things.  I can't sketch things in photographic detail.  I can't really move paint or pixels around in a manner that elicits a great emotional reaction.  However, what I can do is get a point across with simple pictures.  And I can do it fairly quickly.

Teaching English as a second language for the last half-decade has brought this skill back to the forefront of my life.  I use it constantly in classes to, as I mentioned, get the point across.  Sometimes I feel like my job is like a giant game of Pictionary.  I certainly enjoy it.  I've become notorious for my illustrations among my friends, colleagues, and students.

For many years, I mostly accomplished these tasks through "stick-figure theatre".  However, after working in Japanese elementary schools, I became enamored with the rather endearing style of comic figures that many of the children liked to draw.  This style of cute, pudgy "stick figure" is referred to in Japanese as 大根人間: literally "radish people".  They do look like daikon radishes come to life.  I began to emulate their drawing, and now I can't really draw anything else.  I just love the little things.

In any event, this blog will serve as an outlet for various silly illustrations that are, perhaps, not suitable for my students.  So if you like profanity and cute doodles, have I got a blog for you!