Monday, February 17, 2014

On Maternity Leave

Yep, that's right.. I'm officially on maternity leave. I was actually on leave from January 30th. In Japan, maternity leave begins 6 weeks before baby is born and end 8 weeks after. BUT after maternity leave, there's something called childcare leave (almost everybody takes it) that lasts about a year (depends on each person and whether there are slots in daycare or not).

The funny thing is that I got the flu the last day I was meant to teach (it started 2 days before that). So I missed saying goodbye to half of the students I've been teaching AND didn't get to turn in all of the graded papers for those classes.

All I have to say is that maternity leave would be great if I had someone to watch Touma for a few hours a couple times a week. Just so I could get some things done... like: get a hair cut, go to the dentist, get a massage (or even just see a chiropractor!), and sort out baby stuff. I have lots of baby clothes to wash and sort and try to figure out. But with a little dude around it is really hard. He likes to "help" sort. He also wants a lot of mommy attention. Then by the time he is in bed... I'm exhausted so all I want to do is veg (ie watch the Olympics) or go to bed early.

With all of this extra time, I've also become a lot less forgiving when it comes to some of Japan's "idiosyncracies."Such as the fact that daycare is publicly provided... except it is in very short supply in urban areas like Tokyo and Yokohama. BUT the government of Japan keeps spouting all sorts of nonsense about people needing to have more babies (the birthrate is well under replacement levels in Japan) and yet they do nothing to help people actually WANT to have more babies. Instead, there's just a lot of rhetoric and posturing and money always gets funneled into elderly programs because those are the voting constituents that seem to "count."

Then there is public space. Libraries are less friendly places for kids in Japan than shopping malls. Yup. The kids areas of libraries always have big signs about being quiet and they have no walls separating the kids section from the other sections. So... when toddlers make noise, as they are apt to do, a staff member (usually trying to speak very broken English and acting as if they are "sorry") comes over to kick you out. At the same library this has happened twice. Once because a grouchy old man kept complaining about the little ones, despite the fact that there were loads of open seats in quieter areas, and once this past week. My friend and I had corralled our kids in an area so they wouldn't run around and they couldn't escape. Yes, they were a bit noisy, but when the lady came over, she didn't actually identify the issue right away (the noise) and her explanation was that the area is "public space" so we needed to take our kids elsewhere. Apparently being taxpayers in Japan doesn't actually allow you to use a facility if you might have kids. I also asked if anyone had actually complained about the noise and she said no one had and that the staff had decided to tell us to move somewhere else. Other solutions she offered: corral the kids in the nursing room and let them be noisy there (um... a room with a chair and a changing table for two active toddlers to "run around" in?) or go back to the main kids area where there's nothing stopping them from running all over the place, into other sections and actually disturbing MORE people. So, I had a little go at her, said that Japan pretends to care about kids, but they don't actually care at all. Then we took the kids outside, where Touma threw snow and climbed the outside steps until it was time to actually go home.

So, maternity leave is just more time to try to entertain Touma and try not to lose my mind at the stupid rules and annoyances that make up everyday life in Japan. I think I'll take Touma to our regular library (smaller and closer to our house), where so far we haven't been told off yet when he runs all over the place.