Japanese Fatherhood

Japan is a concern.

Its is a country which is currently seeing the result of an intense period of sociological alteration and reformation. With plunging birth rates, the highest suicide rates on the plant, a shrinking and rapidly aging population, the rise of Hikikimori; an expression of people's loneliness and isolation in modern society. What has been the result of these changes and problems? Nearly 20 years of economic recession.

So what happened? What brought Japan to this point where they as a society are slowly collapsing, and the interference of the state does little to improve the situation? Well since the beginning of the Meiji restoration the Japanese have changed their culture to become more westernised. A process that was partly forced by the Americans, who after sailing across the Pacific on their black ships threatened Japan with war and colonization if they did not open their borders to trade and outside influence.

This enforced openness and influence from the western world encouraged remarkable changes to occur very quickly across their society. From such minor things as the abandonment of the Kimono as professional dress, and acceptance of the Gregorian calendar and timekeeping to larger changes like the opening of markets and the beginning of capitalist corporations, and the decline of the samurai class and feudalism. Their society reaped the rewards of these changes and became a celebrated capitalist and democratic society, a world power winning wars against China, Korea, Russia and others expanding their influence across the western Pacific, and was at the forefront of globalization.

Unfortunately they have also suffered a number of setbacks, and the destructive effects of these policies being implemented. The rise of nationalism at the beginning of the last century showed the appearance of the last vestiges of feudalism and imperialism being raised above their attempts at modernisation and encouraged by their military success. This imperialist uprising ended with the desecration of the Emperor and the humiliation of the country on the world stage. A mortal insult in Japanese culture.

Then decades later after the reconstruction of Japan and its astonishingly fast modernisation and industrialisation, the economy stalled, and the problems stated previously grow to incorporate large portions of the urbanised population with rural villages and towns becoming slowly abandoned.

Rarely during this were women rights a major concern, and to this day feminism is not a primary importance to the Japanese. Abenomics, the political answer to the failing economy has as ones of it tenets the encouragement of women to join the workforce. This addition was made for economic arguments not sociological. In fact the sociological cohesion of the Japanese is remarkable. With low crime rates, a lack of ideological or moral discord, the Japanese have some remarkable traits looked upon enviously by other nations.

So what could have caused this situation of population decline, mass suicide, loneliness and isolation of the populace?

Is was a failure of society and of capitalism. It was the social policies which were introduced through its modernization and westernization. The policies and western influence had unintended impacts upon the country which is being exposed in the west, and now globally.

During the early capitalistic society some of the first social reforms which were implemented had the effect of the severing of the connection between father and child. Schooling, professional working environments, long working hours and divorce, ended a tradition in for men and particularly fathers to be present during the raising of their children. The expectation of men to enter the workforce and to provide food, shelter, clothing and financial support to his children over-wrote the essential nature of a man to care for his children and socialise them and to educate them. Skills which are now being rapidly lost as they spend more and more time separated.

These trends are exacerbated in Japan, where the working hours are the longest in the developed world with almost no paid leave, and social segregation between men and women is the norm. This situation has caused men to lose themselves in their offices and workspaces away from their children who would have joined them in the workplace during previous generations upon coming of age. Instead the linearity of Japanese heritage began its decline. Increasing amounts of children growing up without the knowledge and education a father figure can provide.

The oldest business in the world is a Japanese Hotel, Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan, a business that has been passed down through the generations in familial lines since 705. Japan has many of the oldest businesses in the world which have been continued through the familial inheritance of property and most importantly knowledge, the traditions of fathers taking their children into their workplaces and providing them with practical education and experience. This master apprentice relationship encouraged strong familial responsibility and identity.

These traditions are only now ending.

This separation of child and father; and especially boys from their father have also directly caused the decline in their social skills. Many report being uncomfortable around women, and are unable to communicate with them. Seeing them as sex objects with whom they could never appease. Social awkwardness has caused them to flee into isolation, fantasy and eventually loneliness and death. Essential skills which are taught through experience and observation, such as flirting, respect, romance, tenderness, are not being passed down generationally, exacerbating the segregation between individuals and the sexes.

Schools which are charged with the provision of information neglect and are unable to teach socialization skills to children properly with many falling through the cracks in the system, going on to lead empty and puerile lives. The lives of men in society; and in Japan in particular are seen as redundant to the reproduction of the species. The evidence is slowly mounting that this is not the case.