Japanese

"Child-care of the past and present"

Recently, falling birthrate is considered a great social problem in Japan.
A various factors may exist but a century ago, an average woman had several babies in her life and mothers were even annoyed about getting pregnant too often. They wished that the next baby would not come very soon after the previous one was born. Yes, things were quite different back then.

"Privacy is golden" nowadays. It is not surprising that you do not recognize your neighbors anymore. Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible to be informed that a woman who is living near your house gets pregnant or a baby boy in the vicinity of your place was just born a week ago, unless of course, if you'd hire a private detective.
On the contrary, many traditional customs share such private information with the public. In a remote village of Nagano prefecture, for example, at the 7th month stage of pregnancy, the fact of her pregnancy was revealed from the pregnant woman's mother by offering "Sekihan (rice boiled with red beans)" to the relatives and neighbors. The people who were informed begin preparing for the gifts like a handmade baby clothes to celebrate the birth. Similar customs are seen from east to the west end of Japan.
These babies receive attention even before they were born will be growing up under the eyes of many gentle people around him/her as a precious individual in a village. Children are treated like "Child of us, child of the village and child of everyone"

Contrary to what you may think, babies especially born out of wedlock were called like "child of the sun" or "Inspired infant" and people respected them as mysterious beings. It is another evidence that the people were all delighted with any newly born baby.

After birth, various kinds of ceremonies continue. On each occasion of 3rd, 7th, 31st and 100th day of birth, they visit the shrine, prepare SEKIHAN and invite some close relatives and friends and have a celebration.

Modern people today may think that these ceremonies are nonsense and waste of time. However, as they go through these ceremonies, mother could get rid of their stress to some degree and also sometimes they could confess their concerns about babies and would have many opportunities to hear various kinds of episodes from other mothers.
Child abuse is not something of a modern day phenomenon, but rather it seems to have an old beginning. If a mother who committed this crime, would she become a criminal all the same hundred years ago? Or became a very good mother of many offspring? Nobody knows but her life as a mother might have been dramatically different in those days.

Now lets talk about the diapers, after the World War 2, use of disposable diaper was widely and rapidly spread in Japan. In the past, diapers made of cloth. They were usually made out of old kimono worn by the families. Because they did not have any laundry dryers, they dried wet diapers in the sun and that also played a role of announcing that a baby lives here. It seems that some good things are realized when it is lost.

Not to deny a modern version of child-care, but it could just be an alternative to ease the declining birthrate if we would make deliberate choices from Japanese and Western traditions more flexibly. (end)

Editor: sugarplum
2005/06/17