Gender roles are still very much part of everyday life in Japan. At home, women have almost total responsability of the children. The survey made by Bandai Corporation reports that most Japanese women do not expect much from their husbands in their children's education and rearing. When asked what they expected their husbands to do :

- 6.8% wanted their husbands to put the children to bed
- 10.5% wanted the men to bathe the children
- 12.1% wanted their spouses to play with the kids
- 38.7% answered "nothing in particular" (that is, "nothing at all")

In short, 68,1% of the mothers surveyed do no expect more than basic, menial tasks, or for the bigger half of these, nothing at all, from their husbands. When we know that bathing is considered a relaxing family activity in Japan (fathers regularily take baths with their sons and daughters till their teenage years), it is hardly a chore to do it. I'd say it is at the same level as playing.

It is appalling to me that fathers do not see the need to educate their offspring. The most consequential responsability that spring to mind in matter of child rearing, dare I say before even material satisfaction, is the intellectual and behavioural education, including giving the taste to learn, to achieve, to exploit one's capabilities, open one's mind to the world and to interract with people in society. The role of any parent, father or mother, is to give the tools or mindset to their children to become successful individual in life whatever their dreams, personality or interest. Any parent that fails or ommit to do this is a bad parent. My opinion is that any problem in the world is firstly caused by irresponsible parents (those who have chidlren without having the material or intellectual means to achieve the aforementioned).


Here is the source article :

Yahoo Asia News

40% of Japanese women don't expect spouses to help with childcare

Nearly 40% of Japanese women with young children do not expect their husbands to take part in parenting activities, according to a survey conducted by toy maker Bandai Co. released Thursday.
The survey asked 2,000 women with children to list what parenting duties they wanted their husbands to shoulder. The largest group of women, or 38.7%, answered "nothing in particular," Bandai said.

The second largest group of women, or 12.1%, wanted their spouses to play with the kids, while the third largest group at 10.5% wanted the men to bathe the children. The fourth largest group at 6.8% wanted their husbands to put the children to bed.

When asked to list what parenting jobs their husbands already do, 52.6% said their spouses give children baths, while 17.6% said their husbands play with the children.

Meanwhile, 12.0% of the respondents' husbands did not help in parenting duties.

"The survey results suggest that women want their husbands to look after the children while they are doing housework, rather than wanting the men to take part in childcare activities regularly," a Bandai spokesman said.

The survey was conducted mainly through the Internet in September last year on 1,000 mothers of girls and 1,000 with boys.