More and more men today are starting to realize how rewarding it can be spending time with their children. While it takes courage to find the balance between work and family, we reckon that these men understand the true definition of "Fathering," Unfortunately here in Japan, corporates and the older generations who are still in control of most of them have been much slower to change. How on earth can you expect to find "work life balance" when you are trapped between a rock (your company asking you to work longer and longer hours) and a hard place (your wife who wants you to take a role in your children's upbringing)?
Like Japan, Canada has a rapidly ageing population. As one of their key policies to combat the government has funded the Canadian Father Involvement Initiative and almost all Canadian corporations allow paternity leave at and after the birth of children. Unlike Japan, men aren t accused of being uncommitted just because they go home at a reasonable hour to spend time with their family. People believe that men who play an active role in their own families are more efficient workers. More to the point, this line of thought is backed up by numerous research reports.
Europe is another great example where more and more companies are implanting work/life programs as a part of their staff retention strategies. The logic is simple. High quality middle management is what will be leading the company in the future. If allowing them the time to spend with their young families keeps them loyal and happy then what is good for their family is also good for the company.
While the Japanese government understands the huge threat that the ageing population faces to Japan, it has been slow to move on implanting policy to force Father s into the home and be involved in their families. Worse yet, Japan Inc has been even slower at allowing its employees to freely engage in "being a Dad". What higher priority should we have for society than our children?
The freedom to express oneself as a Father and not be ashamed of wanting to build a deep family bond is what the Japan of tomorrow needs. There is no coincidence that the number of juvenile offends has been increasing over the last two decades. What better way to increase the number of happy, healthy children than a balanced family unit.
Our aim at Fathering Japan is to promote understanding and acceptance for Dads who want to play an active role in their children s lives. We re not tryinig to make good Dads - we want to fill society with smiling Dads . We believe that through this we can ultimately influence the corporate mind, contribute to society and create a happier, healthier and more balanced future generation. We see ourselves as a Social Business Company that is constantly coming up with new ideas to change the world of tomorrow.
A message to our overseas readers
We've only recently released our English webpage and at the moment it is pretty much just a simple translation of our Japanese page. Going forward we are keen to use our webpage as a tool to communicate with other organizations and indivuals around the world with similar visions. What sort of information would you like to get out of our homepage? If you have any requests then please drop as an email by clicking on the "inquiries" tab at the top of this page. Please also contact us if you are a member of similar organization somewhere else in the world. The motivated fathers in the world need all the help they can get!