![](\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/diversity\/assets\/uploads\/2016\/09\/958c38cd5f1b54844ed106b88f5eb901.jpg\")
<\/a>\u25b2 First nursing: finding my way with unsteady hands<\/p><\/div>\n
Given my specialization in the social sciences, I thought I had a basic grasp of such issues as gender inequ<\/p>\n
ality and work-life balance. But as my wife went through pregnancy, birth, and childrearing, at each stage I became aware of\u00a0an unexpected inflexibility on my part. Moreover, since our parents were unable to help and my wife experienced\u00a0health issues during and after birth, I realized that childcare leave for men was not simply \u201cdesirable\u201d but\u00a0absolutely essential.<\/p>\n
In fact, when my wife first got pregnant, rather than take childcare leave, I thought I could handle things by\u00a0adjusting my lecture and meeting schedule. What\u2019s more, I felt a sense of guilt about taking childcare leave. I had\u00a0intended to keep my distance from the Show a Era male attitude that work must come before one\u2019s personal life, but\u00a0in practice I considered childrearing a private matter and couldn\u2019t get the idea that I must not allow it to cause\u00a0trouble at work out of my head. Be that as it may, once I experienced childbirth and childrearing, I was made\u00a0painfully aware of just how unrealistic it is to try and fit one\u2019s lecture and meeting schedule around them. It\u2019s not\u00a0simply that pregnancy, birth, and childcare don\u2019t happen on schedule; you also have to adjust yourself to the\u00a0situation of your wife and child continuously as they intervene in your own wishes and plans.
\nGiven these circumstances, the fact that a man cannot take childcare leave (let alone maternity leave) felt like a\u00a0systemic shortcoming. My wife was not well during pregnancy, so I often thought about what a help it would be if I\u00a0could also take \u201cmaternity leave\u201d during the time when she needed both physical and psychological support.
\nWhat\u2019s more we had a difficult birth, and for about a week I stayed at the hospital and kept close to my wife and\u00a0daughter, which I somehow managed thanks to the date of birth coming during the summer break. But had all this\u00a0happened while classes were in session, I imagine that this would have been impossible.<\/p>\n
When I look back on my own experience, I see that making do without the man taking childcare leave is premised\u00a0on a smooth pregnancy and delivery, and places an excessive burden on the mother, one that necessitates the\u00a0presence of reliable and familiar means of support. But the number of people in society who find this unacceptable\u00a0is still very few. What\u2019s more, we experienced the so-called \u201cdaycare hunting\u201d struggle, days during which I\u00a0thought \u201cno wonder the birthrate in Japanese society is so low!\u201d
\nMoreover, childcare leave for men mostly seems to be considered at most as a kind of childcare \u201cassistance.\u201d But\u00a0my wife\u2019s difficult delivery and other complications that I mentioned above meant that I had to persevere as the\u00a0primary provider of care for our child. So, for about the first three months after our child was born, I fed her milk\u00a0every three hours and never got enough sleep. My biggest dream was to have three hours of uninterrupted sleep. I\u00a0can laugh about it now, but when I was first asked to write this article for Tackling Work-Life Balance, I was right\u00a0in the middle of this period and said there was no way I could do it until after I had finished childcare leave! When\u00a0your job is doing research, even if you take childcare leave and have time off from university work, a lot of work\u00a0still goes on regardless, such as academic conferences, research using outside funding, not to mention the various\u00a0types of social contributions a professor performs. I often fretted over the feeling that I must not and did not want to\u00a0further inconvenience those around me by taking childcare leave, and I wondered if women are faced with the same\u00a0expectations when they take childcare So far, I have only talked about the negative side of my childcare leave experience, but, of course, that time also\u00a0bore tremendous gifts. Being able to watch our child grow day by day and sharing with my wife the time and\u00a0memories, including all the little day-to-day things, will surely become priceless assets for my life and family in the\u00a0years ahead.<\/p>\n