by contributor Michael Preston

“Japan’s fathers spend less time on child care and housework than their counterparts in any other developed country” says a recent Reuters article about the new “Iku-men Project” in Japan. This project is part of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry’s direct response to Japan’s bottomed-out birthrate. For the past few years, the Japanese government has been trying to encourage families to have more kids and now, with Iku-men, to promote a new paternity leave law (which seems unfathomable in a country where slavish devotion to the job, long hours, and long commutes are the norm, and workplaces are still heavily dominated by men).

“Iku-men” is a neologism, combining the Japanese word “iku,” roughly to “raise a child,” and the English word “men,” perhaps in deliberate contrast to the more widely recognized idea of the “sarari-man” (salary man). The ministry’s website offers guidance for dads and features the profiles of particularly successful Iku-men, called “Iku-men stars,” who are somehow selected by an expert panel–which for me evokes images of the Iron Chef panel of celebrity know-nothings weighing in on some poor new dad’s diaper-changing skills.

Don’t expect any sudden surges in the number of stay-at-home dads. The Iku-men Project’s goals are ambitious: 13% of dads taking paternity leave by 2020. They still have a long way to go, with only 1.72% of Japanese dads heeding the call in FY 2009, according to a Yomiuri article that cites paternity leave rates of 89% in Norway, 78% in Sweden, and 18% in the Netherlands. Undoubtedly the US figure is a lot closer to the Japanese one. Even at my comfortable academic job, I had to take vacation time or unpaid leave to stay home when my kids were born, therefore amounting to only a couple of weeks at a time.

Yet attitudes seem to be changing in both countries, perhaps in direct correlation to attitudes about work. In the US, the newest generation of dads seems more interested in parenting and, perhaps in response to shifting employment certitude, in making time with kids an integral part of the mixed-up schedule that now constitutes a work day. With both mom and dad juggling flexible schedules, freelance, and part-time jobs, the burden of childcare seems to be shared more evenly. Meanwhile, in Japan, the era of “lifetime employment” is slowly grinding to an end, and younger generations feel less defined by their careers than their parents did. Still, for many, employers remain the real arbiters of paternity leave, since their policies and workplace norms are what ultimately make any kind of leave possible. Maybe the Iku-men Project is aiming at the wrong target?

What were your paternity leave experiences? How long and under what circumstances did you take leave, if any?

How many times have we heard this from a teenager? Behold, contributor Matt Winkler’s piece on solipsism.

When I was a thirteen, I fantasized that maps of the earth were purely fictional, that nothing existed beyond my hometown borders, and I was the only human being alive.

I always knew, on some level, that this was science fiction, but it could sometimes explain what was otherwise inexplicable to my adolescent intellect. Why would my dog get hit by a car? That’s not part of the my plan. Why does this girl keep calling me? It must be some kind of trick. Why have I never met anyone from Mongolia? Because there is no Mongolia.

My daughter inherited my overactive imagination. Add estrogen, female proclivity for drama, Hayden Christensen, and shake well. It’s been quite a ride! There have been moments when she has been so forlorn, so misunderstood by every soul on this planet, that she would weep for the sheer loneliness of it, just as E.T. wept for his home world (but with more hair). There have been nights when she would stand in the front yard, desperately offering herself to the starry sky, to someone with the faculties to understand her. But none ever came.

It was a relief when she found earthly friends as bizarre as herself among the actors and techies of the high school drama club. While she still indulged in the occasional binge of self-defined incomprehensibility (“You wouldn’t understand!”), most of the time she felt understood by her tribe of weirdos. In fact, as their graduation gift to themselves, they produced an hour-long compilation of sketches, including an “end of the world” skit. In one thread of this doomsday mash-up, she stands alone, anticipating rescue by her alien kinsmen, but without the melodramatic grief of the past. She has accepted the absurdity of her childish fantasy and turned it to comic effect. She has learned to laugh at herself, and through that, to accept who she really is.

Have you been lucky enough to have a teenager grow out of their over-dramatic stage?

Ever tried to argue your wife/significant other out of sending birth announcements? It’s impossible.

Why are birth announcements so ridiculous and passé, especially in this day and age?

• They clutter everyone’s ‘fridge for far too long
• It’s like saying, “If you haven’t sent us a baby gift yet, get on it”
• The cost of postage alone is staggering, much less the printing (yes, I’m cheap)
• Sending a cute picture of the little one through traditional mail is far less efficient than facebook
• They’re for the older generation
• Who doesn’t know that your baby was born?
• Related: If you’re baby is 3+ months old, sending out an announcement is old news (especially because your baby is way bigger than 14″ and 8lb 4oz). Will people think he’s regressing?

A few weeks ago, I thought I had my wife convinced to not send out birth announcements. I stated my case clearly and reasonably with the above reasons and more. And to the horror of debate coaches everywhere, she replied, “But you bought an expensive fan” (the dyson “air multiplier”). I replied, “Yes, but you use that fan every day to move air around–a birth announcement can’t do anything.”

There’s no winning against the tyranny of birth announcement. I can only hope that by the time my son has children that this kind of tradition has become extinct.

When you have kids, you rediscover the idea of ‘play.’ You take on different personalities and roles: like attending a tea party and sipping air out of cups, or playing house where kids take on the role of adults. And as we all know, sometimes, kids will play ‘doctor.’

This past weekend, I got to play doctor for the first time with my kid. Proctologist to be more precise. In hindsight, it was a minor thing: we just had to take his temperature rectally (yes, with a thermometer). It turns out the experience was far more upsetting for his parents than him.

We dedicated quite a bit of time reading about taking an infant’s temperature. Under the arm is fine, but it doesn’t offer the best accuracy. The rectal route offered better data, but having to do it this way just sounded so invasive that the thought alone, much less the execution, made it cringe-worthy.

When it comes to things that we know will physically upset the baby, I usually take the lead (like this procedure, or using an aspirator to suck the snot of his nose). I do it because I don’t want him to have any bad feelings towards his mom–she provides all the lovey-dovey, nurturing vibes that I don’t want to jeopardize. I’m okay being the bad cop to her good, as long as afterwords I can coax another smile out of him to make sure things are okay between us.

After psyching ourselves up, my wife and I went into action mode. She coddled his head, while I put him in “diaper change pose” and lifted his legs to his belly. After inserting the probe and waiting about a minute. All was done. He didn’t cry out or protest one bit.

I wondered, “what was all the fuss about?” Like so many things about parenting, the concept is far scarier than the execution (how else would ‘they’ sell so many books if not by generating fear?).

What minor medical ‘procedures’ were you reluctant to perform on your baby?

That headline, by the way, is a joke. Well, sort of a joke. My father said more often than once that he wanted me to be “better” than he was. I always wondered about what he meant by “better”? I guess the point was that he wanted me to find out.

You’re familiar with the “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets, well, I’ve embarked on a “What Would My Dad NOT Do?” journey. This is certainly not to say that he did so many things wrong, it’s just that I can certainly make a conscious effort to improve on the example he set.

Some bullet points:

• Be More Emotional: Not in the bad way, but in the gushy way. Too often, our dads were so consumed with work (and had no idea of a work/life balance), that they saved all that emotion until they retired. (Have you noticed this trend? There are SO many spoiled grand-babies because grand-dads can finally be affectionate). Anyway, I hope to embarrass my son by hugging/kissing him well into his teens as I drop him off at school.
• Road Rage: I’m attempting to consider the feelings of the passengers in the car I’m driving, so if they’re uncomfortable with my road rage, then so am I, and I ratchet it down.
• Physical Flexibility: My dad would probably never have done yoga, so I am committed to doing on a regular basis.
• Dietary Awareness: I’m not some kind of macrobiotic dude, far from it, but I am trying to not eat a bag of potato chips at a time. I’m also drinking green tea instead of coffee.
• Work: My dad was not the biggest fan of his chosen profession. So early on, I made a conscious choice to avoid the legal profession. I’m attempting to enjoy what I do and look for other ways to express myself creatively outside of work.

There are hundreds of things I’m doing VERY similarly to how my dad did them—after all, he set a great example. But there are a few things yet to tweak.

What things did your dad do that you are actively trying to do differently?

by contributor Matt Winkler

My last post described how my twelve year old son was ejected from the town park when some roughhousing went too far. Sadly, that sit-com episode’s happy ending was not the end, after all.

During a recent game of Capture the Flag, Logan (illegally) reached across the boundary line to shake hands with a younger kid, then pulled him over, arresting him “as a joke.” The irate prisoner swung wild, so Logan wrestled him to the ground. He got ejected from the park for the remaining summer weeks, and his undersized opponent got first-aid.

Before Logan even got home from the town park, the Rec director called me to explain the event and his decision to exile Logan. I assured him of my hard-assed support and expressed my embarrassment. I had some time to stew while Logan pedaled home.

I considered a “go to your room” greeting, but decided to hear him out first. He walked in and I told him to spill it. Again, he pleaded self-defense; he was reacting to a punch. I explained the obvious: getting mugged on the street is not the same as getting smacked by a little kid during a supervised game at the town park. Self defense sounds good, but look who got kicked out. What might you do next time so you don’t get kicked out? Back off, tell an adult.

His redeeming attribute is that he can be reasoned with after the fact. He can see his errors in retrospect and admit them. He feels broken, fated to make the wrong choices. I remind him of the Othello game we played the night before, each move another fork in the decision tree. When he was losing, we swapped colors. The losing color ended up eking out a win. The moves were not foregone conclusions; the outcome was not predestined. The same is true in real life – one’s choices add up to end results. And the only way to get better at picking that higher path is to pay your tuition at the school of hard-knocks.

Now go to your room; you’re grounded.

What do you do about discipline? Take the “scorched earth” approach, or hear your kids out?

My great grandfather built a vacation home in 1912, and having taken my son there this past week, it is now five generations old. The place is on a lake in northern Michigan. Nothing fancy, just a simple structure that a district superintendent of schools in Chicago could make (plus the help of a local handyman).

It was bittersweet bringing my son here, because it was my father’s favorite place in the world—unfortunately, he passed away before my brother and I had children of our own. My father would’ve loved to see his grandchildren playing in the water.

My son Soren got “baptized” in the rather cold water. And that’s the perfect term, because the place is holy to me. At just three months old, he’s already been anointed into a family tradition.

In 2012, the house (named “Chez Nous”) will be 100 years old. I hope in roughly 30 more years that my son introduces his child to this sacred place. Because it’s not the view or the structure, it’s the fact that at least something in this world can be consistent in the midst of so much change. And that the generations who came before us can live on.

At our house growing up, the Tuesday after Labor day didn’t exactly mean “Back to School.” The summer was over and to my dad’s way of thinking, it was time for my brother and I to go “back to work”, in this case, to school. And guess who reveled in our irritation more than anyone? Our father.

He loved to rub it in. To the point where he printed out, on his dot-matrix printer, the phrase: “Back to the Salt Mines. Back to ‘em!” He’d put these banners up for my brother and me year after year. In the bathroom. In the kitchen. On the garage door. It was the one school morning he’d actually get up early for in order to take pictures of our unamusement.

As my father has passed away, I turned to another source that could help explain how this phrase came to be part of his vernacular. My uncle said that at the end of the summer, his grandfather (my great grandfather) would ring a loud bell and yell that very same thing: “Back to the Salt Mines” (perhaps in reference to Josef Stalin’s Siberian salt mines where he sent those who disagreed with him…like everybody). Interesting how that is, when someone does something irritating to you (like your grandfather ringing a loud bell and yelling at you) that you make a concerted effort to pass it on.

Would I do the same thing to my son? You’re damn right I will. But probably with larger, more elaborately printed signs–you know, for maximum torment.

Did you have any back-to-school traditions that you loved/hated?