By Tak Watanabe

Commentary Apr. 14, 2010 - 04:16AM JST ( 19 )

TOKYO —

It all started with a letter from our ward office. The thinness of the envelope told us everything we needed to know. When we opened it, our worst fears were confirmed: our son, just shy of his first birthday, had failed to get into public daycare.

Three years ago, our daughter had easily landed a spot. No waiting list. At the time, we heard a rumor that there weren’t enough kids to fill our ward’s many daycare centers. But that was before the global financial crisis that began in 2008. Since then, as incomes have dwindled and savings been depleted, many new mothers have returned to work or decided to keep their jobs rather than doing the expected thing and resigning after giving birth. This has meant that more parents are turning to the government for affordable daycare — and more kids are on waiting lists because there aren’t enough places.

My wife and I knew about the daycare shortage. We were also aware that among the 23 wards in Tokyo, ours had the highest number of these “waiting children,” or “taiki jido.” But we were in serious denial. We never doubted that our son would get in, since both my wife and I have full schedules.

After receiving the letter, we rushed to the ward office to talk to a member of staff there, who patiently explained the point system used to determine how deserving a family is of public childcare support. She showed us how our work situation and family life translated into points; the more points you have, the better the chance of your child securing that coveted daycare spot.

We learned that the point system gives priority to single-parent families and those with health problems and disabilities. There’s no arguing that these people are the most deserving of public assistance of this sort, but we also realized that the system favors full-time employees who are finishing maternity or paternity leave. Part-timers and contract-based workers, many of whom have to quit work after giving birth because they have no legal recourse to obtain official leave, are disadvantaged because the point system sees them as unemployed and thus not requiring childcare support.

The system is also dismissive towards parents in school. In the ward’s view, a parent is either a worker or a student, but never both at once. A full-time worker receives more points than a mother who goes to graduate school while working three days a week — as my wife does.

Thus began our mini-crusade to secure a daycare spot for our son. We applied for the makeshift facilities that the ward had set up for spillover kids. We called up private daycare centers and asked to be put on waiting lists with 50 families ahead of us. We contacted local lawmakers and people of influence. We submitted a petition, with charts and signed documents, to ask that the ward reconsider our points.

After talking to many people in the course of our efforts, I came to the conclusion that this point system needs an overhaul. I understand that the process is designed to ensure fairness when ranking applicants — an argument made by ward bureaucrats. But the system’s tendency to favor full-time workers shows that it’s out of step with today’s diverse job market.

The point system is also flawed because it relies on misleading terms that are useful in other areas of government. For example, a friend of ours could not receive the same number of points as a single parent, despite the fact that her husband lives and works overseas, on the grounds that she is married and therefore not technically “single.”

This problem is unfortunate because public daycare is truly a godsend for working parents. We have found our daughter’s daycare to be excellent in so many ways, its staff professional and communicative. An on-duty nurse and a nutritionist ensure that she eats much more healthily there than she does at home.

Municipalities, too, are making great strides in solving the shortage crisis. Many wards in Tokyo have built new facilities and expanded existing ones. Deregulation of daycare a decade ago has spurred an entire industry of private centers that provide fantastic service, sometimes with innovation not seen in the public sector. Yet these improvements remain inaccessible for many parents who fall outside old forms of employment, obsolete models of family life, and outdated ideas about gender roles and child-rearing.

How a society treats its children is how it imagines its future. Amid the sea change taking place in Japan, I hope that local governments will sail into the future, not back into the past.

The author is is an assistant professor of anthropology at Sophia University.

This commentary originally appeared in Metropolis magazine (www.metropolis.co.jp).