Why I Write About Parenting Issues

I feel a deep sense of alarm about the direction our society is heading.
Across the world, birth rates are declining, and in Japan, the population is aging faster than anyone expected.
As a result, families raising children are gradually becoming a minority.
And when people who have finished raising their children—or those who, for various reasons, could not marry or have children—start to outnumber those currently parenting, understanding for the realities of child-rearing begins to fade.

What worries me most is how “common sense,” “public manners,” and “social order” are being used—sometimes unintentionally—as tools to pressure families with children.
Crying babies, strollers on trains, mothers breastfeeding in public, or parents taking sudden leave from work due to their child’s illness—
these are all ordinary parts of life.
Yet increasingly, they are labeled as “inconvenient,” “selfish,” or “irresponsible.”
When daily acts of parenting are treated as public nuisances, children begin to grow up in an atmosphere where simply existing feels like an apology.

The most troubling part is that many of the people who exclude parents and children do not realize they are doing anything wrong.
They genuinely believe they are “just being considerate” or “upholding public manners.”
But behind that polite mask, something darker is often hidden—
a subtle form of exclusion, cloaked in moral language.
Even when their true feelings might be “It’s too noisy,” or “I just don’t want to see that,”
they can cover it up by calling it “manners” or “common sense.”
This mechanism allows society to suppress discomfort without confronting its own prejudice.
And that, to me, is the root of our social coldness.

History shows us that minorities are always the first to have their rights overlooked—
people with disabilities, women, foreigners, LGBTQ individuals—
every group that once stood at the margins of society had to fight to be heard.
In today’s Japan, families with young children have quietly become a new minority.
That is why I choose to speak out.
Because if we remain silent, these “rules of common sense” will harden into invisible walls that divide society even further.

I believe that when a society becomes hard for children to live in, it becomes hard for everyone to live in.
A city where children cannot laugh freely is a city where adults silently suffocate.
A workplace that isolates parents is one that will fail to support anyone—whether they are caring for an elderly parent, facing illness, or simply needing help.
Building an environment where it is easier to raise children is, in essence, building a society where everyone can live with dignity.

I am not a perfect parent, nor a professional activist.
I am simply someone who believes that sharing our experiences and frustrations can change something, even if only a little.
By writing about what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt unfair, and what contradictions I’ve noticed,
I hope to make life just a bit easier for families raising children today.

When one person speaks up, another person finds the courage to do the same.
And as those voices multiply, society begins to shift.
This blog is my contribution to that movement—
a small but determined step toward a world where parents and children can breathe more freely.


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#Parenting #ChildRearing #SocialIssues #LowBirthRate #FamilySupport #PublicManners #Inclusion #HumanRights #Japan #SocialChange