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diggDogs in prams
Childless Japanese women push the country's culture of cute too far.
It is not unknown for little girls to try and dress the family cat or puppy in baby clothes and wheel it about in a pram. Mostly they don't succeed but the instinct is understandable enough. A live pet is much more interesting than an inanimate doll, having the warmth, cuddliness and cuteness of a real baby, and it makes playing mothers so much more fun. It seems perfectly natural and predictable behaviour.
An adult woman trying the same stunt, however, raises questions about her mental health -- unless she happens to live in Japan. There, according to a Reuters story, a 46-year-old eye surgeon can spend the morning wheeling her miniature dogs around posh department stores and the afternoon removing cataracts, without anyone batting an eyelid, as it were.
We are not speaking here of a woman with a tenuous grip on reality -- a Hollywood airhead or an eccentric multi-millionairess like Leona Helmsley who left $12 million of her fortune to her dog, Trouble. No, Toshiko Horikoshi is a woman with a real, professional job and evidently doing it well, since she can make enough from working afternoons to support herself in style. She divorced her husband who wanted her to become a stay-at-home mother, choosing instead to pursue her career. She spends her money on travel, her black Porsche and her dogs.
When people grow afraid of having children they become like children themselves, with an infantile appetite for baubles and new pleasures.
Nor is Toshiko alone in preferring little canines to kids; several of her married friends have done the same. In fact, dogs are so popular, and pampered, in an increasingly childless Japan that their doting human mothers can take them for parties at dog cafes, dress them in dog designer clothes and take them for holidays to hot spring resorts and spas offering massages and aromatherapy. Net result: dogs now outnumber children aged 10 and under. Japan's human population is shrinking but the dog population is growing.
Weird as Japan's dog mummies are at first blush, they are more to be pitied than decried. Have they no real friends to take them aside quietly and tell them how ridiculous it is for a grown woman to play mother to a dog? Society in general also has to take some of the blame. Japan boasts the second largest economy in the world, but its huge shadow has almost eclipsed family life.
Japanese men last century became the world's workaholics, wedded to their companies and spending more time away from home than in it. Women followed, defining themselves increasingly in terms of the workplace and their careers. Marriage is now delayed, on average, until the end of the 20s and a growing minority of people stay single. Marriage has become a partnership for meeting the couple's emotional needs, and the rising opportunity costs (for women) of having a child brought the birth rate to an historic low of 1.26 children per woman in 2005. It crept up to 1.32 in 2006. One in five Japanese is over 65, but more and more of the elderly live alone or in institutional care.
Much of this story is common to the rest of the industrialised world, but because of local peculiarities Japan is more exposed to unintended or unwelcome consequences such as accelerated ageing and population decline. At a personal level, the difficulty of finding the perfect soul mate to marry is aggravated by the reluctance of Japanese men to share housework and the country's late start on things like maternity leave, daycare and flexible working hours for parents.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and into the gaps left by a diminished family life have flowed carefully designed substitutes. Elderly women deprived of grandchildren can console themselves with robotic dolls which weigh the same as a small infant and respond in kind to words of affection. ("I feel so good, good night," says one doll before falling asleep if the owner pats it gently on the chest -- and that is only one of its repertoire of 1200 phrases.) And, as we now know, their childless daughters can find an outlet for maternal urges in the trembling vulnerability of a teacup poodle.
Two lessons (at least) can be drawn from this. One is that the consumer society is endlessly inventive in its project of satisfying every human need. The very conditions that should make Japan a saturated market -- low birth rate, rapid ageing and now shrinking population -- have opened up new market opportunities. There are more Fifi & Romeo dog boutiques in Japan than in the United States, says Yana Syrkin, the US founder of the celebrity dog fashion chain. "I've never seen consumption the way it is in Japan," she told Reuters. A Parisian dog boutique owner says that where Japan leads in dog fashions, the rest of the world will follow. We have been warned.
The second lesson is the flip side of the first. When people grow afraid of having children they become like children themselves, with an infantile appetite for baubles and new pleasures. In Japan, the standard of what pleases is "kawaii" -- cute -- and grown men and women embrace fads with the enthusiasm of teenagers. Some think the trend reflects the harmony-loving nature of the Japanese, and no doubt there are cultural influences, but one cannot help thinking that putting dogs in strollers is a step too far. It does nothing for the dignity of women, and nothing for the birth rate.
The Japanese government and industry are now taking steps to encourage women to embrace motherhood while maintaining their careers. Married women are essential to the workforce as the pool of younger workers is dwindling, but their willingness to have children is also essential to the country's future. It remains to be seen whether incentives ranging from baby bonuses to free mobile phones can persuade couples to open their lives to something more demanding -- though infinitely more rewarding -- than a Chihuahua.
At least the dog mummies don't mind pushing a pram. That's a promising sign. Maybe a carefully orchestrated campaign to remind them that babies are cute too would do the rest.
Carolyn Moynihan is Deputy Editor of MercatorNet.
Funny story, in a scary sort of way. I’m just glad I dont have to live in China.
Weird.. Now you dont see this everyday..
hi im chloe i wud not mind thet ether i agt=ree i dress my dog up i have alil yorkshire terrier lolxx
Do people honestly believe this? That a child is ‘more rewarding’ than living your own life, doing things your way, unburdened by the constant pampering that a child needs? And suddenly women having careers and being free to do what they want is a bad thing? Every woman has to pop out 2 kids in order to be happy?
I say kudos to these women to be unafraid of what some judgmental baby machines say.
Sick and scary stuff. But’s it’s not only the Japanese who anthropomorphise animals. In Spain they’ve even passed a law giving supposed “rights” to apes and chimps.
What the heck, that’s sick stuff....
Thank, JSB, Neil, nowiggers, Michael and everyone else who wisely pointed out that it’s not issue that some women are opting out of parenthood in favor of doing other things. Having children is definitely a CHOICE, not a necessity, with the world as (over)populated as it is - and women are very fortunate that there is reliable birth control in the world to make that choice - not to mention education and career choices available to them so they can do other things besides be a mother and housewife.
My dear husband and I are both 40, and we decided to remain childfree after we’d been married for six years. We have eight nieces and nephews that we adore, and we enjoy
our friends’ children, but neither one of us has a desire to raise a child of our own. We thought the longing for children would eventually kick in after we’d been married for a while, but it never did.
I do very much resent the idea that those who don’t have children have an “infantile appetite for baubles and new pleasures.”
My husband and I are far less materialistic that our childed siblings are, who must always have the newest and most fashionable clothes, toys, electronic gadgets, etc. for themselves and their children. Both of my sisters moved into brand-new, 3,000-square-foot homes this year that are very expensive, and they replace their cars with new vehicles often. And one of my sisters is a stay-at-home-mom - she complains about how expensive everything is, but that doesn’t make her get a job to help out her husband or stop buying expensive stuff!
Meanwhile, my husband and me live in a 23-year-old, 1,500 square foot home that we are improving as we can afford to do so, and driving 8- and 9-year-old cars - because we have no desire to go into debt and we get no pleasure from buying expensive stuff and being materialistic.
Why can’t people in general just face the fact that having children is not for everybody?
Bringing a child into the world when you are NOT 110% interested in nor enthusiastic about parenting (or simply recognize that you don’t have the talent or the resources for it) is a terrible thing to do to a child.
Children born into poverty, and/or raised with poor parenting suffer terrible consequences. Many grow up to be citizens who are little more than a burden or even a threat to society as a whole. And many do not survive to grow up at all.
People who would make poor parents are doing EVERYBODY a service by not having them.
The problem as I see it lies not with the women in the article. It lies with a society that demands that women act as brood mares for the state regardless of the cost or consequences. It saddens me to see so many people with such a narrow view of their own lives that they have to project years of accumulated expectations onto anyone who doesn’t make the same choices.
I personally am never having children. I have taken steps medically to insure that there are no accidents. I applaud anyone that follows there own convictions when it comes to whether or not they want kids. The human race is well represented and the very notion that these women need to have a couple “For The Country” is about as vitriolic as any eugenic propaganda I have ever heard. If they want to have dogs instead of children, I say let them. They will answer for the choices they have made either good or bad. Not you. Let them be.
:scratches head:
Did it occur to anyone here that having children is a choice and yes, there are some people who make the choice :gasp: not to have any? What is so wrong with that? I thought liberals were for reproductive choice?
And if people that have kids are always the best of breed of society, why do we need laws like the new ones in California to fine parents who are smoking in the car while the children are present?
This is what happens when people feel pressured and or forced to breed by society, and by people like you who denigrate the choice to be childfree—CHILDREN SUFFER. If more people who were not cut out to have children stopped having them, less children would suffer.
I believe one basic and important fact is being missed here:
Why is it an issue for someone to NOT want children?
Is this an infringement on others rights? Is a law being violated? Is anyone at all negatively impacted by this decision? Is child bearing our one and only reason for being alive?
These are misconceptions and jaded views placed on us by societal pressures.
Why are people so threated by women who don’t want children? How is it your business? And the comment by Amy: “Certainly that dog, if he lives to see you reach a ripe old age, won’t be caring for you.” So is THAT why you have children? For old age insurance? Hmm, why are the nursing homes so full of people, people with children who don’t visit? From the comments, I conclude that women are just good for popping out babies. Failure of modern feminism! What a nasty remark.
Why are people threatened by women choosing to opt out of motherhood and deciding against the LifeScript(TM)? So you think it’s better to conform to the traditional societal mold: have a litter of unwanted kids, because it’s “what ya’ suppose ta do” rather than leading their life as they see fit?
I don’t think it’s anyone’s business if women choose to dote on the family pet. Not everyone wants kids. Get over it already. It is not a problem. What IS a problem is having kids just to escape the ridicule and pressure society puts on couples. Childfree living with pets is quite wonderful, actually.
“Sadness,” like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some people can’t have kids, some people—for a host of reasons—choose not to have them. Playing armchair psychiatrist is generally pointless and fruitless. Have all the kids you want, and enjoy. Don’t worry about these folks, since they are adults capable of making their own choices. They seem happy enough, so spare them your concern and misplaced pity.
And for the record, I think pugs are cuter than babies.
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