It
has been two years since my daughter decided to be a single parent. Her child
is now three years and nine months old and has fun at kindergarten every day.
“Single-Parent
Households (Hitori-Oya Katei)” by Chieko Akaishi (Iwanami-Shinsho, published on
April 19th, 2014) is a very useful book for single parents. The author herself is
an unmarried single mother.
After
all these years, the media has finally started to report about women’s poverty.
Especially, stories about cases caused by single mothers who are in social and
financial difficulties appear in newspapers from time to time. However, books
telling actual data on real situations of single parents or their actual voices
had been seldom published.
“A
single parent has a more than 50 percent chance of living in poverty. She and her
children may manage to get by, but often she can’t earn enough money to spend
on her children’s education.” Some facts are behind this reality. According to
the government’s report on single mothers, etc. in 2011, the annual income of
about 35 percent of single-mother households was between one million and two
million yen. The average annual pay from a single mother’s job was 1.81 million
yen, and the average income including child-rearing allowances, child benefits
and so on was 2.23 million yen. On the other hand, the average annual income of
single-father households was 3.8 million yen, and 3.6 million yen without
allowances or benefits. The average income of all the households with children
was 6.58 million yen, which probably reflected the fact that mainly men earn a
living in the Japanese society. This means the average income of single mothers
was only 34 percent of the whole households with children, while the single
fathers’ was 58 percent.
The
reality of single parents is that although most of them are working, their
income is low. Though earnings were not much, single mothers used to be hired
as full-time employees, but nowadays most of them are part-timers or temporary
staff. Their homeownership rate is 29.8 percent, and it is not so easy for them
even to find inexpensive apartments to rent.
Only
19.7 percent of divorced mothers receive child support from their former
partners. 37.7 percent of divorcing couples decide on child support, and the
average amount is 43,482 yen per month, while at least 57,000 yen is needed to
pay for food, clothes, educational expenses, etc. for one child. If the reason
for their divorce is their partner’s domestic violence, they can’t even demand
financial support, just desperate to escape.
Don’t
let men get away.
However,
single mothers in this book are all cheerful, dealing with their hard life and
child rearing, as if they have no regrets about having divorced to raise their
children alone.
When
asked “What do you want to appeal to the society?” they answered they needed time
rather than money according to the “Work and Life of Single Mothers” survey.
This seems to show they are extremely busy and do not have time to do what they
want.
Paying
national health insurance and national pension premiums is such a big burden on
low-income single mothers. They could use welfare loan systems for divorced or
widowed mothers to pay school fees or entrance fees when their children reach
school age. That could help mothers and children get through, but after
graduation they will be very likely to struggle to repay their loans. It is
said the delinquency rates of such loans and also student loans have been high
recently. Many of them end up being plagued by debts.
Ms.
Akaishi is supportive of single parents and gives useful advice based on her
own experience. The single mothers she interviewed and their children live
strong despite their financial difficulty while using occasionally consultation
services and being supported by many people. I especially like it that they are
not obsessed with the idea of “the ideal family.”
They
are already making full efforts to live by themselves. It’s time for them to help
each other by forming a community or network to be able to believe that they
are not alone. In addition, it’s our duty to call for more support from
national and local governments, which has been really little in this country.
Each
single parent has their own way to live. They are responsible not only for following
their chosen path for the better but also for ensuring an equal society in the
future for children who have to grow up to be independent adults, and so are
all of us.
My
daughter, still a fresh single parent, has a long way to go in terms of both
child rearing and her own independence, but she and her daughter have many
friends around to support them and some people who are sympathetic to them.
That makes me really happy.
During
the Golden Week holiday, when new green leaves were beautiful, my granddaughter
ran around the Old Imperial Palace and the Kamogawa River, and we took her for
a drive to have a short trip to Amanohashidate or the Bridge to Heaven. On May
5th, the Children’s Day, she went to the long-awaited “The First Classical
Music Concert for Children” performed by Kyoto
Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. The concert’s theme was “Music and Story,’ and
she enjoyed listening to “Peer Gynt,” a verse drama by Ibsen set to music by
Grieg.
She
is surprisingly growing up fast, and I want to be just beside her, trying hard
not to be left behind.
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Original article written by Yagi Mine
Translated
by Ai Sakaguchi
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