A magazine survey found that a significant
number of young people do not want to be
parents for personal reasons such as the high
cost of living
TOKYO -- Stagnant birthrate in Japan? Blame it on
the "parenting rejection syndrome", said a Japanese
magazine.
The increasing number of people who marry late or
do not marry at all and the lack of a strong maternity
leave system have often been cited as major reasons
for the problem.
But research carried out by the SPA! magazine has
come up with more personal reasons for the decline
and labels them the "parenting rejection syndrome",
the Asahi Evening News reported.
The magazine asserts that a significant number of
young people are suffering from the syndrome.
Of 100 men and women in their 20s and 30s who
were surveyed, 34 per cent did not want to be
parents. When only the answers of female
respondents were tallied, the number who did not
want children rose to 44 per cent.
The findings turned up many personal reasons for the
respondents' reluctance.
The reason most often given by respondents was
fears that their salaries would not be sufficient to
cover child-rearing and education expenses (41 per
cent), while 19 per cent felt they did not want to
subject a child to the pressures of entrance exams or
possible bullying.
Another 11 per cent were afraid of abusing them or
not raising them properly while 5 per cent preferred
to concentrate on their jobs. The remaining 24 per
cent gave unspecified reasons.
One young woman told SPA! she felt unloved as a
child and is afraid she will insult and reject her child,
as her mother had done.
A young man who suffered prolonged abuse from his
father in his youth also was afraid he would abuse his
own child or that he would marry someone who
would turn into an abusive mother.
One woman admitted she was taking her temperature
daily to monitor fertility but was, in fact, really
sabotaging her outwardly stated efforts to get
pregnant by encouraging her husband on all the days
she was least likely to become pregnant. She feared
complications of pregnancy and post-natal
depression.
Many women expressed fears of the pain of
child-birth and SPA! interviewed a young mother of
two who was hospitalised for neurosis she felt was
exacerbated by guilt over her lack of parenting skills.
Some respondents expressed complicated feelings
towards their own parents and professed fears that
they do not know how to love or what being a parent
really means. Some admitted frankly that they did not
want to give up their comfortable lifestyle.
One woman said she just did not like children and
preferred to pamper herself. She could not imagine
giving up cigarettes during pregnancy.
Others displayed a strong sense of responsibility and
were leery of parenthood because of news reports
about increasing juvenile crime. They feared they
might raise such a child and have to take responsibility
for its actions.
To maintain Japan's population, a woman would have
to give birth to an average of 2.08 children. In 1998,
however, the actual figure was a mere 1.38, Asahi
Evening News said.
Adapted from The Straits Times, 13 Mar 2000.