Hi everyone, thank you for coming back.
I'm so glad to have a great chance to make a speech in University of Tsukuba.
My name is Yuka Mitsuhata.
First I'm already introduced a little bit but the morning presentations were wonderful
so I feel I should bring something attractive for you.
I found a TV program about us, which is called Close up Gendai.
So I want to introduce my activities through the video.
Ok then I will show you the real nursing clothes.
How many people know that?
Thank you, almost half of people here know it.
There is a real nursing clothing display in outside but actually I'm wearing it now.
If I open here like this, I can feed my baby.
I also brought a baby doll so I should have brought it here
but anyway, I can do nursing in front of you.
Sorry I can't connect to the video online so I can't show you the nursing scene,
maybe people are really looking forward to it but let me show you later.
Let me talk about why I started this job.
He introduced that my job is about mother's breast but my previous job had nothing to do with breasts.
My job was even not in Apparels area, which nursing clothes belong to.
Then why did I start this job?
I'd like to tell you the first story.
Sometimes I have chances to talk in front of university or high school students these days.
I ask them a question: Do you think birthing and child caring are tough?
More than 95% of students think birthing is kind of tough and scary.
And about caring children, it sounds like easier because you already finished birthing, but more than 80% students think it's tough.
However is it really hard to have a baby and care them?
Is that kind of initiation that we have to bear until the ends?
The reason I started this job was a little accident.
15 years ago, 1997, I was living in Tsukuba.
After a month from birthing, I took the one month baby and my 3 year's old child to go to Tokyo Tachikawa to visit my friend.
As you remember, 15 years ago, there was no train here, like "inaccessible islands" as we mentioned in the morning, so I had to take a bus.
It took 5 hours.
And then I changed to Chuo-line in Tokyo.
My bady suddenly cried. She was hungry, I knew it.
Do you remember the days 15 years ago?
In Tokyo, for example, in Shibuya, have you ever seen a child?
Have you ever seen a baby there?
No, I haven't.
At that time, there were only men in trains.
Of course there were women but they were single.
Then my baby started to cry in the train.
I was panicked. What should I do?
But I had to stop my baby crying in some-ways.
Therefore, what I did is,
At that time I was wearing a shirt, oh can you come up?
Can I do this here?
I thought maybe I had to nurse my child in my friend house so I prepared for it at that time.
I wore just like this.
So how do you think you can nurse a baby?
Yes, last time a high school boy did the same thing. Ok thank you!
So like him, by the way can you make nursing here?
I did nursing in the train 15 years ago. How do you feel?
Man: It's so embarrassing.
Mitsuhata: Right, even man thinks it's embarrassing.
You are not showing your breast, right? Yes.
But it's embarrassing. Thank you very much please give him a big hand!
So this was a very big experience for me.
Maybe it will change your life.
My friends, friends in Tsukuba, they hardly go outside.
They go to parks and children's house.
But they didn't want to go to other places.
I realized the reason why there is no child in Shibuya or Ginza.
How can we solve this?
The answer I got is the nursing clothes.
Without showing your breast, you can feed your children anywhere in society.
Many people believe this Chuo-line story is the beginning of Mo-House, my company.
But for me, the real start actually came later.
Nursing clothes are useful.
You don't have to show your breast and you can feed your children soon.
But for me it was not only useful tools.
This, the quotation mark, means my feeling at the first time I wore those clothes.
When I wore this, I felt "I'm free".
I don't have to leave my child and can take him/her anywhere, can do anything.
I guess most university students are living alone.
It's like the feeling you started to live alone.
I wanted to tell my feeling to everyone.
So I started the company, Mo-house.
However, thing is not easy.
I thought every mother would like those clothes.
But actually nobody wanted.
For example, let's say all people here are mothers and have a nursing baby.
Only 1 or 2 people would buy the clothes.
So why didn't they buy it? I asked mothers.
Everybody said "it's the thing I have to stand" or "it's ok if I don't go outside and stay with my baby in the house".
If it was the thing they could stand, they didn't want to change it.
I felt it's strange. So I asked myself.
What I wanted to sell was only a cloth?
It's not just a cloth.
It is the lifestyle that mother can spend their times with babies without bearing.
To tell this, we started a salon and events.
This is nursing show in Roppongi-hills.
Nursing show is a event that mothers hold their baby and show their nursing on the stage.
And in the salon, we provide mothers chances to communicate with other mothers.
We changed mother's mind step by step.
And nursing clothes also had spread slowly.
In 15years ago, almost no one bought nursing clothes, but now for next year the word will appear even in school textbooks.
Through those activities, there is other topic, which is often introduced.
This is our shop.
And this is the advertisement of AERA.
On the corner, Mo-House was introduced as "women-only work place" like seven-elevens and UNIQLO.
Everybody knows seven-elevens and UNIQLO but I guess nobody knows Mo-house.
I really don't know why they made this advertisement.
But our work place is not only women-only place.
The other feature of Mo-house is mothers can take their child to work place.
It doesn't mean that we have a care center or baby sitter.
It's really simple. Mothers hold their child and do their jobs.
This is my office.
The women holding babies are our staffs.
This picture is actually a fake though.
Because babies might touch PC so usually we put babies on the floor.
The only secret of our office is that we take off our shoes in entering the office.
That's all. It is like normal Japanese house.
In the house, mothers care babies while doing the housework.
If they can do house work while caring babies, then they can do their jobs while caring babies.
It's just a simple idea.
After this story became famous, we opened a shop in Aoyama.
Because Tsukuba Express has opened, we decided to open a store in Aoyama.
The place is in front of Aoyama Gakuin University.
We did jobs with children also in here.
There are two women and one of them here is our staff.
We can do this working style not because we are in Tsukuba, a special countryside.
We also can do same thing in the center of Tokyo, a place we have to go by trains.
And mothers can do even sales jobs while nursing babies.
That's the style I wanted to show to people.
Since the shop is in front of Aoyama Gakuin University, students come to our shops.
There is a clothes shop in two doors next. So mothers with children also come.
And there is a Women's Plaza near there, so of course women come.
On the next door, it's International University, so foreign people also come.
I think it's really interesting how people feel when they see our working style.
In Tsukuba, we opened our shops in Seibu department store and staffs are working with their babies.
Actually, our staff is here.
Maybe her baby was very silent so people may not realize.
Can you please come here?
Please give her a big hand.
She graduated from University of Tsukuba.
I decided to take her here this morning, sorry for bothering you.
She is working in Seibu and LALA garden.
Mitsuhata: Can you show how you work usually?
Woman: I do customers services while nursing my baby, now actually I'm feeding my baby.
Mitsuhata: It's chance for photo.
Even in front of men, it's not embarrassing at all.
We don't have a video but it's ok, we could show you real breast-feeding.
Like this, she is talking to customers while feeding baby, right?
Woman: Yes I explain clothes to customers, holding my baby.
Mitsuhata: If you could not choose this work style, do you think you continued to work?
Woman: No I don't think so.
Because it is wonderful that I can continue to work while caring my baby.
So I'm really happy that I can work in Mo-House.
Because mothers have to feed newborn baby frequently, they tend to stay in home and feel depressed.
So when they come to our shop and see how we feed babies, they realize that they also can go outside and feed my baby outside.
They look very happy then.
Mitsuhata: How long have you worked here?
Women: About two months.
Mitsuhata: Even in such short time, she can feel the work style is good for her.
I think it's very important.
Our work style is very minor.
But we are doing this not only for mothers.
For example, when young girls see how we work, they might feel they can have a baby and manage both jobs and child caring.
Then they might decide to have a baby.
Many women think like that.
And women, who feel tired and depressed for child caring, as she said,
could feel they have another way to raise a baby in society not inside the house.
This picture is a nursing parade we held in Ginza on March.
I wanted to share the nursing style not only with mothers. So, we made it.
People who saw this parade were not only women.
There were old ladies, young men but everybody said "it is good".
Nursing, which is the symbol of child caring, were used to be closed inside the house.
But this parade was a symbol to take "Nursing" get in to society, I think.
What we want to tell to the society is that there are a lot of styles for nursing, working and living.
There are still women who think they cannot work because they have a baby.
But there are women who are working even with babies.
I think people can learn a lot from our work style.
We continue our activity to tell it to society with them, mothers with babies.
Thank you for your listening.