sponsored by squarespace these are
shocking facts about japanese child care
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so it's almost been a year and a half
since we gave birth to our son wolfie
and to say the least it's been amazing
yet kind of hectic raising him here in
japan and just a few weeks ago he
started for the first time public
japanese nursery school we've learned a
lot about the process and experienced
some pretty surprising and maybe
shocking aspects about japanese child
care and wanted to share all of that
with you in this video but like always
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community and i couldn't do this video
alone so michael can you join me hi
everyone
okay michael so one thing to note before
we start is that we're not familiar with
how child care or nurseries work in your
country but definitely let us know in
the comments which you think is better
or worse just to kind of give us some
perspective so just a quick overview
about child care in japan is pretty much
broken up into two different categories
you have yochien which is kindergarten
and then you have huikan which is
nursery school we are using huikuan
because wolfie is one year old right now
but technically is in zero years old
class and pretty much if you want to go
to a kindergarten or a yochien then you
have to be usually like from three years
old so our only option here in japan was
to have him go to a nursery school the
thing about nursery schools here in
japan is that there are so many and
um so many kinds types yeah let me just
do a lot of studies still don't
understand it yeah so here are just some
of the examples so you have like nika
huikoen which is a licensed nursery
they're kind of broken up into public
and private ones then you have koitsu
mine hoikuen
so it's a government-owned private
nursery then you have ninja hoikuen
which is authenticated nursery school
everything else that's not approved or
licensed is meaning
in fact we're not using any of those
license or unlicensed nurseries because
we are using a nursery for kids on a
whaling list because that one was closer
to our house so basically we applied to
one of those government sponsored
nurseries and we had to wait to get
rejected and this was kind of like our
backup nursery and they let us in to
this one and just like looking at this
list still it's so confusing there's
just so many no
starting age so one of the things that
was quite surprising to me about japan
um maybe not to you since you're from
japan is that nursery schools start at
such a young age like from zero months
right it's like they have that available
so that moms can go back to work as
quickly as possible it's not all over
the world yeah but if you look at the
percentages you can see that it's like
over almost 12 percent uses it and then
33
is a one-year-old and then it goes all
the way to 40 at 2 and then all the way
to 87
that are using nursery or kindergarten
by the time they're three years old i
think at three kindergartens are offered
free or like the entry is a lot easier
than getting into liquid that's why the
usage uh person like pops up so in terms
of age you're like starting age i wanted
to spend more time with wolfie but
because of all the corona situation
wolfie hasn't been encountering a lot of
people in his life yeah and i think it's
better for him to know more people see
more people to learn or like to and you
know process better
yeah i mean i would take him to the park
these days since we've like kept him
inside this entire time and we haven't
really taken him out when i do take him
to the park instead of like playing in
the sand or like running he's just like
and he's just staring at kids and it's
like he's like frozen stairs and i think
that's one of the decisions why we
wanted to to get him started i miss him
so much now but for him nursery point
system getting into a nursery especially
if it is not private and its government
authorized or sponsored or run there is
a point system here in japan to like
meet a certain like total in order to be
accepted it's more like the point system
prove that you need help like you need
somebody's help to watch kids so you
can't work or like you have to like take
care of your parents or you are injured
or you're sick that's the point system
is there for basically they're saying
that like the people who need it the
most will get the support so like i
think it's nice to like if you are
disabled like you said or
if you are like a single parent
oh yeah
you need help then they're gonna help
you so first of all like you get points
based on your working hours if you were
working eight hours five days a week you
get like 20 points if you're working
eight hours four days a week 16 points i
don't know i think it is fair especially
for those people that like really need
it in our case we need help because we
are extremely busy like working 24 hours
yeah but like you can only say you work
more than eight hours five days a week
that's the max that you can write down
so if you work more than that you don't
get no points the amount of hours you
work doesn't give you any more points
if you have grandparents living with you
then you get less points they get minus
get minus points but it's interesting
because grandparents sometimes are even
like more difficult to take care of it
has to be like a healthy parent parents
are living with you and
another reason we're using the nursery
we're using is if you can prove that
you're using a child care facility then
that's another point you need the proof
from november to march if you don't have
enough points and you want to like try
to make up points there are like
babysitters or like daycares that you
can go to to earn the points which will
cost you like 25 to 3500. a month for
what like almost half a year so you have
to actually like pay that much money to
get into the system
so there is a point total here which i
thought was kind of surprising like oh
man you actually have to meet like a
certain criteria in order to get nursery
and i'm like well how much does that
really matter but in fact it really
matters it really matters competition
for applicants if you want to go through
like one of the government um supported
nurseries then you have to go through
the point system but it's extremely
affordable with the licensed level of
service
you can't get into a lot of schools and
with like tokyo especially there's i
think a limited amount of nurseries i
mean there's like a ton of nurseries out
there but still there's not enough to
support the communities
fees just to give people some reference
to how inexpensive government versus
like private ones like here's a list of
prices monthly child care fees vary
depending on the municipality but are
based on the family's total income
calculated by using the family's income
tax as shown in this chart for kids
under three years old it ranges from
free to a max of about 700 per month but
based on average family incomes in japan
fees are usually around two hundred
dollars or less per month for full-time
child care including meals so what ends
up happening is the working families
that have two high income earners or
maybe just like one really high income
earner then they have to go to like
private child care which is quite
expensive i think twenty five hundred
dollars
to maybe thirty five hundred dollars per
month that's why everyone wants to get
into these like nursery schools that are
government supported and we're lucky
that we got it so before we continue on
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website all right let's continue on
application the application process is
so crazy this time i did everything
which is easier for me to write japanese
an application form in the application
for me there's so much was it online or
was it they changed the system from next
year application maybe because of corona
but before that you have to go into the
ward office and you have to like book
the session yeah so how many pages is it
the stuff we have to fill out as
freelancer
one to seven pages which is not that
much you think but it's just so much
things you need to write down and you
have to put a thought on it look at this
one page
this is the one that we need to fill out
this year and in addition if you just
found the job and then you need that
shiro showmenshop to prove that you just
got hired if you're looking for it then
you need another paperwork if you are
looking for giving birth you need the
you know the show me shirt as well show
me just don't you know what i'm saying
document yeah like if you're handicapped
you have to prove that as well
there's like so many things that you
like you have to like add to prove that
you can get another point we don't have
points that's why we don't have anything
else to fill out the application process
starts
the end of november to get in in april
that's when school year starts in japan
and you actually get to apply again in
february so basically what you're saying
is that you have to apply six months in
advance and if you get rejected then you
have to fly again a second time two
months in advance but you have like uh
almost no chance because people have
already yeah you can accept it but if
someone says i don't want it then the
person that has a higher point total
they're like okay then right yeah but
there are people like to only apply for
the let's say like that a and went to
the waiting list and going to our school
then i'd say oh i'm not gonna go then
this person's gonna go up not the person
who accepted the third so since we're on
the wait list
if someone drops out then we would like
to yes they'd like move us yeah and we
have no say on say no we have to go oh i
didn't even know that
once you do get accepted then um they
don't just like put you into the nursery
they actually have you do this thing
called
it's kind of like a training for the
nursery so you don't go full time right
away you start off at minimum hours in
our case we serve from two hours after
that we upgrade to the lunch time and
make sure that he can eat if he can't
eat he can just go straight home and
eat with us and then when he's used to
it then he's gonna stay until the nap
time and after he's used to it he's
gonna stay until the snack time which is
at three and then play a little bit and
so forth so in our case we were supposed
to do this for i called in all like two
weeks yeah but just four days into it
got sick
and he has never gotten sick like he did
going to nursery and i think it's kind
of one of those accepted things once you
start going to a nursery you're gonna
just pick up lots of bacteria and
viruses from other kids and we didn't
expect to be out for almost two weeks
michael looks at me like that because we
had a rough couple of weeks i couldn't
look at him like that another thing that
was not bad but sad was like right after
we started
he got obsessed with me he was like mom
mom he wasn't like that before then he
got sick and it got even worse yeah so
you do have to kind of expect that when
they start their attitudes might change
and he felt the brunt of it but i also
felt like he hated me
like i'd be like well if he come over
here like i'd pick him up he'd be crying
he's like mama mama is like just
screaming like or he would try to get
away from me so that's another thing you
just need to expect but at the same time
it is nice in japan that they do have
this system where they don't just like
fall in
put you into a nursery and like that's
where you like go and cry it out or
you're just gonna have to deal with it
they like slowly will walk you through
it they were very
accommodating
so they're amazing yeah we were just
really really impressed just be prepared
that your kid might get sick
things to prep once you do get accepted
they're going to have a list of stuff
for you that you know i didn't expect
how detailed this list would be and how
thorough our school is minimum because
it's a temporary school but actual
school will ask you like whole a lot i
don't know if this is common in other
places of the world but they had like
okay you need to have a hat and the hat
needs to have a rubber elastic band
around it you have to have all of his
shirts can't have any hoodies everything
has to have his name written on it
including all the diapers so you have to
write eight to ten diapers every like
other day you have to have a certain
size of bag for a change of clothes
because i think they hang it oh you need
to bring a towel they use for sleeping
but like some school ask you to bring up
like a set of plutons a little mattress
yeah and they bring back to wash every
weekend another thing uh that was quite
interesting was the naming convention
for when you have to write your names on
the kids clothes you have to be like a
specific size
like one centimeter size and you have to
be in all kita ghana it has a really
long
i don't even know if his soccer has
enough room to write all his names those
of you that are international and that
have longer names you just have to think
about that security i think security is
pretty standard i'm assuming
from around the world i don't know so
security wise you have to register mom
and dad or whoever is like picking them
up you have to like take a picture of
their face id ids and everything only
those registered people are able to pick
them up and to actually get into the
school they have like two locking
mechanisms and stuff and they have
intercom so only let in people that they
know it just makes a lot of sense
especially when you're dealing with kids
and i'm assuming that's across the world
i'm hoping at least security is pretty
standard
like a babysitter and grandma we have to
register them in advance school knows
who they are yeah and that you have to
bring the id if you're not mom or dad to
match i thought that was pretty high
security but i don't know maybe not yeah
let us know about that one nursery food
another interesting thing i've kind of
like touched on it before in my previous
videos is like the food that they serve
they have kind of set meals i think like
they prioritize food education in japan
a lot so they want you to like
experience all the different like
flavors and like very healthy like
mindset towards food so thank you
yeah so every day is different and
generally they'll have like a set of
different plates dishes
like one plate with the rice and they'll
probably have like two main or like
little like main dishes then they'll
have like soup and then maybe another
side dish or something i wish that we
had
this because it's like just seemed so
healthy well i had this type of food
throughout the school year so i'm pretty
used to it
and like not every food is great
yeah it really depends on the kids
whether they like it yeah meatballs
it really depends they do have snacks as
well yeah they have snack time and in
the morning and afternoon they are like
different menus as well the last time i
picked wolfie up it was like a yogurt
and a fruit and like a pack of juice uh
just we got a call earlier today and it
looks like for the first time he eat all
this food he's not full-time yet but
he's getting there so i guess that's it
for now
that's kind of the surprising things
that we've gone through experienced
trying to deal with mommy okay all right
so we just picked the wolfie up all
right so that oh thank you
oh
all right so we are gonna end here spend
some family time so those are some of
the surprising aspects that we've
experienced going through a japanese
nursery let us know what you thought in
the comments and if you guys want to see
more videos like this or anything
related to japan no
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