Designing Your Life

Have you ever thought about what kind of life you want? Really, really want? Did you think you could control how your life would turn out? Right now, we girls are at a turning point – late 20’s for my old, old friends – and we are on a cusp here. Unfortunately, if we had been wise, we would have started designing our lives way back in our teens.

So, when you were a teen, did you know what you wanted? Did you decide on your university based on the effect the location would have on your future? Did you plan for a career that would not only bring you monetary sustenance but also spiritual? (By spiritual, I mean self-satisfying, not religiously-satisfying).

I have been reading a book called “Not Your Mother’s Life” by Joan K. Peters, a professor and writer. This book reads like a textbook for a college Women’s Studies course, and I have been highlighting and writing notes in the margins just like a good college student should. But here’s the thing, this book says so much about our generation and the generation coming up behind us, and it would have been great to take a class in college entitled “The Realities of the Real World.” This book is for the up and coming generation of women who will be raising families – of women and men who have grown up with two working parents – of women who have realized that “doing it all” is not all it is cracked up to be – of men who realize that they don’t want to be an absentee father like their own was. Peters encourages people to think more strategically about their life choices. I think I have done some things right, according to this book, and in many ways, I feel my life still has a lot of potential for self-design. Nothing is set in stone yet. But, I want to write this blog to help you see the light also.

Before I begin, just to give you a little background information. I feel that Japanese society is operating in “America circa 1950”. They need time to catch up to where America is now, and it is understandable. Japan, is, after all, America’s little sister, born and bred on materialism and rock ‘n’ roll. However, modern Japan got a late start and it did not have the experiences of outright racism, multiculturalism, Civil Rights, Women’s Lib and so on. The foundation that Japanese society exists on is of two levels – a very traditional one that dates back centuries and a very modern one that constantly walks on shaky ground, subsisting on brand names, McDonald’s and Hollywood movies. So, they are still kind of stuck in this post-war era, no need for a Civil Rights movement, no apparent motivation for a Women’s movement and so on. The biggest issues in Japan are the Birth Rate Decrease and Educational Reform.

Birth Rate Decrease is an issue in most modern societies. It is expensive to raise children. It is scary to bring them up in an environment like this. In modern societies, people have a lot of choices, and kids are not always their top priority. For some reason, Japanese feel that birth rate decrease is a problem that needs to be solved, and one way to solve it is to make it easier for families to have children – they are slowly changing government laws to allow women longer maternity leave, building more day care centers, and so on.

One major problem in Japan is the hours that people have to work. Many husbands (not just Yusuke) come home every night past 10 or 11:00. Unless you are a teacher or a government employee, this is your life. In Yusuke’s case, he is actually working during these long hours. In many of his friends’ cases, they are also working this late. For older generations, it was the booming 80’s, and many company employees stayed out late drinking with clients or co-workers. This is a rare situation for Yusuke and his friends because these days, employees are trying to keep up with the demands of a job that 2 or 3 people should be doing, of deadlines one after another, of constant new information coming in via email and needing to be taken care of ASAP…or else what. In any case, everyone is afraid of getting get cut during this tight economy. Who wants to have more kids when A. you don’t have to because no one expects you to, and B. you are living in constant fear of getting fired?

I would like to imagine that life is very different in America. I would like to imagine that men come home at 5:30 every night, help cook dinner and take care of the kids, mow the lawn, take a walk with their wives, fix things, read to or play with the kids, put them to bed, have sex with their wives and then go to bed early. Wow! Sounds like a big day for anyone!

Unfortunately, from what I have heard and read over the past couple of years, life isn’t like that. People work odd hours. People work late. Couples work opposite schedules. Wives work late too. Dinner consists of frozen prepared meals. Professional Americans work an average of 12 hours a day, up from the legendary 8-hour days that we hear about all our lives. Yusuke works an average of 13 hours a day.

Designing your life is a method that you can begin using while still single. Think about the kind of lifestyle you would like to live. Include your fantasy husband and family in the picture. Include your neighborhood and house, your town and community. Is your extended family (or his) in the picture, offering support to you? Do your friends whom you’ve known since childhood live nearby? Is your house a large house in the suburbs or a flat in the refurbished industrial part of a city? Is the neighborhood similar to the one you grew up in? There are a myriad of possibilities for this life that you design, and your job is to try to make much of it happen.

Decisions you make early in life could affect whether you can make these things happen or not. Then there is the hard part – finding a husband, someone who will be an equal partner for life. That last part is really important.

According to the book, less masculine, but more sensitive men are becoming the dreamboats of the 21st century? Why? Because these types of men are supposedly not money-driven, success-driven – they are more willing to compromise. Most importantly, they understand the importance of balancing work life and personal life.

Basically, the premise of the book is to stress how important balancing is for both men and women. Women want to feel important too, and not just in the home. They want to work, to educate themselves, to contribute financially to the household. Many women practiced doing household tasks when they were little girls playing house, so for them, household tasks might seem to come naturally. The idea of being a superwoman came into play after Women’s Lib – the notion that women can do it all. But the truth is, they cannot, nor should they feel obliged to. Coming home after a long day at work, and then being responsible for cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids, merely because it comes so “naturally” to you – only to get up the next day and start all over – can only serve to wreak havoc on a woman’s emotions. Resentment might grow towards the husband, and the distance between them may grow also – to the point where he chooses to work later just to avoid her wrath. Don’t let this happen to you.

This book gives plenty of advice and anecdotes by real people who have made it work – the balance between work life and personal life for both the woman and man in a relationship. If the man is expected to share household and childcare responsibilities, he might very well take on the tasks with gusto. Either that, or it is just something he will have to get used to, and he will, if you ask him for help early on.

The writer also gives lots of information about current workforce laws and what companies are doing these days to ease the burden of their workers – especially companies where they have had to deal with high turn-over rates. It might surprise you to know that for every employee who quits, it costs up to three and one-half times that position’s yearly salary to replace that person. This means that it is much cheaper for companies to keep the employees they already have, so the writer gives advice about negotiating better benefits and work hours to fit your family situation. It goes for men also. There is really NO reason to work so much when there is always tomorrow! Why don’t more people understand this!?

One more thing, one chapter is devoted the topic of starting one’s own business. There are many organizations, which fund or give advice to women interested in starting their own businesses. Another chapter is devoted to women who are considering the fields of business, medicine or law.

This book was so inspirational to me. It has really made me think about some of the decisions I have made over the years, and also given me some ideas for dealing with my husband and his job – not to mention my job, since I do plan to keep working. I do think we made the right decision in moving to Japan (at least we are near someone’s parents) and living in the same area where Yusuke grew up. Our apartment is about a 10-minute bike ride to his parent’s place. Our new apartment will be very close as well, and we made the conscious decision to continue living near his parents, so that we could help each other in the future. Also, we live very close to my job, so I don’t have to waste time commuting. When we do have children someday, at least I will always be near them and can go to them quickly when needed. My job is more flexible than his, but he actually has flextime, which he doesn’t use nearly as much as he could. I am priming him for a change in that though. Perhaps he can handle more daily child-care responsibilities, especially in the mornings, in order to avoid being a weekend dad like so many fathers.

It takes one person at a time to make a great change in the world.