A monthly gazette filled with submissions from mothers detailing their everyday parenting routines has been made available to families with small children through the use of the internal mail system of a prospective company.
As school closures and the government's request for staying at home due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus continue, the publication aims to let parents who may be struggling know that, "You're not the only one having a hard time."
The paper is published by the Okasan Gyokai Shimbun-sha (Mothering Industry Newspaper Company) of Okasan Daigaku (Mother University) in the city of Yokohoma. Since it's inauguration in 1999, the publication has served as a place for parents to submit stories about their joys and worries of child-rearing and share them with others. It's distributed to members with subscriptions and to public facilities.
Last month's edition included a special feature that was a collection of "things I noticed after watching my child for five minutes." In the latest issue, different ways to spend time with children who are currently at home during school closures are introduced.
The papers are folded and distributed by a group of mothers in each area. The work for the distribution of the March issue was carried out in small groups and the members could chat about their concerns over the current epidemic, among other things. However, from the end of March, citizens in big cities were urged to practice self-restraint from leaving their homes during weekends. This has continued into this month and preparations for the distribution of the April issue have not been able to continue as planned.
Because the amount of time parents are spending with their children has increased due to school closures and the introduction of telecommuting measures, submission themes such as "I can't really take care of things at home and my work as I thought I could" and "I'm really not great at being one-on-one with my child" have increased.
At that time, a subscriber sent a message that read, "I was pretty frazzled, but when I read the paper, I couldn't hold back the tears." The company decided to publish the paper for free, because "it's that kind of time right now," a staff member said.
The company provides PDF copies of the newspaper to companies that agree with its purpose and asks them to share the issues internally. It's all free of charge and currently being offered to a number of companies and groups.
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