How's your day?

Good so far.

So far? It's 5pm. Are you expecting a problem later?

I have two kids. With kids, until they are asleep there is always the possibility of a crisis.

Ah, so you have a crisis clock then?

One that resets as soon as they wake up the next day.

That was a conversation I had yesterday at a company where I was teaching. Bear in mind I love my kids very much and would never wish to be separated from them, but it's just a reality of parenthood that when you are dealing with kids—especially more than one—then fights, arguments, crises, are never far.

I'm mostly ok with a little fighting. Kids have to get used to dealing with problems themselves, after all. My wife, on the other hand, usually gets frustrated very quickly and ends up separating them or yelling at them. I have two kids. When she gets to this point, this often means I am listening to three people fighting instead of just two.

I think it's a culture thing. The house next to ours has a high school aged girl. I swear, every single day her mom and her are arguing so loudly most of the neighborhood must know the details. It's a similar story in other houses around this area, with the housewives fighting loudly with the kids.

Husbands meanwhile often work until very late and don't return until long after the kids have gone to bed. It is often said that the previous generation in Japan was raised by women and didn't even know their fathers. Though work hours have shortened a bit from the 1970s high when it was basically 24/7, they are still quite high, routinely reaching 12, 14, even 16 hours per day. Meaning fathers are still very often absent, leaving the child-raising to the women, and leaving them very frustrated and prone to yelling at the kids.

This isn't exclusive to Japan, of course. Tho it is more rare in the US, it does still happen. It was more common two generations ago. My grandfather in the 1950s worked 18 hour days: he'd leave for work before the kids were up and get home after they were asleep, leaving his wife to control all six kids by herself.

In my case, I work a mixture of at home and away from home. That would seem to be better, but working from home brings almost more problems than it solves. Unless I'm actually on a Zoom or Teams call with a student, client, or coworker, they can't tell when I'm working or not working. Even my wife can be confused by it sometimes, interrupting me when I'm otherwise in the middle of work.

It is interesting when a crisis hasn't come late in the day. It almost feels weird, as if something is wrong. Why are they being so good? What's going on? A few years ago I was relaxing in the bath, as one does in Japan, when it occurred to me that I hadn't heard any fighting all day. I mentally wrote:

Not really a very good haiku, but it did express my suspicion of the quiet at that time. I still have that same suspicion when it's too quiet.

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.