Megumi Ushikubo, Freelance Writer / President, Infinity (2/2)

In the "Father's Interview," we interview experts who regularly study and observe fathers to have them share their insights on the state of today's fathers and families. For our fourth interview, we met with Megumi Ushikubo, president of the marketing and PR firm Infinity, as well as a freelance journalist who frequently writes about consumer trends and the retail/distribution market. Together with a housing developing company, Infinity also co-founded the "One+deux Panel: Thinking about the Future of Families," to explore today's diverse familial relationships and how they affect the shape and style of modern homes.

Family Is Idealized. In Reality, There's a Lack of Communication.

What kind of environment is it for fathers today?
　This is closely connected with the state of the economy. The bursting of the bubble has had a huge impact on men's mindset. While it didn't feel like such a big deal to women, men witnessed the direct consequence of it, like seeing senior colleagues get the axe or their fathers getting laid off as a result of corporate restructuring. There is definitely evidence of this impact among men who are older than the so-called "baby-boomer junior" generation (i.e. children born between 1971 and 1975). They feel that a life centered on work will make you miserable in the future and that, in the end, family is the only thing you can count on whereas the company might turn on you.
　Moreover, the widening gap between rich and poor and the collapse of lifetime employment have also had an effect. In a meritocracy, there's bound to be men who fall behind in the corporate rat race. Nowadays, there are those that don't even go through the trouble of participating. This is especially true of men in their twenties. In such a world, people are searching for ways to live that's true to themselves.
　When you ask men in their twenties about their fathers, many reply that they feel grateful, but not respect. They've watched their fathers' work-centric lives and don't want that for themselves. I think this is because they've seen what the post-bubble world has done to them. It makes them appreciative of home and family and that's why those things are very central for them. But what I want to point out here is that this is all very conceptual. By that I mean an extremely large number of them are longing for an idealized version of family. In truth, the form that a family takes is becoming increasingly diversified, but when you listen to these men, you get the idea that the kind of family they are imagining is one from a nostalgia movie like "Always: Sanchome no Yuhi (Always: Sunset on Third Street)." Real life is far from that kind of idealized family. At Infinity, we also do research on food and eating habits. What we've found is that, even though most people love the idea of the whole family getting together to share curry or nabe (hot pot dishes), the reality is that they can only do it once a week at best and, most of the time, the familiy members eat by themselves at different times. This is because a lot of wives work, the children go to juku (preparatory school for entrance exams), and the fathers are busy with work and come home late.
　Many men near the baby-boom junior generation voice that they don't want to become like their fathers, that they don't want to become a stubborn old man to their kids. At the same time, they also want to be a father that the family depends on in times of trouble. When you think about it though, this "being depended on in times of trouble" implies that a certain level of problems have already arisen before the father steps in. But from the mother's point-of-view, they want to be able to talk to their husbands before things actually get to that point. In reality, however, when they bring it up, they get half-hearted replies, so they stop even trying, and this results in a breakdown of communication between the mother and father. When this happens, it leads to the father being called upon only for superficial "problems," like changing the light bulb or helping with the Christmas decorations. The fathers role doesn't get deeper than taking the family somewhere or being the driver or bag-carrier. The fathers want to be more involved with their families, but it won't happen unless they have more deeper communication on a daily basis. The desire is there though, so the challenge is how to mine the potential.

Help Them Fill the Gap Between Ideal and Reality. Help Them Feel Proud to Be a Family.

In terms of fathers as consumers, what kind of possibility do you see?
　It used to be an ordinary thing for families to get together, but nowadays, it's a special event for the whole family to gather in one place. In that sense, the consumption that they do at those times can be called "memory-creating consumption," and, with so many single-person households out there, having children have turned into a form of status, similar to owning a designer brand. There's a lot of demand that can be generated for such kind of consumption. Since men are surprisingly more susceptible to this, I think one effective way would be to approach the men with know-how or product that enable them to fill the gap between their reality and their idealized version of family.
　On the other hand, men tend to spend a lot of money on things once they get hooked, and I think this tendency would prohibit them from taking the lead in everyday consumption. Women are more practical and economically-minded that way, so they would be skeptical about spending so much money on everyday items. They would be resistant to the idea of buying an expensive piece of Japanese raddish, even if it's one grown in a special region. If the familiy is relatively well-off, this might not cause a problem, but for regular families, it can become a source of conflict between husband and wife. Of course, there are more and more men now who enjoy supermarket shopping, and men naturally like to buy things and tend to have a lot of information. But if the wife puts her foot down and says it's not necessary to choose the gourmet curry today, it makes it hard to establish a men-led consumption trend. When men gain a certain position at work or start earning a certain level of money, they feel joy in buying things that used to be a little out of their reach. That doesn't coincide with the women's tendency to be more economical and that's why I think it would be hard to bring men into the area of everyday consumption that's traditionally been the realm of the wives.
　Meanwhile, with DINKS couples, there are no kids to project your values on or prove yourself through, so there's a tendency to protect and maintain "couplehood." As a part of that, for husbands, there's status in spending money on their wives and have her look beautiful. That's an area of demand that can be stimulated. For couples with children though, they can't avoid spending money on their children's education. Lately, everyone wants to put their kids in private school, so money is needed for their entrance exam prep school or various after-school lessons. This means they literally have no money to spend on themselves, for special couple occasions. The husbands do want to do things for their wives, but, ultimately, the money ends up going to the kids.
　However, nowadays, people in their twenties have a much different sensibility than those in their thirties or forties. They want to maintain the couple aspect of their relationship even after they get married or have children. For instance, a twentysomething married couple with children can still be very straightforward about inviting their spouse to a love hotel. Such things used to be hard for couples to talk about, but with today's young couples, they can be open about it as part of a couple's event. Until about the baby-boomer junior generation, children were brought up with a sense that "boys should be boys and girls should be girls." Even in terms of consumption, there were products for men and products for women. In contrast, today's twentysomethings hardly differentiate between products for men and women.
　Another thing I want to point out is that, when the people currently in their twenties start entering a full-fledged parenting stage or begin to have elementary-school-aged children, their consumption pattern will likely be very diverse and segmented, because of difference in class or values. At the same time though, good or bad, they're a generation that can be quite matter-of-fact about things, so they don't care about what other people think as long they themselves are satisfied and they are more interested in enjoying the now. They are also very skilled at getting their parents or grandparents to buy them things, and this is why the money they spend on their kids is not necessary proportionate with their income. In that sense, I think that when the current twentysomething men start to become the majority of the father segment, there will be a big change in the consumption market.