Daycare

Hello, everyone! Today there weren't as many guests visiting the cafe as usual, but it wasn't so bad. I like it when there's lots of people there so that we can get lots of different opinions and conversation topics, but it's also a good time when there are few people. That's because we can have more in-depth conversations in English.

One of our main topics today was after-school childcare. I think that we often talk about education and children because I'm a junior high school teacher, and many of our guests are parents or grandparents. I think it's an interesting topic because there are some big differences between Japan and the U.S.A. For example, although latchkey kids are not rare or unusual in both Japan and the U.S., American kids rarely go to school or come home from school by themselves. In my case, I lived about 20 minutes on foot away from my elementary school, so I did actually walk home after school by myself. How about you?

One interesting thing I learned was that just like in the U.S., Japanese after-school daycare centers are also expensive. It was my impression that there were lots of daycare centers and that they must be cheaper than in my home country, but I was wrong... It must be difficult for parents in both countries (if they both have to work) to afford a daycare center.

We would love to hear your opinions about after-school daycare centers in Japan! Do you use it? If you are thinking of choosing a daycare center, what is most important to you? Please let us know in the comments below, or visit us between Thursday-Saturday.

Here are some of the vocabulary and phrases that we used during today's free talk (please feel free to use them!):

It's not what it looks like! : This phrase is useful to say that you want to avoid a misunderstanding of what they see; It seems like it's this way, but it's actually different. It's a little bit difficult to explain, but please watch this video on YouTube to understand a good situation when to use this phrase: It's not what it looks like!

latchkey kids : Latchkey kids are children who go home to an empty house after school. Usually their parents (or single parent) is at work, so the child has to stay home alone for a few hours.

child neglect : This is a term that describes a situation where the parent or guardian ignores or doesn't take care of a child to the point that the child is in danger of harm. It's too bad that there is child neglect in the world!

Thanks for reading our blog today. See you later!