Progress Report

Child Care Commons:Building the System Requirements of Alternative Relatives for Our Parenting3. Fostering Social Acceptance of Child Care Commons

Progress until FY2022

1. Outline of the project

In this research project, we will investigate various potential criticisms and opinions from the general public about the possibilities of various child-rearing environments. Furthermore, based on the results, we will propose modifications to the system and build requirements for CCC to be accepted by society in general, ultimately aiming to gain a broad understanding of the benefits of CCC and to create an atmosphere of acceptance for voluntary choice of various forms of child-rearing.

Social publics

2. Outcome so far

We created a series of texts and illustrations explaining CCC through graphic recordings of meetings held during the project to organize the concept of CCC. Along with these materials, we conducted picture surveys of existing systems related to child rearing and possible new rearing environments in the future.
As a result of these surveys, we found that some extent of agreement was to be expected regarding the importance of allowing each parent and child to self-determine the environment and parenting style that best fits their needs, as well as the current concept of CCC. On the other hand, the results suggest that many people seem to have concerns about the feasibility of allowing each family to choose its own family form and privacy protections.
Taking the survey results into account, we produced a brochure in Japanese in which we present examples of custody sharing as it has been practiced to date and our current thinking on shared parental care.

(Extracts from the leaflet)
(Extracts from the leaflet)

The leaflets are repeatedly revised based on evaluations and comments collected at closed workshops attended by non-professionals and persons actually engaged in child-rearing.

(Photographs from a workshop)
(Photographs from a workshop)

3. Future plans

A website and other information about the CCC project, based on the leaflet, will be made available to gather a wider range of responses. Based on the results, we will contribute to making proposals that will make CCC more acceptable to society in general and brushing up the requirements for building a system to support CCC. We will continue our research toward the realization of a society in which more people feel motivated to be involved in child-rearing in various ways.

(MARUYA Kazushi: NTT Communication Science Laboratories)