By: Jumana Khalil

I started to believe that the more the government offers its youth citizens, the more it will grow and flourish.

It is noticed that Japan has the world’s lowest pregnancy percentage and a high percentage of elderly people. That is, when you walk in the streets of Japan, you may meet ten elderly people and a child or two only. However, the government pays great attention to this minority. I will now talk about my motherhood experience in Japan.

I am a mother of an eight month old daughter who was born in Japan. There, every pregnant woman has a private duty nurse to monitor her psychological and emotional wellbeing. The nurse also monitors the relationship between the mother and her husband and makes sure that they offer an appropriate environment for the child. If the mother is a foreigner and doesn’t speak Japanese, the government provides her with a translator to accompany her wherever she goes.

Every child from day one is treated as a grown up psychologically, emotionally and mentally. For example, when we decided to transfer our daughter from baby daycare A to baby daycare B, the transfer was gradual so that instant transfer might cause her an emotional shock, sadness and fear from the new faces. Therefore, she spent in the new baby daycare one hour in the first day, two hours in the second and so on. This process is called in Japanese (Narashi hwuiquein).

Moreover, every child has a medical insurance that covers all his/her needs for free and an income per month.

At the end, I have high hopes that the Arab counties with a high percentage of youth will someday develop and give merit to its rich human resources.