Enlisting ‘Baby Workers’ At a Nursing Home
TOKYO — Cooing, giggling and the patter of tiny feet mix with the sound of walkers and wheelchairs at a nursing home in southern Japan. In this graying nation, one home has been recruiting an unusual class of workers to enliven its residents’ days.
These are “baby workers,” as the head of the nursing home calls them: 32 children so far, all under 4 years old, who spend time with its residents, who are mostly in their 80s. Residents interact with the young helpers. The babies, accompanied by their parents or guardians, offer the residents hugs.
The visitors’ reward? Diapers, baby formula, free baby photo shoots and coupons for a nearby cafe.
The facility, Ichoan Nursing Home, is in Kitakyushu, a city of 940,000 that is aging and shrinking like the rest of Japan. As families have become smaller and older people more isolated, the nursing home’s baby worker program has helped generations connect.
“I don’t get to see my grandkids very often, so the baby workers are a great treat,” said Kyoko Nakano, 85. While she enjoys knitting and watching TV, she said she drops everything to spend time with the babies and toddlers. “They are just so cute, and they make the whole place brighter,” Ms. Nakano said.
As Japan’s population has aged, the use of nursing homes has grown rapidly. The number in such homes more than doubled, to 1.8 million, between 2005 and 2020. Life can be lonely and dull there, but at Ichoan Nursing Home, residents said that the babies brought energy.
Studies have linked social interaction with less loneliness, delayed mental decline, lower blood pressure and reduced risk of disease and death. Socializing across generations has also been shown to draw older people out, making them smile and talk more. For children, these interactions have been shown to enhance social development.
Kimie Gondo, 58, the nursing home’s director, said she was inspired to start the program last year when she took her newborn granddaughter with her to work and saw how the residents played with her.
Expectations are loose for the little visitors. “Nothing is mandatory,” Ms. Gondo said.
Parents said that the nursing home gave their children a rare opportunity to socialize safely at a time when Covid risks have kept families cooped up. They said they trust that the nursing home has taken proper precautions to protect its residents.
One mother, Mika Shintani, 31, said she signed her daughter up because she wanted her to encounter people beyond her immediate family. “My daughter was spending the majority of her days only interacting with me,” she said, “so I thought seeing other faces would be good for her.”
Ms. Gondo said she had not yet seen a father accompanying a baby at Ichoan. Men in Japan do fewer household chores and child care than in any of the wealthiest nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found.
On her daughter’s first day, Ms. Shintani said, she was 5 months old and cried when she arrived. But she quickly warmed up to the residents.
The perks of the program are not just the tangible ones, like diapers, she said: “On the days my daughter is hard at work, I don’t have to cook lunch!”