Confessions

by Kanae Minato

I wonder whether the real problem isn’t the names themselves, the whole idea of giving titles to children who stop going to school or looking for work. I believe we find our sense of stability, our place in life, by participating in society, by coming to belong somewhere and taking on the title of that position—mother, teacher, doctor. Not belonging anywhere, not having a title of some sort, means, in effect, that you’re not really a member of society. So it seems to me that most normal people, if they found themselves in that situation—without a position or title—would feel terrible anxiety and do everything they could to secure a place in the world as quickly as they could. But the moment you start calling those young people by those names—hikikomori, NEET, or whatever—those names become their titles, their sense of belonging.