A Father’s Story: The Big Daddy of Hirai

How They Did it – Stories for Migrants by Migrants

At an age when most men have raised their children and are already empty-nesters, Kenji Onodera, 60, still has four young children, the youngest being 3, living at home. Three of these children belong to him and his Filipina wife whose son by a previous marriage Onodera-san also considers his own and lives with them. But they are not by a long stretch his only children: Onodera-san also has two children by his first wife who is Japanese, and another two by his second, also a Filipina who in turn already had three children of her own by the time she married him. True to himself, Onodera-san welcomed them all to Japan and into his household.

Today, the children in the Onodera brood number 11. That they are one big family is a matter of great pride to the patriarch, who is referred to fondly as the Big Daddy of Hirai, where they live. All of his family members have maintained good relations with one another and from time to time, they hold family reunions wherein Onodera-san takes everyone to Disneyland or some other amusement park of their choice. Explaining his parenting philosophy, Onodera-san believes that children are innocent. It is the responsibility of the parents to raise them up properly and give them the unconditional love and understanding that they deserve. And just because a child’s biological parents have separated shouldn’t mean that he or she has to go through life with the love and support of just one parent and not the other.

Thus, Onodera-san encouraged each of his Filipina wives to bring the children they left behind in the Philippines to Japan. Another reason: The younger they came to Japan, he saw, the faster it would be for them to learn and master the Japanese language and assimilate into Japanese life. Still, Onodera-san tempers his optimism with realism: Knowing that it would not be all that easy, he has, in his own words, tried his best to stand as a real father to each of these children. He treats them all as a biological father would and takes great pains not to let it be said that he favors his own children over the others. “I treat them all equally,” he says. “When I buy a toy for my child, I see to it that the other children get something, too. And just like a real father, he also disciplines them, saying that he can be very strict: “When I see a need to discipline or scold them, whether he or she is my own child or not, I do it because I know it will be for their own good. But I always make sure to show each and every one of them that to me, they are all my children.” The three children of Onodera-san’s second wife from her previous husband are now all grown up, with a job of their own. But, Onodera-san says, again with more than a touch of fatherly pride, “they still come to visit and treat my new family of four children just like their own siblings.”

Onodera-sans says that he understands the difficult position of the mother as well, so he does his part as a husband not to make his wife feel that she is imposing on him. “I tell her that I love her so it follows that I also love her own children.” Onodera-san is one who walks his talk: He spends a lot of time with the children, encouraging them to learn Japanese because by doing so, they will be able to succeed in their studies and make friends more easily, and have better chances for the future, something which he thinks is most important. Onodera-san realizes that not all Japanese fathers feel the same way he does toward their children, but hopes that just like him, more and more fathers would open their hearts up to them and reap the rewards of doing so.