Once a week, Rena Shinohara heads off to work, clocking in for a shift at a job one could say she was born to do.
Rena, 18 months, is a baby worker at a Japanese nursing home, hired to brighten the days of residents whose own grandchildren may rarely visit.
“It energizes me to see them, so this really helps me,” said Tatsuo Ojiro, 93, one of about 100 residents at the Ichoan Nursing Home in the city of Kitakyushu.
The patter of little feet around wheelchairs and walkers here is meant to ease the isolation that can come with growing older, especially in a shrinking and rapidly aging nation where a third of the population is over 65.
Also I have a 8 month old here in Korea (he is half German half Korean) and yeah I see what the sheer sight of him does to many people but especially elderly. I’m glad he can brighten their day by just existing in the same space. The only thing I really hate is when they try to touch him. I mean come on, I have no idea where your hands were before that I won’t let you touch even his clothes, but some even go for his face, that makes me furious.