Family badminton

2024/3/21

Fumiko is busy with her job and housework but loves going to

a community badminton circle every Tuesday.

I listened to her story from her son Yuichi. I want to share her story with you about how badminton is meaningful to her and supports her by adding balance in her life. I will share a broader view of the occupation of playing badminton in the next post.

Family badminton

Fumiko is in her sixties. She’s a hard-working woman and has a sense of responsibility.

When she was a college student, she belonged to a tennis club and enjoyed a wide circle of friends. After college she worked as a child care giver but when she married, she quit her job. She lived with her husband and his parents. After she and her husband had two sons, she was the housewife for a three generation family. Later Fumiko also started working for a factory and was busy with child care, housework and her job.

To Yuichi, her son, Fumiko seemed always busy with her job and her housework. She was always restless and irritated in her family life, just repeating a daily job-housework-sleep cycle.

One day, Yuichi invited Fumiko to join him in a community badminton circle. In her neighborhood, school gyms were open for the neighbors to play badminton every Tuesday evening. Fumiko refused Yuichi’s invitation because she was busy with her housework. But after he asked her to join playing badminton many times, she eventually went to the badminton circle with Yuichi.

Once Fumiko joined the badminton practice, she had a lot of fun with the members. She asked Yuichi if he would go again the next Tuesday and she started looking forward to going to play badminton next week and the next. In order to make her idea of going badminton easier, she made her Tuesday dinner ‘Curry day’ and used a time-saving recipe.

Yuichi was surprised to see that Fumiko was so cheerful and energetic in the circle. She had a big smile that Yuichi had never seen. To him, that was a new side of his mother. He realized that his mother was originally such a cheerful woman when she was young.

Now she goes to the badminton circle every Tuesday, taking a carbon racket Yuichi gave her.

She also joins competition games and cheers her circle members. She wears the team uniform she proposed that her teammates all make.

Although Fumiko was busy doing housework and her job for her family’s benefit, she did not have any fun recreation or relaxation time for herself. To Fumiko, playing badminton works for getting rid of stress and building her physical strength. Yuichi, her son, is glad that she has fun time with others and has time for herself by engaging in badminton. That makes a meaningful time in her daily life. And Yuichi’s also happy that he gave her encouragement to engaging in playing badminton.