Anyone vaguely aware of the existence of a world outside of their own shitty little backwater town is likely to know that Japanese people are inordinately obsessed with the concept of cuteness. Hello Kitty is probably the most widely-known iconic example of this affixiation, however, from ridiculous outfits for dogs to colorful comics graphically depicting the symptoms of colon cancer to hentai rape videos, absolutely nothing in Japan is safe from “cuteification.”

Just as one would expect, this obsession extends to children as well, and these tiny versions of people are one of the hottest commodities in the cuteness market. However, this can lead to unusual and even dangerous general attitudes towards children. For some, children are just another fashionable accessory; an object of the most extreme level of cuteness, which can be decorated and posed to the parents’ (read: owners’) liking. The realities of raising a child are often not considered when the decision to have a child is made (assuming there is any kind of decision-making process in the first place), occasionally resulting in tragic consequences.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I have seen kids wandering around crowded public places wailing for their parents who are nowhere to be found; kids being left in locked cars in parking lots while their parents play pachinko; and kids jumping around in the front seats of moving vehicles while their mothers pay more attention to the conversations they are having on their cell phones than the road ahead.

Of course, things like this happen in every other country as well, but for some reason offenses seem especially flagrant in Japan. Take for example the following seemingly innocent photo, which I stumbled upon on the site of the owner of a liquor store in Ibaraki:

Sure, it’s kind of a funny picture, but who in their right mind would place their infant child on the back of a live swan?! One of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood was the time that I was chased and pecked at by one of those things at my neighborhood park when I was about three years old. I would never put a child of my own anywhere near one of those filthy beasts.

But somehow I doubt the notion of any such risks passed through the minds of the parents when they plopped their first-born baby on the back of a live and potentially dangerous creature floating in a filthy pond. Nope, to them it was probably just too kawaii a pose to pass up.