Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (37 page)

Usually the mother stays at home, or, if she goes out, she takes the child with her. If some difficulty should arise while the mother is out, the mother is blamed for leaving, and she probably would not go out again for a long time. The reaction of many Mamachi mothers upon hearing that American children are often left with baby sitters was to ask if the children would not be lonely, clearly implying that if their child was lonely or cried, they would not leave him.

Even within the home, the child is likely to be within his mother's view. Most mothers do not use cribs and while play pens or
beebi saakuru
(baby circles) are sometimes found in upper-class or independent professional homes, they are still virtually unknown among Mamachi salary men. Because of the dangers of bumping against the
hibachi
or of falling off the porch next to the sliding glass doors, the mother generally works close to a small child if she is not carrying him on her back.

It is assumed that the child will naturally want to be close to his mother and will be afraid to be alone. The mother deals with such fears not by assuring the child that there is nothing to be afraid of, but by remaining with him. The implicit attitude seems to be that the mother agrees that the outside is frightening, but that while she is there she will protect the child against all outside dangers. The mother's attitude that one must be careful in the presence of strangers is also communicated to the child well before nursery-school age. All three-year-old children known about
o-bake
(ghosts) and often playfully threaten each other acting as if they were the ghosts. Sometimes an adult, with fingers outstretched, jokingly menaces a child saying
o-bake
. If the child then becomes frightened and cries, the adult cuddles the child, promising to protect him from the ghosts. Many children who have heard stories of ghosts in the hole under the toilet ask their mothers to accompany them to the toilet even when they are old enough to manage the basic functions themselves.

Even though the mother is not consciously aware of using such techniques, her attitudes and approach tend to arouse in the child a fear of making independent decisions and to create anxiety about being isolated from family or friends. One mother, for example, had explained to her daughter that she could choose her own grade school if she were fully prepared to pay the consequences. The con-

sequence was that when the girl later wanted to change schools between junior and senior high school, the mother reminded the daughter that she herself had chosen the school and therefore would have to stay there. The moral was clear: it is risky to make decisions on one's own.
^[5]
The threat to isolate a child can be illustrated by an explanation of a school principal. He said that on a school trip which he supervised, the children were remarkably well-behaved because he had warned them before that any child who misbehaved would be left at the destination by himself until his parents would come and get him. The combination of provoking anxiety about the outside and rewarding intimacy serves to keep the child dependent on his mother.

The process of encouraging this dependency begins in earliest infancy. While the American baby who cries learns that at times he himself must deal with his internal tensions, the Japanese infant learns that whatever tensions he has will be relieved by the nearby mother who offers physical comfort and, at a later age, candy or some other sweet.
^[6]
It is not surprising that so many children are so anxious about the mother's leaving and that so many mothers are frightened of the child's reaction if they were to go out and leave the child with someone else.

While curious, the Mamachi child is frightened of the strange outside world. We never heard of a child talking about running away from home, and the Mamachi mother has little worry about a child not sticking close by in public. While in America one sees mothers chasing down the street after a child, in Mamachi one is more apt to see a child frantically chasing after a mother who is encouraging her child to hurry by running slightly ahead. We have never heard of a mother punishing a child by forbidding him to go

[5] Mary Ellen Goodman reports that Japanese children are more responsive to adults' wishes and less determined in making up their own minds about what they wish to be when they grow up. Mary Ellen Goodman, "Values, Attitudes and Social Concepts of Japanese and American Children,"
American Anthropologist,
1957, 59:979–999.

[6] In a questionnaire gathered from 92 Tokyo mothers, 85 percent reported giving food between meals as a reward for good behavior. Damaris Pease, "Some Child Rearing Practices in Japanese Families," Journal Paper No. J-3872, Iowa Agricultural and Home Economics Station, Ames, Iowa.

outside,
^[7]
but we have on several occasions heard children frantically yelling for their mother because they had been placed out of the house and not permitted to come in again until they repented their misbehavior.

Even joking can lead to effective results. One mother suggested to her daughter that she might be able to go to America with the interviewers when they returned home. Although the daughter protested, the mother began teasing more, pointing out how wonderful America was, what a good experience it would be, how proud she could be, all of which served to make the child cling even more closely to the mother.

The Mamachi child is usually polite in public or in new situations and is slow in adjusting to outsiders, including school friends and teachers. He is likely to be reserved to his teacher, and some children who are noisy at home are quiet and reserved in school. Indeed, this pattern is so common as to be known as
uchi benkei
(a child as ferocious as the warrior Benkei at home, but as gentle as a lamb elsewhere). But once children have been thoroughly accepted into the new group they can display the same noisy playful behavior as at home.

There is a continuity and compatibility between the child's dependence on his immediate family and the dependence which he later feels toward his school and work groups. Compared to the American firm, where the man is expected to make decisions within the scope of his position, the Mamachi salary man is expected to go along automatically with the group, and often he is not even aware of any decision-making process.
^[8]
Most Mamachi residents would prefer to have things already arranged for them
o-zen date
(literally, the tray already arranged with food on it) rather than to carve out their own situations. For instance, the Japanese concept of hospitality is to have everything arranged ahead of time, including lodging, food, transportation, and detailed itinerary, rather than waiting to consult with the guest.

In Mamachi, as in communities in other societies, children grad-

[7] Even the punishment of locking the child in the closet (
oshiire
) which is used occasionally has the feeling of shutting the child off from the rest of the family.

[8] More joint discussion and approval is required than in American firms. Cf. Kazuo Noda's discussion of
ringi seidoo
in "Traditionalism in Japanese Management" (mimeographed).

ually become more independent. But whereas in the United States the push seems to come from the child himself, in Mamachi the push often comes from the mother. Many mothers of Mamachi, while implicitly encouraging their children to be dependent, complain about their difficulty in getting their children to be independent and feel it necessary to give them an occasional shove so they will do things on their own. In contrast, many American mothers who complain that their children are too independent implicitly encourage independence by making it sound so attractive and by accepting it as natural that the child would want to revolt and become more independent.

In the United States, many children and even adults who have strong ties to their parents, try to act brave, strong, and independent because it is considered so child-like to admit one's feelings of dependency. In Mamachi, in contrast, feelings of dependency are accepted as much more natural, and while some children resent being tied to their parents, they generally do not have to strain to prove that they are independent even when they are not.

Although this pattern of mutual dependency between mother and child remains strong in Mamachi, even through adolescence, there is a feeling that the new way, while not yet clearly defined, is toward having less dependence. Mamachi mothers, who had an opportunity to hear about American child-rearing practices and to see American children during our period of research, agreed that their children were more dependent, yet many were displeased when we first explained that American children were usually more independent. This displeasure in part seems to reflect their belief that keeping children close is gratifying for the mothers, but that allowing more independence is better for the child. Many recent advice columns have encouraged mothers not to be selfish in wanting to keep the children so dependent on them. Many mothers, who reported how long they nursed the baby or took baths or slept with him, added that they were bad to take so long or that they continued these practices so long only because their child was unusually lonely, delicate, or prone to catch colds.

At the time of adolescence, the mother's problem is especially complicated. Most Mamachi mothers feel that their children, especially their daughters, do not have the range of experience nor the soundness of judgment to make wise decisions about marriage and

employment. Yet it is not entirely clear how much responsibility the mother will have for making the decisions and how much the child will demand to make the decisions on his own. Commonly the child decides at an early age that he wishes to make his own decisions, yet continues to lean on his mother for assistance even though resisting many of her suggestions. The mother's task is further complicated by the fact that she does not sufficiently understand the child's outside world to be confident of her ability to offer the right kind of assistance. In traditional rural communities, where the range of social relationships was narrower, it was easier for the mother to assist her child. True, she might not have been able to find as good an opening, but the limited range of possibilities available to her for exploration made her task simpler. The suburban wife now has so many possibilities open to her which she cannot possibly explore that she can never feel that she has completed her task. The situation is so complex, the amount of potentially relevant information virtually unlimited, the mother's feeling of responsibility so strong, and the child's ambivalence about getting parental advice so taxing that many openly envy Western countries where children have sufficient experience at a younger age to make decisions themselves. It is only through narrowing down her range of possibilities through conversation with friends and the cultivation of her child's co-operation that she can hope to achieve her task.

Perhaps some of the difficulty a mother has in planning her children's marriage, especially that of the youngest, is the result of her ambivalence about concluding an arrangement whose success means that she will then be deprived of her role as mother. The problem of the empty nest is crucial for mothers in any society, but in Mamachi where the pattern of elderly parents living apart from all married children is relatively new and the mother-child relationship is so intense, the departure of children necessitates the most painful adjustment that most women will have to make in their lifetimes. Having devoted their lives so completely to their children, many have no interests which can really take their place. Golden-age clubs are virtually unknown, and going to a
yoorooin
(old people's home) seems as bad to old people as being sent to an orphanage would seem to children.

Many are never required to separate completely but are able to live within the same neighborhood, and often even next door, and

this appears to be the most ideal solution. For a mother who has devoted her entire life to her home and children, living apart seems sad. The Mamachis residents' deepest criticism of the American family is that young married couples are heartless in letting old people live by themselves. Japanese young couples are more apt to keep closer to their parents, but even being made aware that they are an economic burden or feeling relatively neglected by the children is often a crushing blow to parents. A large number of elderly ladies lived with and served their mothers-in-law when they were young and feel that it is a bitter fate that they now have to live alone without the attention from their children.

Such is the price that the salary-man's wife must pay for the pleasure of devoting herself to her children and for enjoying the freedom of living only in a nuclear family when at a younger age. The workings of the Japanese social structure make the tie between her and her child even more intense and more exclusive than the mother-child tie in most societies. When children are small this creates no serious problem. When children leave home, some speak nostalgically of their romanticized view of the earlier times when old people were happily welcomed into the family, when they were not treated as a burden, and when the younger couple followed the wishes of the elders without hesitation. Yet they know that times have changed and that their own attitudes have changed with the times.

The mother's relationship with her children varies according to their birth order as well as according to their age. Everyone calls oldest children
Niisan
(older brother) or
Neesan
(older sister), but younger boys and girls are usually called by their first name or by some nickname. When a mother thinks her child is acting babyish, she does not tell him to "act his age," but to "act like a
Niisan
." Older children often are given the responsibilities of looking after younger children, and when older children reach adolescence, the mother is likely to consult with them about plans for the younger children since the older children know more about the outside world. If the father spends little time at home, the mother may