Why I'll Never Be a Good Japanese Mom # I'velostcount

An essay, in pictures:

How many insanely small droppers full of tonkatsu sauce does it take to fill one of these ridiculously miniature truck-shaped holders? I don't know. But, the guantlet, it has been thrown, so I'm about to find out.

The answer is 12. Twelve droppers full. I'm pretty sure that if I was a Japanese mom, each drop would contain a little piece of my heart and overflow with love for my children. But, love? Love was not what I had in my heart when I undertook this particular exercise. #whyi'mabadjapanesemom

Goodbye little truck. May you inadvertently be disposed of with the trash.

Why I'm a Bad Mom (the Japanese Version)

(This is a post I wrote when we lived in Japan--Looking at it now makes me feel less guilty about all the ways I goof up on a daily basis!)

I once saw an article in Time magazine (online) that said there are 2.6 million stay-at-home moms (versus 159,000 SAH dads) in the US. I am sure the numbers of SAHMs are much higher in Japan. In fact, I guess I am one of the very few "working" moms at Sky's preschool. I have heard horror stories about the pressure put on moms once their kids start school here, so we approached our son's preschool experience with a relaxed attitude (reason #1 I am a bad mom). Before he started we got a guide for preparing for preschool entrance. Fifteen pages long, it outlined all that we needed to know (= needed to do) before he started. Being a Catholic school, it started with a list of useful prayers that we could teach him. Then it reminded us to make sure our child always responds cheerfully when his name is called and gave us advice on how to prepare him (mentally) for starting school. All of this information was helpful enough.

(kids in their summer smocks enjoying story time with their teacher)

Then, about page 6, guide started to outline what we would need to make/buy for him before he started, clearly separating items into what we should buy and what we should make. The list of things to make included: a picture book bag (29 cm X 38 cm), a bag for his gym clothes (20 cm X 30 cm), bags for his tea cup, his plate, his luchbox, and his shoes, a placemat (20 cm X 27 cm),elastic bands for his crayon box and his lunch box, and an emergency cushion cover. These are to be made of double-layered quilted material (usually with a different design for front and back). We bought or borrowed all of these things, using the valid excuse that our sewing machine was in America(reasons #2-11 that I am a bad mom). Then came the list of things into which we are supposed to sew his name (not write it, sew it--in Japanese of course). We paid to have the most necessary one done, but for everything else, we used a permanent marker--oh the nerve of us! (reason #12 I am a bad mom). Lest I not feel adequately guilty about all this, one day when we took the kids to the doctor, we ran into another little boy from school. On his way out of the doctor's office, he held up his picture book bag and proudly said, "My MOMMY made this!"

Then there are the lunches. Sky's school only requires the kids to bring lunch twice a week. Forget the fact we had to spend about $30 on the separate lunch boxes for summer and winter (the winter one is aluminum so they can put it in the lunchbox heater). Some moms have been known to go overboard　(check out this link, if you don't believe me!), and there is no shortage of books (or websites) telling you how to make the perfect boxed lunch. I think I do okay on this front. My son's lunches are healthy and full of variety and he seems to be pretty excited about them. I haven't seen many of the other kids' lunches (since I haven't been for an observation yet, reason #13), so I can't be sure how guilty I should feel.

(Here's one I made.)

Of course, nothing makes up for reason #14 (well, really, reason #1) that I am a bad mom. I don't stay home. Of course, we all know that every mom working inside the house or out loves her kids, but it is an interesting experience to be in a country where handmaking a kid's book bag is meant to be an expression of love that will make him feel proud and independent! I think I've incurred enough guilt for a lifetime!

(Here's a post I wrote about finally figuring out Japanese preschool, kinda...)

Top 10 Signs You'll Never Be a Japanese Housewife

10. You can't sew. Therefore, you can't make all of the fancy-schmancy things for school like the lunch box bag, the tea cup bag, the shoe bag, the book bag, the PE uniform bag, the luncheon mat, the sweet little book marks, and the notebook covers. You also can't turn your son's smock into a work of art inspired by Monet. Why? Because you can't sew.

9. You think your kids will probably survive just fine, even if you don't make them gargle with iodine every single day.

8. You don't feel compelled to make cute animals out of the various foods you put in your son's lunch. Rabbit apple slices. Lion mini sausages. Hello Kitty carrots. You can live without creating these things.

7. You think your kids will do okay in kindergarten despite the fact you don't take them to after-school lessons in math, calligraphy, and English (ha! at least you've got them all beat on the English thing!)

6. During the long weeks of the rainy season, you've been known to take your laundry to the laundry mat to dry it.

5. You're pretty sure your husband can get his own beer/tea/coffee, and you're not afraid to make him try.

4. You don't think of an apron as an everyday article of clothing. In fact, you don't feel at all self-conscious doing all sorts of work inside and outside the home without one on.

3. You microwave at least some part of some meal once a day.

2. You don't think the occasional carbonated drink will melt your kids' bones and put them on the path to delinquency.

1. You're not Japanese.




(I should add here my usual disclaimer about how all people are different and how stereotypes sometimes--and in this case, definitely--make for better blog entries.)

Japanese Housewife Handbook: How to Be a Kyoiku Mama

There are two exceedingly important roles in the family that seem to be assigned to every Japanese housewife. The first is manager of family finances and the second is kyoiku mama (or "education mom," which is a totally lame, but linguistically accurate translation of the term). As an independent, working woman, I did not feel any particular need to take on these two vital roles, but they were thrust upon me just the same.

By the end of our honeymoon, I decided that the "holder of the purse string" role was actually pretty vital for the survival of our family. After all, Ren has trouble keeping track of his wallet, literally, not figuratively. The first time he visited me in the US, he dropped his wallet on the airplane. Fortunately, he realized it was missing before we caught our connecting flight, and the wallet which included his passport and various forms of ID was found and returned to us. But there was no cash inside, and there were incriminating traces of barbeque sauce on the outside. On our honeymoon.... Even now, more than ten years later, it's difficult for me to discuss.... Let's just say he fed the fish in Hanauma Bay enough money to sustain them for several generations.

These days, he's only allowed to carry minuscule amounts of cash.

When Ren and I married, Big Sissy was in her second year of junior high school (a.k.a. 8th grade), or just over a year away from her high school entrance exams. Sissy went to an "academic" junior high, so preparations for entrance exams was intense. In fact, the entire school completed the three-year curriculum in two years so the final year could be spent on review and exam prep. The eighth-grade year was spent focusing on studies and preparing for the all-city kendo tournament (for which I was asked to wear an apron, see previous post) held in the early summer of the ninth-grade year. Students participated heavily in the sport of their choice (only one!) for the first two years of junior high school, only to stop completely during the summer vacation of the ninth-grade year to focus on exam prep.

Most kids were already going to cram school by this time. In fact, most had been going to cram school for a long, long time by the time they got to the summer of their ninth-grade year. Not Big Sissy, though. We knew that unless she showed initiative regarding preparation for exams, no amount of money paid to a cram school would do any good. So we waited (and waited) for her to make the first move.

Some parents would view this as extremely risky behavior. After all, how could she possibly know what was best for her? Weren't we sabotaging her chances at getting into the best school by not forcing her to go to cram school? Of course, we knew a few things about our kid that others didn't. First, she was smart enough to get into just about any school she wanted (whether her class performance indicated as much or not). Second, money spent on things she didn't want to do was always wasted money. And third, she'd eventually come around. As far as I can tell, our waiting paid off. She finally decided she wanted to go to cram school the August before her exams the following January and March. This meant we only had to pay for less than 8 months of cram school. It also meant that she was just panicked enough to study hard, putting our money to good use.

Once summer came, however, life became no fun for anyone. For Sissy, regular school was followed by cram school three days a week, and her life began to be filled with one diagnostic practice test after another. It seems like we were going in for student-parent-teacher or parent-teacher conferences once every couple of weeks. Every practice test result came home with a class ranking. Since she went to the best school in our area, we knew that approximately half of the kids in her class would get into the best high school.

Sissy didn't really seem to care too strongly which high school she got into, but since her friends were vying for the best high school, she decided she might as well do the same. And since her "motivation" was external, and not especially strong at that, for the first few months of "serious" study, she was not so serious, and her practice test results reflected this. Just about every test she brought home showed her ranked in the very middle of her class, one or two spots above or below the magic cut-off line. And every meeting with her homeroom teacher went about the same way--"Well, she might get in, but then again, she might not..." You can see why this was a particularly frustrating process for us.

Eventually, Ren and I decided to level with Sissy. "Look," we told her, "Maybe you're not cut out for the best high school. To get in, you have to work a lot harder than you are now. Maybe you should shoot for number two." And like just about every adolescent on the face of the earth, that was all it took for her to defy us and work hard enough to get into the best school. I kid you not, from that day on, every practice test score came back with her ranked in the top five. Top five!

What no one tells you is that when your kid is preparing for high school entrance exams, the whole family is preparing for them. You can hardly tell your test taker to study hard while you run off to the movie or the mall. So, for the entire eight months that Big Sissy got serious about studying, we went nowhere and did nothing. We all watched from a distance as she doodled and fell asleep over her textbooks and fought to get through the material before her. And suddenly, the whole family became acutely aware of Sissy's sleeping and eating habits. After all, if she didn't eat and sleep well, she might get sick, and if she got sick, she would not be able to study. It was no fun for anyone.

The morning of the first exam for her back-up choice, a local private school, arrived, and Sissy woke up sick. She'd fallen asleep under the kotatsu (a small heated table with a blanket over it--everyone knows sleeping under them makes you sick!). The morning would've been comic if it wasn't so tragic. "How could you fall asleep under the kotatsu after all those months of studying?!?" we implored half-angry, half-panicked before sending her off to take the test anyway. She passed.

Then six weeks later, it was time for the real deal, the entrance exam for local public schools. All kids take the same public school test, but they can only choose one school to receive their scores (hence the endless discussions with her teacher about which public school she would shoot for). As planned, Sissy tested for the best school in the region (and fortunately, she wasn't sick the day of the exam).

Two days later, the results were posted on huge pieces of paper taped to the side of the high school's gym. Sissy went alone (though Ba-chan and I sneaked out separately and spied on her) to see if her exam number made the list. Number 583. It was there! She'd done it.

That night, we invited her aunts, uncles and cousins to dinner and celebrated her accomplishment. The next morning, she dressed in her junior high school uniform and we proudly accompanied her to her new school. Where we sat in a gym full of new students and their parents and listened for two hours as each teacher stood up, congratulated them on their achievement, and then proceeded to tell them that life was about to get much more hellish than any entrance-exam hell they could imagine. After that, each and every teacher gave them a homework assignment to do over the summer--homework assignments that generally covered the first third of each of the newly received textbooks they held on their laps, homework assignments that were ludicrously long and insanely detailed in terms of how they were to be executed.

Sitting in that gym, thinking about three more years of exam-like hell literally made me cry. It wasn't over, it was just beginning.

Japanese Housewife Handbook: The Gender Divide

My first encounter with gender stereotypes in Japan came during my first month there, when I was forced to sit at my desk at the BOE for 8 hours a day every day (see my Learning to Drive entries for more on this). Since the highlight of my endless days at the BOE was trying to figure out what to order from the local restaurant for lunch, I was desperate for anything to keep me busy. After all, there was only so much journal writing and Japanese studying a person could do in any given 8-hour period. In a last ditch effort to keep myself from going crazy, I asked Sawako (the OL who spoke English and whose desk was next to mine) if there was anything I could do to help her.

"Yes," she told me and led me to the small kitchen area. Then she proceeded to introduce me to the various tea cups that were in the drying rack there. "This one is for Nishmura-kacho. And this one is for Ono-kakaricho..." she told me, working her way through the office in order of rank. Only then did it dawn on me that we were going to be serving tea. With no way out, I politely listened as she explained first the cups and then the proper method to making tea. I quietly followed her as she passed out the freshly-prepared cups to each of our colleagues. And when everything was done and we were back at our desks, I leaned over and said, "Thank you for showing me that. I will never do it again, though, since I am pretty sure those men can get tea for themselves."

The longer I lived in Japan, the less sensitive I was to these gendered expectations. Perhaps the biggest reason for the change was the fact that most of the women I knew, women who worked full-time and took care of families on top of that, seemed to carry out these menial tasks with a hearty dose of cynicism. Many of them voiced, in one way or another, the idea that even though the men around them tended to hold positions of power, most of those men were hopelessly incapable of taking care of themselves. In other words, these women saw themselves as ruling from behind the scenes and believed they were giving up positions of power for the sake of the greater good. This type of thinking was just subversive enough for me to accept.

Ren conforms to gender stereotypes about as much as I do. When his younger sister got married, he acted as the family head in place of his deceased father. Ren is one of the many Asian people who lack the enzyme necessary for his liver to process alcohol. Ever notice an Asian friend turn bright red after a couple of sips of beer? This is because they lack the same enzyme, so any alcohol that they consume essentially poisons them. (Amazing what one can learn by teaching English to doctors who specialize in diseases of the liver...) Anyway, one of the things a family head at a wedding has to do is go to each and every table and offer drinks to the guests. Since drinking in Japan is reciprocal--you serve him a glass, and then he serves you a glass and everyone drinks up to indicate camaraderie--not drinking a glass that has been served to you is essentially not an option, and sharing drinks with the more than 100 guests while lacking the enzyme to process alcohol, is also not really an option. So, Ren's solution was to have me tag along. Dressed in a fancy kimono, I stood behind him and drank two out of every three glasses offered to him. After all, I not only have the needed enzyme, but I'm also of German descent.

Another time, Big Sissy's junior high was hosting the city-wide kendo tournament. All the moms were called into action and had to serve not only as score keepers and snack/tea providers, but also as parking lot attendants, telling people where and how to park their cars. I was relieved to be assigned a position in the parking lot--after all, it would save me from tea pouring. One of the requirements for all of the moms, even the ones working the parking lot? We had to wear aprons. Aprons! What makes you think I own an apron? And, I'll be damned if I am going to go out and buy one just so I can direct traffic in a junior high school parking lot! When the day in question arrived, I showed up in my track suit and a baseball cap. Take that you apron-wearing moms!

There were a couple of times when I just couldn't quite buck the system. The one I remember most vividly was at the wake of one of Ren's distant relatives, held in an old farmhouse up in the mountains. It's morbid to say that I looked forward to the wake, but I did. It was something I hadn't seen before, and I imagined it would be a good learning experience. Unfortunately, as soon as we walked into the house, Ren was ushered into the front room where the wake was being held--a room full of mostly men drinking tea and eating snacks, and I was taken into a small room off the kitchen where I was forced to prepare tea continuously for about two hours, which is about how long it took Ren to figure out I had been kidnapped. Ironically, I couldn't and still can't make a good cup of green tea (most likely an overreaction to the first time I was asked to make it back at the BOE), so I was relegated to pouring it. Apparently, I didn't even do that well. About 15 minutes into my two-hour tea pouring hell, a relative I had never met chastised me four pouring. the. tea. with. my. left. hand! What can I say, I'm ambidextrous, but given there were about 10 of us in a space no larger than a pantry, left-handed serving was easier. Nothing annoys me quite like being forced to serve tea and then being told exactly how I have to do it, but after incurring the wrath of a bunch of old women I hardly knew, I had no choice but to serve the tea right handed.

I'd like to say these gender issues only happen in Japan. We all know that's not true, though. I'm married to a stay-at-home Japanese dad. I hold a full-time job while raising children and breastfeeding. People are shocked to learn that Ren gets up at night to change the baby's diaper before handing him off to me (and not just on the weekends). At parent-teacher conferences, it's assumed I will be the parent who attends, but if I don't have my husband with me, sometimes I'm not heard. As far as I can see, things haven't improved all that much since third grade Y basketball when none of the boys would pass the ball to me. The only way I could score a point was to steal it from someone on the other team and drive, drive, drive to the basket. Japan or the US, it seems like I've been driving ever since.

My Secret Life as a Japanese Housewife

I was the only girl on my 3rd grade Y-basketball team. Throughout my elementary school years, I spent hours at the Y practicing my shot and could beat just about any boy who challenged me to a game of one-on-one, no matter how old he was. I've lost more than a few boyfriends and potential boyfriends by beating them in a number of different sports.

Before I moved to Japan to teach English, friends and family members joked about my finding a Japanese husband. I couldn't think of a more absurd scenario. Super-independent and stubborn me falling for an old-fashioned, chauvinistic Japanese man? Never! Well, we all know how that turned out. It's also probably obvious by now that Ren is no more a "typical" Japanese man than I am a "typical" American woman. Also, stereotypes are usually wrong and never useful. Still, my fierce competitiveness (along with a number of other "un-ladylike traits") made me a less-than-ideal candidate for becoming a Japanese housewife.

Despite my best intentions, however, I spent more than two years of my life in that role. Like many Japanese housewives, I had a Japanese husband, a kid, and a part-time job. Unlike them, I'm not Japanese, my kid was a step-kid and my job was teaching at a national university, but I suppose I fit the role just the same. Before I married Ren, several of my Japanese friends warned me against becoming the wife of the oldest son. The role of daughter-in-law is never an easy one, made much worse when living with one's in-laws. And as the wife to the oldest son in a family from somewhat rural Japan, I had the distinct pleasure of living with my mother-in-law after Ren and I married.

When we dated and talked about getting married, Ren was anything but the typical Japanese man. He cooked, he cleaned, he shopped. He expected me to be and do who and what I wanted. Unfortunately, one man's expectations can't hold up to an entire culture's. First of all, Ren's mother did not want Ren in the kitchen. That was my job. The hardest part of married life for me was cooking. As a single person, I "cooked" but this usually entailed boiling pasta, melting cheese on tortilla chips, or making berry smoothies--hardly food I could serve to my new Japanese insta-family. After all, I went from being single to living with not only Ren but also Ren's daughter Big Sissy and Ren's mom, Ba-chan.

Worse. Breakfast in Japan cannot merely be cereal, a banana and some yogurt. No, there is usually miso soup, rice, and some kind of fish involved. "Western" breakfast invariably include fried eggs, toast and a salad. For someone who could barely manage pouring cereal in a bowl that early in the morning, the breakfast expectations seemed unbelievably high. While making breakfast, I was also expected to make boxed lunches (bento) for Ren, Big Sissy and I as well as dinner for Ren who usually worked well past dinner time. Given that I was the kid who never ate breakfast because I couldn't stand the sight of food before say, 9 a.m., this was not easy.

Mornings were made more challenging by the fact that Ba-chan threw down the gauntlet regarding wake up time. If I got up at 7, she got up at 6:30. If I got up at 6:30, she got up at 6. If I got up at 6, well..., you can figure it out. Not one to back down from a challenge, I would peel myself out of the futon at 5:30 and before even opening my eyes, I could get the rice washed and cooked, start a pot of soup, and finish making half of the bentos. By the time everyone was up at 7, I had everything cooked and on the table, the laundry in the washing machine and the futons shaken and stored in the closet.

I wish I could say that I learned something enlightening from being a Japanese housewife for two+ years, but mainly I just got very, very annoyed. I decided that women in Japan have to work a lot harder than women in the US. Not just with cooking, but with shopping--since refrigerators are smaller and food fresher, most women shop every day or at least several times a week. Since Japanese houses are more permeable to the outside, most women dust and vacuum daily. Since washing machines are smaller and fill up sooner, daily loads of laundry have to be hung out in the sun (most families do not have dryers). Sleeping on futons means that bedding has to be shaken out and folded up every morning and aired out at least once a week. When I was a Japanese housewife, there was an insane amount of work each and every day. It helped to have a husband who vacuumed, a job I could go to, and a sense of humor, and most of all, it helped that we finally left Japan for the US.

My time as a Japanese housewife mostly taught me about the sacrifices we make for each other when we get married, sacrifices that seem more extreme when the marriage is an international one. Ren has sacrificed as much or more since we came to the US. Knowing how hard it was for me in Japan, my sense of gratitude for his sacrifices is tempered by a sense of guilt since I have a good idea of what he is going through.

*****


NOTE: I should probably note that these stereotypes regarding the roles of men and women are much more entrenched in rural Japan than they are, say, in Tokyo, and of course, there are exceptions to these stereotypes just about anywhere. Sometimes sweeping generalizations make for more interesting blog posts, though...

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Mommy Training

When Sky was in Japanese preschool, I had to remember to do a lot.

On Monday, he needed to be sent to school with freshly washed and perfectly folded art smock, luncheon mat, a sparkling clean tea cup, and small towel for drying his hands (rolled up just so and placed inside of the tea cup which was then placed in its own special bag). He also needed to take his hand-washed shoes in his spanking clean shoe bag, his book bag, his back pack, his colored hat, and his gym clothes (also washed, folded, and placed in the special gym clothes bag just right). And, oh yeah, his painstakingly prepared and cutely decorated boxed lunch (obento).

When walking to school in the spring and summer months, he needed his straw hat with the special pin that identified which school he attended.

On Tuesday, he needed to take his special bread plate in its specially-made bread plate bag and his fork and spoon set, but not his obento since it was school lunch day.

On Wednesday, his tea cup and small hand towel came home for a mid-week wash, and I needed to remember to pick him up at 11:30 instead of 2:30.

On Thursday, he needed another cutely constructed obento, and I had to remember to wash his gym clothes which were sent home on Thursdays so they could be perfectly prepared for sports day on Fridays. I also had to remember which were the "onigiri" days when kids were supposed to take rice balls for lunch instead of full-on obentos so they could think about children who are in need.

On Friday, I had to remember to dress him not in his uniform and straw hat but in his gym clothes and colored cap and send him to school with his bread plate and utensils. And when everything came home on Friday, including his indoor and outdoor shoes, I had to remember to wash them all by hand again and prepare them to start over the next week.

(The Friday outfit worn by everyone on "Sport's Day.")

Somehow, I managed to remember these things and all the thousands of other things that the school required of me--this in spite of the fact that I was trekking all over Tokyo meeting with scholars and tracking down impossible-to-find-sources for my dissertation.

So, why is it that, now that we are back in the US, I simply cannot remember to send Sky's library book with him on Wednesday mornings?

Defying Definition

It's funny how complete strangers need to make sense of things that are really none of their business. Being a mixed-race, blended family can be a fun way to mess with people's minds. This was not my primary goal when I decided to marry Ren, but it has been an entertaining side effect.

During the first years of our marriage, when we still lived in Japan, I had the distinct pleasure of being a "Japanese" mom to my adolescent stepdaughter (we'll call her Big Sissy since she's the oldest). Maybe in future posts I can go on and on about what it's like to be a newlywed foreigner in Japan trying to step-parent a Japanese junior high school kid (and get her safely through high school entrance exams, for example), but that's not this post. Anyway, Big Sissy was having trouble seeing the chalk board, so I went with her for a comprehensive eye exam. After what seemed like hours alone in the waiting room, the nurse called for me to see the doctor to hear the results of their tests. When I, a twenty-something foreigner, walked into the examination room, the doctor asked me, "Are you her mother?" "Yes," I replied, as formally as possible, while asking myself what foreigner in her right mind would wander in off the street and pretend to be mother to a Japanese junior high school girl? After giving me a dubious once over, she turned to Big Sissy and said, "Is this your mother?" Big Sissy responded in the affirmative as politely as I had. At this point, the doctor appeared to be waiting for a hidden camera to appear and reveal the joke; obviously we were both lying. When no camera appeared, the doctor resigned herself to giving me the results of Sissy's eye exam.

Years later, Ren, Big Sissy, Sky and I were at the Japanese consulate in Chicago. At the time, I was 6 months pregnant with Pink P, wearing a god-awful paisley shirt purchased desperately from the women's section of the local department store. I'll admit that Ren looks young for his age, and Big Sissy slightly more sophisticated than the 20-year old that she was at the time. Sky was 2 1/2, for those of you keeping score at home. When we walked into the passport section, the American man working as the security guard stared at us for awhile trying to work out how we were connected. Finally, he came out with his best guess and asked me, "So, are you the grandma?" I never wore that paisley shirt again.