Japanese women #2

I am travelling to Hong Kong today, but here is a post I prepared earlier. This is the second of a four part series on a book I've read recently about Japanese women. It is highly researched and has some good insights. If you go here you'll find the first post of this series.

Motherhood in Japan

• The home tends to pivot around the children, not the adults.
• Japanese mothers tend to spoil their children, boys more than girls are indulged.
• Behaviour in Japan is not necessarily principled action, but situation-appropriate behaviour. The job of teaching morals and values is something most parents leave to society and schools particularly.
• A good mother in Japan is measured by how much she does for the sake of the child. School demand mothers work closely with their children, especially in the early years of primary school. We experienced this at kindergarten too.
• Mothers tend not to promote independence and many Japanese in their early twenties appear immature due to a lack of training for independence. As more women work, this may improve.
• Men generally take little part in raising children, beyond providing the income for the family and being there at important events like graduations. 
• The number of children and therefore years of motherhood have been significantly decreased by contraception (this point is not just for Japan). At the same time life-spans have increased, resulting in a long period in a woman's life where she has no children dependent on her. Hence women these days have more time to do something with their lives besides be a mother and wife.