By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Dec 6 2002 (IPS)

Kaoru Nishizono, 35, is a busy mother. She enrolled her 2-year-old at an English-language school last month and spends most of her waking hours driving her other daughter to cram school, swimming, ballet, and drawing classes during the week.

”In January my daughter will be taking an entrance exam to a top primary school. Nothing will make me happier if she gets in,” she says.

Nishizono studied in London after she graduated from college in Japan. She explains that while she was keen to get a good education it was not difficult to give up her job at a bank when her parents arranged a marriage with a rich businessman.

”I figured out why keep working overtime in a bank that rarely promotes women to the top. I am quite happy to devote myself to the future of my children,” she says.

According to social experts, Nishizono is typical of women belonging to Japan’s pampered post-war generation – reared with all the material benefits of the economic expansion, but also expected to follow deep-rooted traditional values.

”Modern Japanese women are firmly entrenched in consumerism. But with social norms that expect them to be good wives and devoted mothers, spending exorbitant amounts of money on their children is a way of gaining self-satisfaction,” says Naoki Ogi, a former school teacher and well-known television commentator.

Nishizono’s monthly bill for her children’s extra curricular activities is around 1,000 U.S. dollars. But she thinks it is money well spent. She and her husband have already begun to save 500 dollars a month for the college education of their children.

A shocking illustration of the downside of this unrelenting pressure on young mothers was a Tokyo High Court verdict this week that slapped a 15-year prison sentence on a 38 year-old woman who strangled a little girl to death.

The media has described the murder as being the result of jealous rivalry between the accused, Mitsuko Yamada, and the victim’s mother. Yamada told the Court she did not know why she committed the murder. She did not ask for leniency.

But police investigations at the time of the 1999 murder revealed Yamada had harboured deep resentments towards the mother of the victim.

While her child had failed a school entrance exam, the murdered girl had been accepted into the sought-after elite kindergarten, a situation that social critics contend caused extreme anguish for Yamada.

The murder spurred a public debate and highlighted the pressure on children and their mothers of Japan’s ”examination hell” – vying for slots in private schools where on average only one-third of applicants are accepted.

Young mothers told Japanese weekly magazines of their own fears and depression while they devote their time to providing the best for their children.

”Rearing children in modern Japan can often be a lonely experience because my husband – who is a workaholic – expects me to do it alone,” says Maruko Iida, whose 14-year-old son attends a private school.

Iida says she cried in relief for two days when her son got into a good school. ”If he had failed I would have lost face with my relatives,” she explains.

Another young woman says the hardest part of becoming a mother was losing her name and being referred to as ”mother of Keichan”, her daughter’s name.

”When I had a job people called me by name. But after motherhood, I lost even my own identity,” says Mari Taniguchi, 40.

Social experts contend the frustration can only keep growing given the emerging social and economic trends – mothers pouring their attention on one or two children expecting huge returns.

”As unemployment increases so does the pressure on mothers who try harder to secure a future for their children,” says Toshihiro Kato, from the Kids Learning Centre, a cram school.

He reports mothers are now signing up their children for new courses – such as meditation or rice planting – given the new thrust on a ”broader spiritual education” to combat growing social problems in Japan.

Japan has also been shaken by a spate of reports on child abuse, family breakdown, and women describing child rearing as a painful sacrifice, prompting a debate on the problems of housewives.

”The modern housewife is a social challenge. Forcing young women to accept a traditional role cannot be accepted,” says Ogi, who describes this week’s prison sentence on Yamada as a typical male response to the trauma of young mothers in modern Japan.

”Yamada’s mental unhappiness was not taken into consideration in the verdict. Men are still buried in tradition. Economic modernisation has not been accompanied by realistic social reform,” he says.

Excerpt:

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Dec 6 2002 (IPS)

Kaoru Nishizono, 35, is a busy mother. She enrolled her 2-year-old at an English-language school last month and spends most of her waking hours driving her other daughter to cram school, swimming, ballet, and drawing classes during the week.

“In January my daughter will be taking an entrance exam to a top primary school. Nothing will make me happier if she gets in,” she says.

Nishizono studied in London after she graduated from college in Japan. She explains that while she was keen to get a good education it was not difficult to give up her job at a bank when her parents arranged a marriage with a rich businessman.

“I figured out why keep working overtime in a bank that rarely promotes women to the top. I am quite happy to devote myself to the future of my children,” she says.

According to social experts, Nishizono is typical of women belonging to Japan’s pampered post-war generation — reared with all the material benefits of the economic expansion, but also expected to follow deep-rooted traditional values.

“Modern Japanese women are firmly entrenched in consumerism. But with social norms that expect them to be good wives and devoted mothers, spending exorbitant amounts of money on their children is a way of gaining self-satisfaction,” says Naoki Ogi, a former school teacher and well-known television commentator.

Nishizono’s monthly bill for her children’s extra curricular activities is around 1,000 U.S. dollars. But she thinks it is money well spent. She and her husband have already begun to save 500 dollars a month for the college education of their children.

A shocking illustration of the downside of this unrelenting pressure on young mothers was a Tokyo High Court verdict this week that slapped a 15-year prison sentence on a 38 year-old woman who strangled a little girl to death.

The media has described the murder as being the result of jealous rivalry between the accused, Mitsuko Yamada, and the victim’s mother. Yamada told the Court she did not know why she committed the murder. She did not ask for leniency.

But police investigations at the time of the 1999 murder revealed Yamada had harboured deep resentments towards the mother of the victim.

While her child had failed a school entrance exam, the murdered girl had been accepted into the sought-after elite kindergarten, a situation that social critics contend caused extreme anguish for Yamada.

The murder spurred a public debate and highlighted the pressure on children and their mothers of Japan’s “examination hell” — vying for slots in private schools where on average only one-third of applicants are accepted.

Young mothers told Japanese weekly magazines of their own fears and depression while they devote their time to providing the best for their children.

“Rearing children in modern Japan can often be a lonely experience because my husband — who is a workaholic — expects me to do it alone,” says Maruko Iida, whose 14-year-old son attends a private school.

Iida says she cried in relief for two days when her son got into a good school. “If he had failed I would have lost face with my relatives,” she explains.

Another young woman says the hardest part of becoming a mother was losing her name and being referred to as “mother of Keichan”, her daughter’s name.

“When I had a job people called me by name. But after motherhood, I lost even my own identity,” says Mari Taniguchi, 40.

Social experts contend the frustration can only keep growing given the emerging social and economic trends — mothers pouring their attention on one or two children expecting huge returns.

“As unemployment increases so does the pressure on mothers who try harder to secure a future for their children,” says Toshihiro Kato, from the Kids Learning Centre, a cram school.

He reports mothers are now signing up their children for new courses — such as meditation or rice planting — given the new thrust on a “broader spiritual education” to combat growing social problems in Japan.

Japan has also been shaken by a spate of reports on child abuse, family breakdown, and women describing child rearing as a painful sacrifice, prompting a debate on the problems of housewives.

“The modern housewife is a social challenge. Forcing young women to accept a traditional role cannot be accepted,” says Ogi, who describes this week’s prison sentence on Yamada as a typical male response to the trauma of young mothers in modern Japan.

“Yamada’s mental unhappiness was not taken into consideration in the verdict. Men are still buried in tradition. Economic modernisation has not been accompanied by realistic social reform,” he says.

Excerpt: