Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (39 page)

The explanation of the Mamachi mother's success in training without discipline is that she teaches only when the child is in a co-operative mood. She ordinarily does not think in terms of using techniques to get the child to obey her or of punishments if the child does not obey her. Her aim is to establish a close relationship

[12] Miss Kazuko Yoshinaga who taught middle-class kindergarten children in the United States and Japan expressed surprise at the rudeness of the children in the United States who sometimes call teachers by their first name, sometimes accidentally bump into the teachers, and contradict them.

[13] See especially Ruth Benedict,
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946.

with the child so he will automatically go along with her suggestions. To the extent that she thinks of techniques for dealing with the child, they are methods for keeping the child happy and building their relationship so that he will want to do what she says. Because her interest is in their relationship, she is less interested in getting the child to behave properly than in getting him to understand. With a good relationship, she need only indicate the desired behavior and add with a tone of encouragement,
wakaru ne?
(You understand, don't you?). If the child co-operates, he is said to understand.
^[14]

One of the principles implicit in the attempt to get the child to understand is that one should never go against the child. There is no distinction in the Japanese language between "let a child do something" and "make a child do something" (both use
saseru
), and the Mamachi mother avoids any situation where she is "making the child do something" against his will. In effect she limits the child's opportunity to develop a will of his own. By responding immediately to a child's needs, by going along with what he says, she makes it unnecessary for the child to develop a strong will of his own. By anticipating problems and offering ready-made solutions but few choices, she maximizes the chance that the child will go along automatically with her suggestions. She seldom gives an outright refusal to a small child's request. She is more likely to say "later" than "no." On some occasions she will give in because she feels it better to have a co-operative child in the long run than to risk a child becoming stubborn merely for the sake of getting temporary compliance.

That the average Mamachi mother is highly successful in training her children attests in part to her genuine liking for her children and her patient attempts to understand them and respond to their wishes. While she is not as sophisticated in the use of psychological terminology as her American counterpart, she is sensitive to her child's feelings and desires.
^[15]
She carefully watches each child so as to learn his wishes, and she spends considerable time thinking

[14] Betty Lanham also notes the interest of the mother in
wakaraseru
(getting the child to understand). Betty Baily Lanham, "Aspects of Child-rearing in Japan," doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, 1962.

[15] Cf. Betty Lanham,
ibid
.

about his particular nature. One of the first things a Mamachi mother attempts to do after a child is born is to find out under what circumstances he cries and to learn to satisfy him so quickly that he will never cry for more than a few seconds. She continues to be sensitive to his moods and tries to catch any difficulties before they develop. She uses a large amount of goodies of all kinds to keep him happy and
sunao
(gentle). Indeed, almost any mother setting out for a shopping trip with a child, especially on public transportation, is likely to carry along an ample supply of candy to dispense in case her child begins to show some sign of discomfort. She knows an almost infinite variety of little hand exercises, peek-a-boo games, animal imitations, songs with gestures, games to play with a child's arms or legs or face which can be used to distract or entertain a child. At home, she uses physical contact to comfort the child. She does not hesitate to crawl on the floor, hold, rock, or bounce a child or to let him climb on her back. With a larger child, she is likely to tell amusing stories or play little games. She may also use such games, many made up spontaneously to fit the situation at home, to motivate a child to perform necessary tasks such as putting away toys. So devoted is the mother to keeping her child happy that from the eyes of a Westerner the Mamachi child appears pampered. To the Mamachi mother, who has an intimate relationship with her child and depends on this relationship for getting the child to follow her wishes, this devotion appears natural and necessary.

In the context of positive feeling the mother's teaching and guidance take place so automatically, that she herself is scarcely aware of it. She consciously thinks about and plans how to get the child into a good mood, but she rarely plans how to teach a small child to be neat, to assume the proper posture, or to avoid dangerous places, even though her child learns these things as early or earlier than the middle-class American child. A mother does not explain these things to a small child or reason with him. She simply puts his body in the proper position until he is able to make the movements on his own. If the child gets near a fire or starts to climb up on a high place, she does not lecture him on the danger of fire or high places. She simply says
abunai
(dangerous), which is more of a warning signal than a command, and pulls him away before he gets

there. The child soon acquires a fear of going near such places and stays away. To offer extended explanations is contrary to the spirit of child-rearing practice. It is inconsistent with the feeling that the child should respond immediately and without question and that rational explanations are less important than preserving the basic relationship. The Mamachi mother is often vague in her reasons for postponing a child's request, and this vagueness serves to emphasize further the importance of the basic relationship. Some conscious planning enters with older children, however, as explanations become necessary to make a school-child "understand."

When a child reaches the age of three or four, he is taught to withhold his aggression. When a child below that age hits an older sibling the mother may regard this simply as a form of play, but she may say that it will not do (
ikenai
) for the older child to hit the younger one. If she hears that her child has been in a fight with a neighbor, she will tell him that will not do, regardless of whether he started the fight or not. To hit in self-defense is considered about as bad as to start a fight. While the mother may sympathize with her child when he has been wronged by others, there is virtually no situation in which returning aggression is condoned. She wants the child to learn this thoroughly because in many ways any aggressive sign from the child is regarded as a result of the failure of the mother to make the child understand, just as a child crying for candy in public is regarded as a sign that the mother does not feed the child enough.

In its early stages, toilet-training is in large part mother-training. When the child is six or eight months old the mother begins to watch how often and at what time he urinates and defecates, and then tries to catch him shortly before his usual time. Many mothers watch the child at night as well as during the day. In the summer time this poses no great difficulty as the child can go without diapers, and the mother will allow him to urinate in the yard. In the winter time, however, the baby is always dressed warmly, even in the house, and because the bathroom is quite cold the child cannot be left unclothed for long. Hence the mothers concentrate their energies for training in the warmer weather. They place the child on a potty shaped like the adult toilet, or they hold the child over

the edge of the porch at the proper time. Often by the age of one and certainly by the age of two, by some combination of child-signaling and mother-training, the child is dry. Toilet-training is accomplished with a minimum of struggle. Children are not expected to resist training, nor do Mamachi mothers speak of a "no" stage around ages two or three, where negativism is taken for granted as it is by many American mothers. Toilet-training is not viewed as a struggle by which the mother imposes her will. Rather, the mother simply is helping the child to prevent the discomfort that comes from being wet or soiled.

While many aspects of child-training take place automatically, there are certain things which the mother consciously sets out to teach the child. This is not thought of as discipline or an attempt to force the child, but the mother shows the child how to do something, and then the child is expected to practice. With a successful relationship with the child, the mother can expect that the child will co-operate with long hours of training. Even small children have the patience to sit for long periods of time for tasks of memorization.
^[16]
They are taught, for example, how to recite poems or sing songs, how to draw, how to color, how to make the letters of the Japanese syllabary—all well before grade-school age. Once in grade school, the child is expected to practice his lessons at home in much the same way. But even for these periods of practice, most mothers feel they cannot teach the child if he is not in the proper mood to co-operate. Even in an earlier era when school children were disciplined with a whip (
ai no muchi,
literally, the love whip), it was thought that if the child did not feel the whip as an expression of the love and devotion of the teacher, it would do no good. If the Mamachi mother is unable to create the proper spirit of co-operation, she will try to pass on the responsibility for training to someone else—the father, an elder sibling, a relative, or even an outside tutor.

If the relationship goes smoothly, few sanctions except a vague feeling of approval or disapproval are required to get the child to

[16] Mary Ellen Goodman who has carried on extensive interviews with young Japanese children reported that the children showed an amazing ability to persist working on various projects and that when working on such projects they were not easily distracted by outside interference.

behave. If the mother uses any sanctions at all, she tries to use positive ones and to ally herself with the child rather than to create any breach between them.

Flattery is used freely in front of family members although parents try to refrain from undue praise of their children in front of strangers. The mother frequently uses such phrases as
o-rikoo
(nice child) and
joozu
(skillful) in talking to the child or in talking to a third party within the hearing of a child. These expressions are used not only to describe behavior but also to mean "Mommy's good little girl will do this, won't she" or "so and so is wonderfully skillful; won't it be nice when you become so skillful?"

The widespread use of fear or ridicule, noted by virtually all observers of the Japanese scene, also serves to ally the mother and child on the same side without creating any obstinacy or feeling of opposition. Mamachi children show an amazing sensitivity to what people might think of them, and the standard device for getting them to behave properly in front of company is the fear of what outsiders might say or think. The mother, in getting the child to behave so that neighbors will not laugh, is not seen by the child as an authority-enforcing discipline but as an ally in avoiding the negative sanctions of an outside authority. Instilling fear of fathers, ghosts, or supernatural forces (
bachi ga ataru
) has a similar function. It is a way for the mother to get the child to behave without making it necessary for her to assume the position of an authority.

In simple matters where the child is not ego-involved, the mother may merely say that the child should not do something, or if he has done something wrong, she may scold him for his improper conduct. However, when the child becomes adamant in wishing something, the mother is not likely to start a hassle, but to say that something will be done later (
ato de ne
) or that it is impossible (
dekinai
) without giving much of an explanation. Even if she is refusing the child because he has done something wrong, she does not usually make this explicit. Indeed, the vagueness of her refusal and the lack of explanation make it difficult for the child to rebel directly yet make it clear that it would be wise to try to get on the mother's good side the next time.

If the child is uncooperative the mother may make vague threats of abandoning the child, of leaving him home, or throwing the

child outside until he learns to show the proper attitude.
^[17]
By showing disinterest or by not quite understanding or remaining impassive, she makes it clear that the child does not have the proper attitude, and the usual response of the child is to try to gain back his mother's good graces. Even her techniques of refusal have the effect not of setting up a battle line between the two but of getting the child motivated to try to restore the understanding between mother and child.

Mothers who do not have the relationship with their child that leads to automatic compliance are often frantic, being caught between their inability to control the child on the one hand and their feeling that they should not punish the child on the other hand. Once the magic of the close relationship is broken, there is no legitimate way of getting the child to behave without starting all over again by building up the positive relationship. Indeed a few Mamachi children, usually in homes with a conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, are virtually uncontrollable despite constant pampering because the child does not feel close enough to the mother to go along automatically with what she suggests.
^[18]
Mothers do sometimes become angry at their children and do sometimes spank them, but they never consider their indignation righteous, and are more likely to feel that their anger represents failure on their part than that it teaches the child a lesson.