In Japan, patriarchy and the problem of mother and daughter are a product of the times
Editor's note: Even if they are mother and daughter, each pair is different. Some daughters live next to their mothers who are very depressing, and they are breathless in pain, and some daughters are too close to their mothers, and they want to leave but can't do without them, which is very entangled. It is not uncommon for a mother and daughter to appear very harmonious at first glance, but with a slight splash, waves will appear under the water. Although there have always been many problems with the relationship between father and son, they are much simpler in the "form of the problem".
What the famous Japanese psychoanalyst Saito Huan often laments in the daily clinical scene is the particularity of the mother-daughter relationship. In 2008, he published the book "Mothers Control Their Daughters' Lives - Why "Killing Mothers" Is So Difficult", and read many books in Europe and the United States that describe the difficulties of mother-daughter relationships. He realized that the problem was widespread, but the vast majority of men were unaware of it. As a man, Saito entered this field and studied it from scratch, "more out of curiosity about 'other people's things' and thinking 'it would be interesting even if it didn't resonate,' and the interviewee's resonance and understanding also gave him great encouragement.
Dangerous Relationships: The Mystery of Mother and Daughter is his second book to revolve around the theme of mother and daughter. In this book, he invited manga artist Nagako Tabo, Mitsuyo Tsunoda, one of Japan's three major female writers, "god of shoujo manga" Hagio Wangto, senior clinical psychologist Shinda Koyoko and well-known sociologist Shuida Airy Mizu for five wonderful conversations. From the perspectives of female mystery, gender barrier, and father's absence, they jointly explored the dilemma of mothers and daughters and the real and profound reasons behind this dilemma.
Dangerous Relationships: The Mystery of Mothers and Daughters
[Japanese] Saito Huan by Gao Lulu, trans
Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2023
In Japan, why is the family less about the relationship between husband and wife and more about the relationship between mother and child? Why is the strengthening of patriarchy coinciding with the increase in child abuse? Why is the deep reason for the Oedipal complex and "Lolicon" consistent? In the following article, Saito and the sociologist and poet Mizu Uda look back at Japanese social history, revealing the historical background of Japan's gender division of labor and family concepts.
"Mother and daughter problems are products of the times"
(Excerpt)
Interlocutor | Mizu no field airflow × Saito ring
01 Japanese mothers play too big a role
Mizu Wuda: When we try to compare various social issues, we will encounter two problems: one is that the meaning of motherhood in the foundation of Japanese society is too strong, and the other is that Japanese families are not based on husband and wife, but overemphasize parent-child relationships.
In the post-war 50s, public opinion tended to praise women who pampered men, and it was not until the mid-90s that healing women began to become popular again. The former has a background of defeat, and the latter has a background of defeat in the economic sense after the bubble economy. Once Japanese men have a shadow in their hearts, they will turn to women or motherhood, and they will also overly seek healing, so it is difficult for men and women to establish a partnership. If it is allowed to develop, it is likely to return to the state of parent-child relationship, especially mother-child relationship. Thus, the submissive wife became the ideal model, just as the daughter obeyed her father before the war, and after the war began to praise the wife who pampered her husband, just as the mother spoiled her child.
However, the most conservative part of cultural groups is the family-related argument, and the parenting theory is particularly strong. I have raised children myself, and I feel that these views are very conservative, so I pay relatively attention to this aspect and make international comparisons of parenting theory. Then I found that among developed countries, Japan really takes the most effort and time to raise children. There is also a feeling that the mother is the center, "I hope that the father can take the handle", and the father only plays an auxiliary role, but only the degree of help, which is very abrupt.
Image source: Visual China
I wondered what the situation was like in other countries, and I looked up and found that the Christian cultural circle was significantly different from Japan. In these countries, the conjugal relationship is the basis of the family in all circumstances. There is a parenting book in the United States that says, after the birth of a child, what should the mother do first? Say that you should put the children down first and talk to your husband for a while. If the couple does not establish a new relationship after having children, they will soon begin to revolve around the children, and thus become centered on the child's life.
Saito: I think this is an important idea to avoid the loss of sex after the birth of a child, which leads to the collapse of the partnership, or a little bit towards an overly intimate relationship between mother and child.
Shui Wutian: The book also says that the second most important thing is to let the children understand that although you are an irreplaceable member of the family, you are not the king of the family.
Saito: That's important. After all, children will leave their parents sooner or later, and they can be treated as "passers-by".
Shui Wutian: Therefore, it is strictly forbidden for parents to sleep and sleep with their children. Considering the time of sleeping, the Japanese parenting style can really be said to be too close to the mother and child, in fact, foreign parents do not seem to have the concept of sleeping.
Saito: Elizabeth Badande also debunks the hypocrisy of the myth of motherhood in her book "Additional Love". She said that in 18th-century Paris, children were basically sent back to their hometowns after birth, and only five percent of the birth mothers raised their own children. So there is no such thing as a maternal instinct, in a word, she thinks it is a bad thing that Rousseau and Freud did. From this point of view, even in European and American societies, the myth of motherhood is still influential to a certain extent, and there are requirements for women to be good wives and good mothers, but now it has changed little by little, and it feels that the concept of joint parenting as a husband and wife has begun to exert its strength. Have they passed the stage of dictating their mother's responsibilities?
Mizu Wuda: No, I feel that my mother's responsibility is heavier now, but they are not like Japan, and "my mother alone bears all the burdens and responsibilities." After reading international comparative papers on parenting, I found that researchers in Europe and the United States are critical of Japan's parenting theory, believing that "the image of women is too conservative," and that the burden on European and American women is easier than that of Japan. But this is not to say that the responsibility is easy, but because both parents have to take on the responsibility of childcare at the same time. Because of this, European and American countries will forcibly deprive parents of their parental rights for parents who have not fulfilled their childcare responsibilities. After comparing the various theories of child-rearing, I feel that the biggest difference between Japan and other developed countries is the "sociality of child-rearing."
Image source: Visual China
In Japan, the biggest reason why child-rearing has not been able to make progress in society is that mothers are under the pressure of the "trinity of burden, responsibility, and love" in childcare. This is the case with regard to pregnancy and childbirth, such as the insistence on vaginal delivery, cesarean section or painless delivery, which is a method of "giving birth without pain", which many people feel is wrong. Also, breast milk is better than formula, and ideally exclusive breastfeeding. During pregnancy and lactation, for the sake of children, try to eat "vegetables-based Japanese food", avoid irritating curry or greasy Western food and Chinese food... After reading these contents of the parenting book, I couldn't help but complain about what about mothers in India, Europe, the United States, and China (laughs).
Saito: It's really problematic to think that painless childbirth is a taboo. There are problems with the cult of natural childbirth, as well as problems with the medical system such as inadequate cooperation between obstetrics and gynecology and anesthesiology.
Mizu Wutian: Yes. I was shocked to learn more about this after giving birth. Of course, the medical system itself has a big problem, in addition, everyone thinks that diapers are better than diapers, and it is said that according to the change of hot and cold temperature, the number of diapers used each time should be adjusted accordingly, and sleep should be carried out every night... In short, Japan's "ideal childbirth and childcare" comes at the cost of mothers hollowing out their bodies and time, paying pain, distress, energy, loving their children, and taking responsibility. If the mother doesn't have enough time, money, and patience, it's too hard to do this, and even more so if she has a job. Most mothers are easily influenced by these statements and thus negatively evaluate their parenting results. In fact, they also know in their hearts that they can't do it, but they will still pursue the image of an ideal mother.
On the other hand, a well-done mother will naturally think, "I have endured so much pain and distress for you, and put in so much energy, you can't leave me alone in the future." "So it invisibly puts a lot of pressure on the child. But this ideal parenting theory was formed very late, and it is by no means a "traditional parenting theory".
In Japan, until the end of the Edo period, nine adults were engaged in agriculture and fishing, and after the Meiji Restoration, under the influence of the policy of farming and industry, unmarried women began to enter the field of light industry—which is also described in the History of the Sorrow of Female Workers. However, in essence, Japan retained its character as an agricultural country, and it was not until the period of rapid economic growth after the war that it began to change dramatically. When it comes to rural family sociology, Yuga Kizoemon (a Japanese sociologist who laid the theoretical foundation for rural sociology) has done related research, and his research is generally aimed at rural communities and kinship communities. According to his research, if the family is a landlord family, the distant relatives around them will live nearby as sharecroppers and work and reproduce as a family, so housework, childcare, and care will be included. The daughter-in-law is also a valuable labor force for agricultural production, and the care of children is left to the elderly who have retired from agricultural production, or the older children, and the daughter-in-law will not be allowed to fully bear the responsibility of childcare.
"History of Female Workers' Sorrow"
The rise in the status of Japanese women during the period of rapid economic growth, or at least liberation from heavy agricultural work and family business, made them feel the rise of class. However, the weight of parenting is also suddenly pressed down in this process, from the child's personality cultivation to the supervision of academic performance, all of which are borne by women, so women have more to do in parenting.
Although it is a bit complicated, I still want to emphasize that this situation is really recent.
02 Background of the era of mother-daughter issues
Mizu Wutian: Then again, our obsession with what a father is for men is probably a simple and understandable concept reshaped after the war.
Saito: No, I think fatherhood has never existed in Japan. People often say "paternal decay", but in fact, there is none. I read a book called "A Literary History of Abuse and Parenthood", which mentions that the image of the so-called strict father was actually artificially created thirty years after the Meiji era.
As written in "The Appearance of the Lost World", the previous Japanese society did not have any suppression or restraint on women, and it can be said that it was an ideal child-rearing environment, and even Europeans and Americans expressed envy, but this environment disappeared with rapid modernization, so it was called "Gone World". The book also mentions that after the introduction of the modern constitution, the family system was stereotyped, patriarchy was artificially created, and child abuse occurred in the process, and such themes appeared in literary and artistic works.
Mizu Wutian: After the Meiji thirties, it was really a symbolic era. At that time, the Higher Girls' School Order was issued, and unmarried women with a certain level of education became a prominent social class. At that time, it was also the most popular era of naturalistic literature, and there were a large number of women wearing maroon pleated skirts and similar uniforms, perhaps as a response to this phenomenon by men, coupled with the modernization of the country, men felt pressure on how to embody their patriarchy later, so there was a tendency to so-called loli control of fun. It was also during this period that Tayama Hanabukuchi created works such as "Girl's Disease". Later, the idea of a good wife and a good mother also appeared, and it also became the basis of the idea of girls' school education. In fact, it can also be said that the good wife and good mother, lolikon statements and girlish fun, and the subsequent reinforcement of patriarchy and child abuse, happened in almost the same period.
"Teenage Disease"
Saito: It's really echoing inside and out, especially Oedipus and Loricon, which are actually connected in a particularly deep place. In psychoanalytic terms, the psychology of "wanting to protect" loli and the psychology of "wanting to be protected" can simply and crudely replace each other. I think that the basis of this phenomenon is the rapid changes brought about by the rapid changes after the Meiji thirties. So I've always had a strong feeling that the somewhat awkward relationship between mom and daughter is actually a by-product of this change, and arguably a product of the times. In particular, the mothers of the baby boomer generation and their daughters, who are now in their thirties and forties, have the most intense conflict between the two generations, and if it were the next few generations, I would not have thought of any special impression.
Shui Wutian: Maybe that's really the case, but what about the situation in Europe and the United States?
Saito: Speaking of Europe and the United States, I have read several books on this issue, but most of them treat the relationship between mother and daughter as an ordinary parent-child relationship, and do not make a special distinction. Caroline and Natalie's "So Mother and Daughter Are Hard to Get Along" became a bestseller in France, but psychoanalytic books have no concept of time, and books written in this framework do not clearly write when the mother-daughter problem we call arises.
Mizu Wutian: That's right. I have the impression that in the United States in the 50s of the 20th century, the proportion of mothers who were full-time housewives was relatively high.
Saito: I have the same impression.
Mizu Wuda: In Japan, around the 70s of the 20th century, the proportion of female housewives reached the highest level as baby boomers experienced a series of family activities such as getting married and having children. The relationship between that generation and their children, the second baby boomers (children of the "baby boomers", born between 1971 and 1974) is indeed quite awkward, and this is something that I particularly touched.
Moreover, the second baby boomer generation is also a lost generation (the generation of college graduates facing the ice age of employment after the bubble economy, and the generation born between the late Showa forties and early fifties). From a woman's point of view, the range of options for men of the same age group to find a husband who has the financial means, can afford a house, and can fully afford childcare costs like his father is too small. The gap between ideals and social reality, and the two generations with the greatest gap in economic and social structure, may be between the mothers of the baby boomers and the daughters of the second baby boomers.
Image source: Visual China
Saito: yes. My actual feeling is that the "lower limit" of this generational gap can be pushed back twenty to thirty years, and they are also the two generations most prone to mother-daughter problems.
Shui Wutian: If it is a son, he will have to adapt to the changes of the times, after all, "the economic situation has become tight, and the two-income family is not enough." The younger generation, who are now under thirty-five, happens to be a generation where both men and women have been educated at home, and they are somewhat less resistant to doing housework. It happens that the generation that is thirty-five upwards, the generation in their thirties and forties, the situation is the most serious. Women's family responsibilities are still relatively heavy, and men of the same age still retain the "Showa boy" style, but they are also a lost generation, and this generation of men cannot make as much money as their fathers. To add insult to injury, mothers also have a deep-seated view of the family and want their lives to be affirmed, so they hope that their daughters will understand their values and reproduce such values. The generation of women in their late thirties to their forties is even harder because of such mothers.
Saito: I feel the same way. Some mothers who are older than the baby boomers, although educated in postwar democracy and ostensibly equal between men and women, in essence retain the pattern of patriarchal inferiority, and the status difference between men and women is very different. The changes that have occurred since then, as we have just pointed out, the structure of the family is no longer based on husband and wife, but mainly based on the relationship between mother and child, the father is alienated from the relationship, and the husband and wife are also very estranged, so where can the mother get the recognition, can only be interdependent with the child. So they crave self-recognition in the process of parenting, and gradually become inseparable from their children.
In Japan, the rate of single men and women between the ages of 18 and 34 living with their parents is about 70%, which is a fairly high proportion in the international community, which is the so-called parasite problem. One factor in living with parents all the time is that it is difficult for the mother to leave the child, and of course there are also financial factors, so it is difficult for the child to be independent from the family. If the relationship with the parents is maintained for a long time, will they be too intimate with each other, like boiling water in a pot dry.
The lost generation is the one that has a particularly difficult job finding and is more likely to have a tendency to live with or even rely on them. If you can take a step from this dependence, you may be able to look at the parent-child relationship a little objectively, but it seems very difficult to take this step, and the state of cohabitation has been helplessly maintained. This is the soil for the existence of the phenomenon of stinging people, and on the other hand, it is also the reason why the mother-daughter relationship is prone to contradictions, or the development of an egg-sex mother-daughter relationship. With such a high percentage of living with parents, how will it evolve in the future? I am very concerned about this. In Europe and the United States, less than 20% of young people in Protestant countries live with their parents, but in Catholic countries, such as Italy and Spain, the proportion has reached 70%.
(Excerpts from this book are excerpted from "Dangerous Relationships: The Mystery of Mother-Daughter Relationship", which is abridged from the original text, and is titled by the editor, published with permission from the publisher.) ）