Parenting in Japan

"FIGHT in Tagalog, please," screamed the wife of a Filipino expat working for an American company in Japan, as she disengaged her daughters from each other's nails.

Language is the bane of foreigners raising children in Japan. Youngsters learn the language of their environment without effort, sometimes to the chagrin of parents who are hard-pressed to catch up. However parents try to implement a bilingual policy, the language gap makes child-rearing doubly harder. As children gain greater proficiency in a language unfamiliar to their parents, the generation gap is accented beyond normal proportions.

The situation is different in families in which the mother is a Filipina and the father a Japanese. In most cases, children grow up speaking only Japanese. This compels the mother to speak the language, and she actually learns it from the children.

Given their inborn flair for languages, many Filipinas succeed in breaking the wall, at least the spoken part. This is especially true for those who are married to Japanese, where the environment constantly reinforces language learning. Being able to speak the language gives the mother confidence to raise her children as well as enhances her authority towards them.

But when the child turns school-age, mothers facenew challenges. Foremost is school work. As the child starts showing her the renrakucho (reminder notebook), the mother is again thrown into a state of helplessness. Her dilemma piles up when the child starts asking for help with his shukudai (assignment).

Not all families have the breadth of options available to them. Many mothers struggle to deal with the situation by taking a crash course in reading and writing hiragana, katakana and kanji. Some of them have in fact succeeded in learning the language together with their children, and have strengthened their bonding in the painful process.

Struggle with the language is simply a prelude to the greater hurdles of parenting in Japan. Unless one takes control of the situation, the language problem may give rise to other headaches. Because of unavailability of help with his school work, the child may feel left behind. Already targeted for his different physical features or even foreign name, the child's aloofness makes him an easy prey to bullies. I know of a ten-year old daughter of a Filipina who has been diagnosed as having a heart problem. She grew up a physically healthy child, but has encountered a lot of problems at school. For other children, the effect is dysfunctional behavior.

The most important area in which Filipino parents or mothers have to exercise parental authority is definition of values. One cannot teach algebra without first teaching arithmetic. In like manner, one cannot teach values without first building the groundwork -- good communication.

Whether we like it or not, as the child grows up, the home diminishes as a portion of the child's total environment. He gets more and more influence from outside. As one can observe from the behavior of Japanese youngsters, the social environment in which children grow is changing fast, and apparently not always for the better.

It is important to have an early start with value-formation. One begins with basic things. At home, forinstance, I define acceptable Japanese language. It is a wonder how children learn cuss words. Most six-year olds use the four-letter b-a-k-a casually when they are upset with their mothers. That outburst deserves the highest form of punishment: spanking. When they reason that their playmates use the word ordinarily, I explain that for Filipinos, it is the highest insult to one's parents.

If parents habitually communicate with their children, they will learn to reciprocate. Teaching values builds both parent and child: as parents impart them to their children, parents also strive to live what they teach. The warmth and love generated by this process often makes up for our other shortcomings as parents, including language.*

You may email the author at benny@philippinestoday.net

AVAIL OF OUR VERY SPECIAL PROMO FOR ONLINE ADVERTISEMENTS

THIS SPACE CAN BE YOURS!

For more details, CLICK HERE.