Jolivet, Muriel. 1997. Japan: The Childless Society? Routledge: New York

Chap 4. Fathers

Do Japanese Fathers love their children

• Distinct lack of contact between Father's and Children
  • Aside -- personal reflection on the relationships between family members I've seen
• "...Japanese men have the extraodinary ability of living as though nobody else was there."

The Family Service (kazoku saibus)

1. What is the German situation?

2. What is pettoka?

3. Today being a housewife is alienating

4. Today mothers have become 'educational' providers to their kids not 'productive' members of a larger family (note the continuing mythe of the non-nuclear family in the 'glorious' past)

Fathers were not always this way

1. Before the Meiji what were things like and why?

2. Bushi or Bushido -- The samuri, the way of the samuri (highly disciplined and directed lives)

• In the Meiji era what becomes the defined role of the mother and father and why?
• Who is defining these new roles? and why?

3. What is meant by Doi Takeo's statement "...Japan has become a Fatherless society".

Do You love your father

1. How do the children feel about their fathers? Do you sense any Confucian teaching here?

Aside -- discuss TV as a form of "self-medication" in Japan

Fathers: Absentee or Ostracized?

1. Who's fault is the marginalization of Fathers? Is it men? Is it women? Is it something else?

• to answer this consider the question of men attending PTA meetings.

2. Can you describe the kitaku kofu allergy?

• How does it start
• How does it affect the home
• How might it affect a man's work

The scourage of transfers

1. All too common in Japan

• What are the impacts on the family?
• What about the man?
• Who benefits from this system?

The placid and silent husband

Aside: Was the Buddha right after all? -- Life is pain and grasping. Nirvana is to escape the wheel of life. -- What does this section seem to indicate?