Parent-child relationships in Japan

When I first received the details of my new Japanese host family I was surprised to find that I would be living with three siblings, ranging from a 19 year old to a 28 year old. Coming from a country where children often move out of their parents house at 18 if they go to university, maybe slightly later if they go straight into work, I was surprised that my new siblings were still living at home. After speaking to other homestay students and Japanese friends, I found out that my family wasn't unique; it is in fact quite common for children to continue living with their parents often until they marry. I was curious to find out why there might be such a difference, and what about the Japanese relationship with their children was different. At first I got the usual Japanese response "it is the Japanese way, the Japanese system"; it is the way it has been done for the last few generations. Mothers want to teach their children manners and make sure they will make good spouses, and are reluctant to give them independance until they have found a spouse to pass them on to. This appears to be happening later for this generation of young people, as the economic climate has led to men being more focused on careers and young women are either not as interested in marriage as the previous generation or still looking for a rich man to support them in the way that their parents do. Parents often play a part in arranging partners for their children in order to set them up with a family of their own. Coming from a country that sees arranged marriages as a negative and politically motivated act with the parents interests coming first, I was interested to ask the views of the young Japanese people I know. To find out that excitement and nervousness are prominent emotions and there was no sense of the individual's rights being taken away surprised me. This point is crucial to the difference between arranged marriages in Japan and elsewhere; as opposed to the negative arranged marriages, Japanese parents and extended family's merely act as match-makers using existing networks to find available singles, a situation that Karin Muller describes in her book Japanland which accompanies her film by the same name. There are now matchmaking parties for parents to go to, and although this may not be common and seems to be considered a last resort, it does mimic society's need to find a solution to the declining marriage and therefore birthrate. In a society where the parents are heavily involved in their children's lives, helping them study and then get into employment, it doesn't surprise me that the stress falls on the parents and that they go as far as choosing their child's 'life partner'.