T A B L E_T A L K

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R E C E N T L Y

Great expectations
By Joanna Scott
Faced with the cruel suspense of an endangered pregnancy, a novelist found that her greatest comfort came from hearing stories, especially the scary ones
(01/18/99)

That one ridiculous palm
By Anne Lamott
Of Catholic friends, atheist parents and the lily pads of faith
(01/15/99)

Second Thoughts: Earning credit in the straight world
By Sallie Tisdale
Twelve years after he graduated, Michael Backman lied his way backinto high school because he wanted to try again -- not atschool, but at everything wrong that followed
(01/14/99)

Time for One Thing: Marked-down memories
By Grayson Hurst Daughters
Trolling for thrift store bargains is one way to salvage the musty scent of youth
(01/13/99)

What I learned from my breakdown
By Faulkner Fox
How a week at a yoga retreat saved me from the perfect parenting frenzy
(01/12/99)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

____the Bento chronicles

 
An expatriate mom in Japan learns that a dewhiskered Hello Kitty rice ball in her child's lunch could forever condemn her as a rotten mother.

BY JANE SINGER | It was 6:15 a.m. and I just couldn't get Hello Kitty's whiskers to lie flat. The tiny wisps I had cut out of sheets of black seaweed wouldn't adhere to the rice ball that formed her face, and a dewhiskered Hello Kitty would leave my daughter the laughingstock of her Moon class at day care.

As most things do with children, my decorative rice ball fixings started manageably small but escalated. On a visit to the family of my husband, who is Japanese, my sister-in-law presented me with a plastic mold for rice balls. Why was there no internal warning buzzer when she, a non-working mom, said she never had had time to use it when her kids were small? You pressed rice into the mold, she said, added features cut out of seaweed or red pickled apricots and presto! a small rice panda that would elicit cries of recognition from your child and her friends when she opened the lid of her lunch box -- and from her teachers, affirmation of good standing as a Mom Who Cares.

This imprimatur is important in Japan. Magazines such as the Housewife's Friend devote special sections to preparation of attractive lunch box fare, with the admonition that a child's memories of his or her first bento, or lunch boxes, are planted in the seedbed of consciousness. This memory, more than the nine months of breast-feeding or years of mopping up spilled juice, remains with the child until adulthood, they say. Was your child the envy of his peers as he unhinged his two-tiered Ultraman plastic bento box to reveal apple slices pared to resemble bunny ears and braided fish cakes in red and white, the colors of celebration? A monotonal lunch box with just a few ingredients -- or even, dear lord, a sandwich, apple and cookie in a brown paper bag -- would damage young Taro's self-esteem and his standing among his cohorts. Even worse, the photographs always taken of children at lunch would reveal to the other mothers that you're more concerned with a few hours sleep and getting to work on time than with your child's best interests.

Maternal self-sacrifice and the desire for acceptance are an unspoken refrain here. A Japanese friend once shared her worries about her child's "park debut," the moment when she would first bring her toddler to the local concrete playground. It's a common concern: Will your child create a nasty scene by smacking a playmate with her plastic shovel or appear poorly groomed in an unironed playsuit? More important, would the veteran mothers who shmooze there every day deign to speak to you? There aren't many playgrounds to choose from here in Kyoto, so if you're shunned in your neighborhood, you and your child might be stuck playing inside your three-room apartment until he enters first grade.

Such seemingly trivial encounters are fraught with significance. There are few casual conversations in Japan. Speaking with someone might mean entering into a relationship that entails obligations somewhere down the road. If a colleague brings you fruit, you must reciprocate, and soon, with some Mount Fuji-shaped sweet cakes from your trip to Atami hot springs; if a friend becomes your guarantor for a loan, you'd better find homestay sponsors for his nephew at junior college in New Hampshire. Not surprisingly, some mothers thus prefer anonymity to introducing themselves. In the park they stand mutely by, smiling weakly, while their children and yours fight over seating on a plastic horse.

Guilt and self-sacrifice are a healthy part of the maternal psyche in many cultures, of course, but in Japan they are exacerbated by the social pressures to conform. Japanese doctors rarely administer epidurals during labor, and the 24-hour labor I experienced with my first child is typical, as women are instructed to "gaman," or endure the pain. Yet the labor room quiet is rarely punctuated by anything louder than a few moans and gasps, unless there's a foreign woman on site. (On the plus side, Japan has one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates.)

N E X T_ P A G E: Japan's "Education Mamas"