The role of children in Japan

The role of children in Japan
1M070244-3 Nozomi Kumazawa

In Japan, the relation between children and parents would be stronger than the relation between husband and wife. Therefore, after they get a child they call each other “otosan” or “okasan” which is from the child’s point of view.
Then, why relationship between children and parent is more important? I think it attributed to the old Japanese way of thinking. In old Japan, a child was the most important factor when people get married. People in old Japanese society thought highly of their “family” (or “oie” in Japanese), such as “Toyotomike” or “Tokugawake”, and to have their family continue to exist was of very valuable. Therefore, the wife who could not become pregnant regarded as bad wife and a husband could divorce himself from his wife one-sidedly. Now, the matter of children is not so important for husbands and wives than that was in past period because their main reason to choose their partner is depend on whether they spend their lives with the partner or not, not on advantageous for the family. In other words, once children were the purpose of their marriage while now were result of their marriage. Moreover, in the old days, there were more mothers who think that the children are everything for them. Some of them extremely depend on their children, raise them overprotected. However, now more and more woman is working and find interesting thing besides their children and such kind of mother is decreasing.
A child is still the reason for their marriages in the case of “dekikon”. “Dekikon” is the abbreviation of “dekichattakekkon” ,the case where a woman gets pregnant by accident and they have to marry before the baby is born. The rate of “dekikon” is increasing nowadays, because young people come to less serious about having sex. I think the Japanese increasing rate of divorce is attributed to increasing “dekikon” somehow.