Who are the super moms in Japan and why are they condemned around the world?

In upper-middle-class families, Japanese women care a lot (sometimes too much) about their children’s education. At 6 months, the baby begins to attend the special kindergarten, taking preparatory courses to be able to enter school, and, at 17, the teenager must be attending university. The mothers of these children are called Kyoiku Mama (In this post, we’ll call them “supermoms”).

we, from awesome.club, we found out why some Japanese women are so obsessed with educating their children, what is the opinion of society on the subject and what are the consequences of this type of education. Follow up!

In Japan, all children are considered talented, and students are not divided into strong and weak. In the classroom, your level of intelligence is not compared to the intelligence of others. All children know: if something doesn’t work out, try to do it one more time to get it. The interesting thing is that students even memorize this statement to stay in memory.

The values ​​that the school teaches children are also promoted by the family. Also, family ties are very strong. According to Japanese tradition, tasks between a man and a woman are distributed quite predictably:

the father ensures financial stability; the mother is the housewife, who takes care of the children.

If the parents have enough financial resources, they choose the best kindergarten for their child to enter the best school later on and consequently go to the best university. As usual, the mother is the one who worries about her child’s education and his/her entry into educational institutions. She not only forces him to study, but also does his homework for him, provides an ideal home study environment, and of course teaches him discipline.

Sometimes, the children of these mothers are called “Chihuahuas”: the women carry them in their arms, give them a lot of affection and train them. It is completely normal for this mother to be reading a book in 4 different languages ​​to her 6 month old son or explaining the structure of an airplane.

The term Kyoiku Mama represents a bit of negligence. It is a stereotypical portrayal of a mother in Japanese culture. She usually watches over her son, so that he gets to school well and then goes home without any problems; makes him study, even though it will harm his physical and mental health.

In the pop culture of modern Japan, the supermom is one of the characters least loved by the public.
She is often compared to an American mother, who feels obliged to help her son make a career in Hollywood at any cost: she takes him to fashion shows since childhood, but doesn’t take into account his desires and goals. . Despite being judged by society, the success of their children is the envy of other women.

Often, the maternal obsession with education does not manifest itself in the lives of her daughters: they are allowed to do whatever they want. Many mothers do not even know the names of the schools where their daughters entered, due to lack of interest. But boys don’t have that much freedom. For them, choosing an educational institution is a matter of life and death.

The curious thing is that, among the parents, there is not the same desire to raise a genius child. Chances are they just don’t have free time as they work hard.

Supermoms are upper-middle class and tend to live in the wealthiest neighborhoods, watch family TV shows, read magazines, and buy mom products. They seem to scream at other women: “Raise your child in a better way!” As a result, other mothers take their children’s education very seriously. A supermom’s free time is described as follows: “time to eat and take a nap”.

She is sometimes called a “madzilla” (from the words “mother” and “godzilla”) or “mamagon” (from the words “mother” and “dragon”, that is, “dragon” in English).

To educate their children, some parents resort to “dirty” methods. For example, a restaurant owner tried to pay a bribe of 397,000 reais for his son to enter the country’s most prestigious kindergarten, Aoyama Gakuin.

Each year, only 40 children are chosen to enter, among more than 2 thousand candidates,
considering the extremely difficult level of tests that must be done.

Some time ago, Ryoko Sato’s book Juken wa Hahaoya ga Kyu-wari (the name can be translated as Passing the Maternity Test with 90%) generated much debate. The author honestly told about how she managed to raise 4 children. In short, Ryoko Sato followed these rules:

no romance in marriage; every free minute is dedicated to the children; children are forbidden to have a love life.

As a result, all 4 children entered Tokyo University, the best in the country, and became successful doctors. Information about the mental state of her children, her husband and her own mother was not mentioned in the book.

Japanese mothers are in constant competition, so they often trick each other by locking their children in their rooms. The neighbors notice that the light in the child’s room is off, and they tell their child about it. He starts to feel more comfortable, gets low grades, and eventually “loses” to the child who went to study in his parents’ room.

After completing high school, maternal control does not end. Most students who enter a prestigious university deliver the documents along with their mothers, who stay in a hotel until the end of the entrance exam. Many take their children by the hand to university, guide them to the right room and then wait for them in the hall after the exam.

In the case of failure, the supermom would rather wait a year or even longer to try again, than allow her child to study at a lower-class university.

In Brazil, there is no culture of super mothers, but parents tend to enroll their children in various clubs and schools, in parallel with their studies. And you, do you think this method of education is useful for the child or is it worth giving him more freedom?