Juliette Mitsutsune of Honolulu is condescending and off the mark in her May 15 letter, "Rewards of Physical Affection," where she gives an analysis of the state of child-rearing in Japan. In instances of seeing crying children, she talks of feeling compelled to admonish mothers who appear to give their young ones short shrift when it comes to physical affection.
I've been conducting rhythmic classes for Japanese children 2 years old and up with mothers attending. Minor cultural differences aside, I haven't seen Mitsutsune's extreme examples of distressed children starved of affection.
Mitsutsune's folksy pearl of wisdom that "mothering is not smothering" is another somewhat gratuitous piece of caution tossed out. In fact, Mitsutsune admonishes Japanese mothers at so many turns that she spins out of control when she laments that Japanese slavishly follow Western ideas, thus veering off her central theme that other cultures (hers in particular) have cornered the market on the proper nurturing of children. She finally hits the wall and burns when she links high suicide rates in Japanese society with the lack of hugs.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.