The Role of Children in Japanese Family


Children used to play a very important role as householders in Japanese family. However, nowadays the role has changed and it has been very common that children barely help their parents household. In my opinion, there are a couple of reasons for that phenomenon. First, since Japan got richer, it has been so much easier for family to sustain their life, so parents has gained more time to take care of kids. As a result, children are less encouraged to do house works. Second, the decline of the number of children in a family is a lot to do with children’s less involvement in house works. In the past, there were at least 2 or 3 kids in a family, so the elder siblings were supposed to take care of their younger siblings. Moreover, since the elders were expected to be an exemplary model for the younger, they always help out their parents. In contrast, children now do not necessarily have to look after younger siblings, as there are few siblings in a family, and their parents have room to take care of them by themselves.