For the last week of December, we’re re-posting some of our favorite posts from 2011.
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In her article “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus,” Anne Allison discussed the meaning of obentos. The Japanese educational system is highly centralized, with the national Ministry of Education determining the curriculum and approving textbooks. Nursery school, though overseen by the Ministry, is generally private and isn’t compulsory, though attendance is high. According to Allison, it functions much like kindergarten in the U.S., focusing less on content than on how to be a student. Of particular importance are the ability to transition from home life to the public sphere of a bureaucratic state institution and socialization into norms of group life, including cooperation and emphasis on the collective rather than the individual.
The obento was seen as an important element of this process. It was a token of home, and more specifically, of mom. The willingness to make elaborate, creative obentos was used as a measure of a woman’s commitment to the mothering role. The lunches, as you can imagine from the photos, could be very time- and labor-intensive to make. During her time in Japan, Allison says she and the mothers she talked to spent 20-45 minutes each morning on a single obento, in addition to the time spent planning and shopping for ingredients. Tips for making obentos were a frequent topic of conversation among moms, and whole magazines were devoted to the topic. Stores sell a range of obento items, including containers, decorations, molds and stamps to cut foods into various shapes, and, increasingly, pre-made food:
Nursery schools carefully oversaw lunch. The entire obento must be eaten, and everyone had to wait until every child had finished — an important lesson in the importance of the group over the individual. Thus, part of the mother’s job was to make the food appealing and easy to consume, in an effort to encourage her child to eat and avoid the embarrassment of holding up the rest of the class from after-lunch recess. Making food brightly-colored, in various shapes, and in small portions helped with this process. If a child failed to eat the entire lunch, or ate slowly, both the child and mother were held accountable. More than just a lunch, then, Allison argues that obentos served as a form of socialization into ideas of what it meant to be Japanese, particularly the emphasis on the collective and the importance of meeting expectations. Indeed, her son’s teacher viewed him as successfully assimilating to Japan not when he learned the language or made friends, but when he began routinely finishing his obento.
Talking to Japanese mothers — and making obentos for her own young son — Allison found that designing obentos was often viewed as a creative outlet, a way to express themselves and their love for their child. The small group she spoke with generally described it as a fulfilling part of motherhood. But the stakes were also high, since making a sub-par or merely utilitarian obento could stigmatize them as bad mothers. The quality of a mother’s obento became a symbol of the quality of her mothering and her commitment to her child’s educational success.
Of course, this served to institutionalize a form of intensive mothering that is difficult to balance with work life or outside interests. The women she spoke to generally could not hold even part-time jobs and fulfill the expectations placed upon them; those who did often tried to keep it secret to avoid negative judgment from their child’s teacher. In fact, a 2007 Japan Today article said that 70% of Japanese women leave the paid labor force when they have a child.
Allison’s article was published in 1991. I’d love to hear from readers with more recent experiences with expectations surrounding obentos in Japan.
UPDATE: As I had hoped, some of our readers have some great insights about obentos, including questioning whether the really elaborate obentos are most common among wealthier families while most make do with less intricate versions that don’t require as much commitment to intensive mothering. Be sure and check out the comments!
[Full cite: Anne Allison. 1991. “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus.” Anthropological Quarterly 64(4): 195-208.]
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Comments 29
Erika Harada — September 14, 2011
Hm. The images here are a bit misleading...it's true that a lot of moms in Japan spend a good amount of time making lunch for their kids (and husbands), but for the most part they are not as elaborate as the photos here make it seem. They usually tend to look like this: https://www.so-net.ne.jp/blog/_images/blog/_5af/chiaki-tea-room/7171079.jpg
And are filled with rice (usually left over from the previous night), okazu (main -- usually prepared morning of, or can be left overs), tamago-yaki (egg roll, prepped in the morning), and fresh veggies.
I can see moms competing amongst themselves to make good looking obento, but that probably is among the more wealthy households; these days in Japan, a lot of women DO work, except it's part-time, and it's done out of necessity. That leaves less time for making elaborate bentos and doting on their kids.
Umlud — September 14, 2011
While growing up in Japan
during the 1980s, I was at international school, but the elaborate
quality of fellow students' obento were quite varied. Compared to the
two onigiri and tangerine that my Japanese mother put in a brown paper
bag, some other students brought their plastic bento-box (with snap-on
lid) that had -- at minimum -- a pile of rice in one corner, surrounded
by veggies, meat, and a small sweet. While some were plain in
appearance (like what Erika Harada shows), a few were quite elaborate (sometimes mimicking shapes of
various animals or kid-show characters). That was my introduction to
lunches in Japan -- I was in third grade.
As we advanced in grades, however, elaboration quickly
diminished, and by the time we were in middle school, few of my fellow
students' lunches looked any more elaborate than the box lunches that
a (most likely single) salaryman would pick up at the 7-Eleven (or other
similar store) on his way to work. (I continued with my onigiri and
mandarin in a brown paper bag.)
Now, two things: I was at an all-boys international school. Not everyone
had a bento-box lunch. However, it was a sizeable group that did
(mostly among the Japanese students and children of long-term-resident
parents). The fact that we were in an all-boys school likely also had an
impact, due to the gender roles of boys in Japan, which amounted to
"get rid of all things cute" at some point before middle school.
Yrro Simyarin — September 14, 2011
Makes me really, really curious what the situation of stay-at-home dads is like in Japan, if such a thing even exists there. Are they drawn into the same status competition of making perfect bento boxes?
It makes me think about the similar commitment markers here in the states. There have been several studies showing that girls in perfect little outfits and pig tails receive better attention from teachers than those whose parents just sent them out the door. And while American lunches are nowhere close to as decorative, I definitely remember a status associated with having the cool prepackaged treats and fruit snacks or juice boxes.
Robert Moorehead — September 14, 2011
While the bentos shown aren't necessarily representative, the expectations made of mothers are still quite high (by US standards, at least). In my recent fieldwork in Japan, I worked with immigrant families from Peru. Attending a public hoikuen (preschool) required both parents to be working, which left little time for such intensive mothering. But children still had to come to hoikuen with a long list of items, including a hood-like covering that must be sewn at home. I asked the hoikuen director if there were a place where parents could purchase all the items, and the look she gave me ... the answer was no, and even thinking it seemed to make you a bad parent. I'm exaggerating, but the look she gave me was precious.
On top of the bind this places on mothers (and only rarely on fathers) in Japan, there's the additional hurdle facing immigrant parents. Not only must they learn the language, they also have to learn the particular Japanese form of intensive mothering, else they risk being seen as bad parents and fulfilling various negative stereotypes about Peruvian parents.
Lauren Shindo — September 15, 2011
I have lived in Japan for the past 8 years, and while the fancy bento magazines and tools are popular, I can assure you the actual bentos are pretty rare (at least in my area of Tokyo). I have made a few fancy bentos for birthdays and special holidays, and every time the teacher has made a point of mentioning how surprised she was, which suggests that it is not that common. And in my informal survey of the local kindergarten and daycare (all stay-at-home moms), no one said that they made the fancy "kyaraben" (character bento).
Of course my experience is just anecdotal, but I would be willing to bet that these bentos were more common in the 80s when the economy was booming and there was a more conspicuous display of wealth (and leisure time). Now it seems like these are more of a hobby for some people now, but they are far from the norm.
Anonymous — September 15, 2011
Nursery schools carefully oversaw lunch. The entire obento must be
eaten, and everyone had to wait until every child had finished — an
important lesson in the importance of the group over the individual.
Thus, part of the mother’s job was to make the food appealing and easy
to consume, in an effort to encourage her child to eat and avoid the
embarrassment of holding up the rest of the class from after-lunch
recess. Making food brightly-colored, in various shapes, and in small
portions helped with this process. If a child failed to eat the entire
lunch, or ate slowly, both the child and mother were held accountable.
I'm comparing this to two articles at Fooducate, about lunches -- both home-packed and purchased -- in US public schools. This piece, by a "sociologist, foodie and mom", takes for granted that by grade school, kids will be eating what they like of their lunches and disposing of what they don't. This one cites a report from the School Nutrition Association to the effect that most public-school students have dreadfully little time for lunch: the average grade-schooler has 25 minutes for the entire lunch break, including using the washroom, standing in the cafeteria line, eating, and getting outside for what playtime she can.
Maryn McKenna — September 15, 2011
More updated than 1991: There's an incredibly active bento-blog community that offers anthropological insight into modern constructions of motherhood. For instance: http://lunchinabox.net/, who is a Japanese-American resident in the US and packing daily bento for a child in a Japanese-immersion school.
Anonymous — September 16, 2011
Can I also add on that sometimes people like to make the cuter fancier obento for their friends/significant others/etc on birthdays/holidays? My friend made me one on my birthday, when I turned 16 and she was 18 at the time. She made her boyfriend one randomly, and she sometimes made them for herself when bored.
Anonymous — September 17, 2011
One of my blog readers alerted me to this article. You might find this recent article that I did for The Japan Times of interest, where I reported on how bentos are used at one kindergarten to educate children about nutrition, table manners and more: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fs20110407a3.html . I also did a little followup on my blog here: http://justbento.com/bentos-lunches-and-shokuiku-food-education-japanese-kindergarten . To answer one of your questions: yes, there are stay at home dads in Japan these days, though they aren't numerous. (There are even a few dad-bento bloggers.) And, 1991 is not 2011.
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Alessandra Zecchini — September 17, 2011
I confess I love bentos, and I also cook with my daughter, we have just written a cookbook together, she is 12, I think that is is great for kids to be involved in cooking, and making "pretty things" comes natural to them :-).
Ciao
A.
http://alessandrazecchini.blogspot.com/
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