Lisa Katayama, THE JAPANESE WAY OF PARENTING: And What It Taught Me About Raising (Mostly) Calm, Caring, Capable Kids
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
[0:07]and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
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[0:11]Because when you talk about books,
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[0:20]Come find your next great read and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy.
[0:27]Lisa Kataima is the author of The Japanese Way
[0:31]of Parenting and what it taught me
[0:33]about raising mostly calm, caring, capable kids.
[0:36]Lisa is a working mom and writer
[0:38]who was born and raised in Tokyo.
[0:40]She is the author of two books,
[0:41]including Eurowaza, Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks
[0:45]from Japan, and is a former tech and culture journalist
[0:48]for Wired, Fast Company, and the New York Times magazine.
[0:51]She is a US-Japan leadership program fellow
[0:54]and an Asia society young leader.
[0:56]And was named one of Forbes Japan's top women to watch in 2018.
[1:00]She currently serves as Chief Transformation Officer
[1:03]for the Japanese Technology Company Digital Garage
[1:06]and lives in Northern California with her family.
[1:09]Welcome, Lisa.
[1:10]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book
[1:12]to talk about The Japanese Way of Parenting
[1:14]and what it taught me about raising
[1:16]mostly calm, caring, capable kids, congrats.
[1:19]Thank you, Zippy.
[1:20]Thanks for having me on your show.
[1:22]Of course, I really loved the book
[1:24]because it wasn't a full-on advice book.
[1:28]This is a memoir with tips
[1:30]and really perspective on what you've seen in the world
[1:34]from your Japanese heritage, how you apply it,
[1:38]how crazy other parents are in the way
[1:43]that they sometimes do things and what we can all take away.
[1:47]And so I found it super useful, highly entertaining
[1:51]and quite relatable as well.
[1:53]Thank you so much.
[1:55]Yeah, for me writing is a way of processing
[1:59]really difficult things that I'm going through.
[2:01]So when I became a parent,
[2:03]that was especially one of those things.
[2:05]I was like, I need to write this down.
[2:08]So as I started reading your introduction,
[2:11]I was like, did I write this or did she write this?
[2:14]I was like, I literally could have written the same thing.
[2:16]I feel exactly the same way about the stresses
[2:20]and not having time with a partner
[2:22]and we're not remembering who you are.
[2:23]I mean, all of the stuff, you just nailed it.
[2:26]So thank you, thank you.
[2:28]So why don't you tell listeners a little bit more
[2:32]about your background, which you talk about in the book,
[2:34]of course, and your hubby, who you call him
[2:38]and what you learned and how it differs
[2:42]from some of the things that you're seeing.
[2:45]So start with your family and then just expand a little bit
[2:48]and why did this become the guiding principle for you
[2:53]and how can it help other people?
[2:56]Sure.
[2:57]I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan.
[3:00]I grew up in an international community.
[3:01]So I grew up speaking English and feeling definitely feeling
[3:05]a little bit like an outsider there too.
[3:07]My mom is Chinese.
[3:09]But I think just through osmosis like being in that culture,
[3:14]I picked up a lot of habits, values, and mannerisms,
[3:18]and ideas about what makes Japanese culture really great
[3:23]and really problematic in many ways.
[3:25]I mean, I think you read the book.
[3:27]I'm not like, oh, this rose-colored glass is about it at all.
[3:32]But when I became a parent, I found in myself
[3:35]and I became a parent during the COVID pandemic.
[3:37]And I found myself kind of like needing to connect back
[3:41]to something that I understood that felt familiar.
[3:44]And one of the first chapters in the book is like me
[3:46]and hubby touring daycare centers.
[3:49]And when we visited this Japanese daycare center,
[3:51]it just felt so intimately familiar.
[3:54]And I kind of latched onto it as like this is where I want
[3:57]my kids to be.
[3:58]It feels like the place where I grew up
[4:00]but like, you know, the kids are, you know,
[4:03]kind of organized and a little less chaotic.
[4:07]I mean, kids are chaotic.
[4:09]But they felt they felt a little less chaotic.
[4:11]They all took off their shoes at the door
[4:13]and like took out their outdoor shoes
[4:15]and put on their indoor shoes.
[4:17]They knew how to put on a mask, you know.
[4:20]And it was a little thing.
[4:21]It's kind of felt safer.
[4:23]He also asked about hubby as he was born and raised in West Africa
[4:27]and then lived for a long time in New York City.
[4:30]And we met, he lived in New York and I lived in the Bay Area.
[4:34]So and we moved to the Bay Area,
[4:37]which is where we've been raising the kids.
[4:39]And it's, you know, we live around a lot of different cultures
[4:42]and, you know, I love how diverse it is here.
[4:46]There's no kind of standard way that things are being done.
[4:49]And so that just kind of gave us a lot of options
[4:52]and perspective.
[4:53]I don't think that the Japanese way of parenting
[4:55]is necessarily the best way.
[4:57]That's not the goal of my book isn't to say like this is it.
[5:00]Everybody should do it.
[5:01]It's more about like how do we, when we become parents,
[5:05]we have the opportunity to reinvent what a family looks like, right?
[5:10]We grew up in families that we, you know, didn't choose.
[5:13]Like, you know, many of us had great experiences.
[5:16]And most of us had like some kind of mixed experience, right?
[5:20]Like these things were great.
[5:21]These things maybe, you know, I wouldn't want for my own kids
[5:25]or for my own family.
[5:26]So we get this opportunity to reinvent and in that search
[5:30]for reinvention for my own family, I found myself going back
[5:35]to some Japanese values.
[5:36]Like, you know, things like really being mindful
[5:38]of how our behaviors impact the people around us.
[5:43]It's not like Japan is not a me first culture.
[5:46]It's more like community first.
[5:48]Now this has consequences too that are not great.
[5:51]But when you're a little kid and you're learning,
[5:53]because kids are inherently very selfish, right?
[5:56]They think about themselves.
[5:57]They don't like think about like, oh, how does this thing
[6:00]I'm doing impact my little sibling or, but to try to fill
[6:04]that early, I think is good.
[6:06]I mean, if you saw my sibling and my kids siblings,
[6:12]like that you wouldn't be like, oh, they're kind of playing
[6:14]or they're kind of fighting sometimes.
[6:17]So, you know, parenting is chaotic.
[6:19]And I don't think I'm doing everything right.
[6:21]But I did share my book as I think some of those values
[6:26]felt very present to me and also potentially useful
[6:30]to others.
[6:31]Amazing.
[6:31]Well, first of all, I went to Japan a couple years ago
[6:34]with my four kids and was so blown away by some of the cleanliness,
[6:40]the, you know, no trash can thing and bringing bags to pick up
[6:44]and how efficient everything ran and all of that,
[6:47]a lot of which you touch out in the book is just like obvious
[6:50]to Japanese culture and everything.
[6:52]But seeing it firsthand was wild.
[6:54]And then when you gave the example in the book of the Japanese team
[6:57]with the World Cup, and I know we've just had a big World Cup
[7:00]summer and how not only the play, not only the fans,
[7:04]but the players and how they would pick up other people's trash
[7:07]and I was like, okay, that tracks, but how nice
[7:11]if we all lived in a world where that was the case.
[7:14]Yeah, although it's funny because this is a little bit
[7:16]of an aside, but this year when the Japanese, you know,
[7:19]male fans were picking up trash in the stadiums,
[7:22]there was a huge movement of Japanese women being like,
[7:26]okay, so you guys do this in public, but at home,
[7:28]you just sit on the couch and leave a trash everywhere.
[7:31]Like interesting.
[7:32]So that is also interesting.
[7:34]But this is not actually in conflict with what I was saying
[7:39]earlier is most good and bad about Japanese culture is to like
[7:41]be mindful of how you affect the people around you, right?
[7:45]So whether or not these men were cleaning up the stadiums
[7:47]do that at home, they were being mindful of the people
[7:51]around them at the stadium.
[7:53]I mean, I think they should also do it at home.
[7:55]Maybe here's a whole chat.
[7:57]Maybe it's like patriotism.
[7:59]You know, I'm not going to necessarily like put my hand
[8:01]over my chest and sing the national anthem and stand up
[8:04]when I'm at home, but if I'm in a baseball stadium,
[8:06]I'll do it.
[8:07]Right?
[8:08]It's like, yeah, and I want people to think this is
[8:10]part of my country, right?
[8:11]Yeah, exactly.
[8:12]Totally.
[8:13]Yeah, but not that it helps the division of labor at home
[8:16]or anything like that.
[8:17]Yes, which I also touched on.
[8:19]You also talk about Marie Condo of it all and how you
[8:25]color code your kids books, which I don't have behind me here,
[8:28]but normally I have color coded shells and the way even
[8:32]the way you fold your kids clothes and have it all stacked
[8:35]and how that comes from sort of the Japanese, you know,
[8:38]efficient space efficiency and all of that and talk a
[8:41]little bit about that and how we can all take more of that
[8:45]into our lives.
[8:46]Yeah, I mean, a lot of Japanese people don't live in giant
[8:51]homes, especially when you get closer to like the city.
[8:53]And so there's a big movement around organizing and like,
[8:59]you know, neat containers for things.
[9:02]And I think Marie Condo was really smart in making that
[9:05]her core, you know, business and being able to share that
[9:10]value with the world and such, you know, such a great way.
[9:14]And like if you watch her TV show, right, she's like,
[9:16]so cute, she goes into people's homes and she's like,
[9:18]oh, like, this could be like this.
[9:21]And then the before and after is amazing.
[9:24]We don't need to be like that stringent about it, but I
[9:28]think starting to help kids early on see how like keeping
[9:34]things neat feels good, right?
[9:36]Like color coding is such a simple thing to do with your
[9:39]books.
[9:40]And as you know, because I know you said you do it too.
[9:42]I mean, it's it's pretty kids like rainbows.
[9:45]So then now their bookshelf is also a rainbow.
[9:48]Yeah.
[9:48]It's easy to find a book.
[9:50]So then you start to identify a book with its fine color.
[9:54]Yep.
[9:54]Right.
[9:55]So then you can find it more easily.
[9:57]And then they can also learn how to put it back in the
[9:59]right.
[10:00]place. So it's like such a win-win win. And yeah, the clothing is tricky. I mean, kids can't
[10:06]really fold clothes quite yet. But I remember my kid went to this Japanese daycare in Tokyo
[10:11]for one summer. They taught her how to fold her undies. And like she would take, you know,
[10:16]it's like a triangle and she would fold one side, fold the other side, and fold the middle part up.
[10:20]And then she would put it away. It only lasted for a couple months after a while. She just kind of
[10:25]stopped doing it with any habit, right? Kind of to keep doing it every day. But I thought
[10:29]that was amazing because I didn't know how to like, I didn't do that myself either. Or like
[10:34]after she brushes her teeth because they would brush their teeth at lunchtime at the school,
[10:38]she would take a little towel and wipe her toothbrush on both sides so that it's not dripping. Because
[10:43]when you do brush drips, it creates all this muck at the bottom of, you know, the cup or whatever you put it
[10:49]in. And then, you know, it gets to really gross and moldy. But yeah, so she had learned how to do that. She
[10:53]still does. That's just some wipes or two. Wow. Yeah. That your money's worth out of that program,
[10:58]the book, the toothpaste. I mean, you know, it's pretty awesome. You write about kids' independence
[11:05]too, both in terms of just taking mass transit much earlier, but also in contrast to the hovering
[11:13]parents in the schoolyards in America and how this one dad, every time the coach would tell him
[11:20]him to do something like, you know, okay, like, I don't know, whatever, but and then the dad would
[11:26]literally say the same thing. Like, and you were like, why is that parent literally repeating the
[11:31]coach? Like, let the coach just be the coach. Yeah. Talk a little bit more about that and like,
[11:37]how much parents interfere, should interfere, how you feel about it? Because you said,
[11:44]you know, if it were up to you, you wouldn't be the hovering one, but then would you get a bad,
[11:49]would you get side-eyed at the playground to talk a little bit about that? Yeah. The kid
[11:54]was in the pool with my kid and yeah, he, because the instructor was like poor, you know, like,
[11:59]maybe college student at the YMCA being like, okay, now it's time to kick and the dad would just be
[12:03]like, kick your legs. And I was sitting next to him. Like, I don't know if he really thinks he can't
[12:12]hear him or maybe the kid is conditioned to only hear his dad's voice. I mean, I don't know,
[12:17]there could be other reasons, right? I mean, and so I'm not seeing that to judge the parents,
[12:22]but it's a general trend. I've seen that parents in America are much more likely to be like,
[12:28]hey kid, like say hello. Okay. Like, now say, how are you doing? Like, they would prompt them. I
[12:33]want to say or what to do. Whereas in Japan, like, once a kid is interacting with another adult,
[12:40]they're just like observing. Like, almost like, all right, let's see kid if you
[12:46]have learned the lessons I've taught you before we came out to interact with other people.
[12:51]And it's almost like this sense of, I don't know if it's like testing or trust, but like
[12:56]sense of like, okay, like you're out and you know, you're out in the world. Like, now you have to
[13:00]represent yourself. And I think it's also a lot of what they learn in schools. It's like how to
[13:05]interact with others. So if you look at like a workbook, right, for first graders in Japan,
[13:12]like we have like this online tutor thing that my kids sometimes does, but some of the lessons
[13:17]are on like math and science and, you know, language and others are on like, how to sweep the floor
[13:27]with a mob the right way or how to, you know, what should you say in the situation when you're
[13:33]out in public. And so you really start to kind of see that very early on, kids are being taught
[13:39]how they should behave, how they should clean up after themselves. You know, what they should say
[13:43]in these instances, like even how kind of feeling is it better to have in a moment where like,
[13:50]you know, somebody is in trouble or somebody's doing something, like what should you say or what
[13:56]should you do? Like there are a lot of like little pop quiz like things, even in children's books.
[14:01]So yeah, I think that's pretty different. It's probably harder to do here because there is no one
[14:07]right way to parent, right? There's so many different methodologies and I think that's great.
[14:14]Better or worse, like Japan has kind of one way.
[14:19]Do you feel that this whole deep dive into one way, the one way, good or bad,
[14:29]has it given you more of a sense of control over the chaos?
[14:35]No, I think that life with kids is incessantly chaotic, but it gives me a little bit of a
[14:42]road map to aspire to. And it also gives me something to sometimes be like, let me not be that
[14:49]anal about that thing. Maybe it's okay, right? If they're running around naked, like it's fine.
[14:58]You know, or like one big thing I mentioned before, like the shoes on and off, like in Japan,
[15:04]like if a kid put their feet on a chair, like what their shoes on, like people would just be
[15:10]horrified. But here, like, make kids do it all the time. Like I'm not going to make them take off
[15:16]their shoes to put their feet on a chair in America because everyone else is doing it.
[15:22]They'll just be like a weird kid who take out their shoes all the time. But, you know, in our home,
[15:27]like I would prefer if they didn't tractor in our home through their shoes. Right, that makes sense.
[15:32]So how old are they now? They're six and three. Okay, so they're not quite at the reading,
[15:38]reading this book by themselves age. But I know so. Yeah. Almost. I mean, yeah.
[15:44]Oh, this book? I mean, this book, not just like kids, not this one. Yeah.
[15:49]You didn't name them, but use their first initials and you called your husband hubby. And
[15:55]obviously, different authors take all different texts with that. I was wondering how you arrived at
[15:59]that one. I don't know. I, you know, one of the most iconic, like memoir, like parenting books
[16:04]was bringing up by Bay. And I think she calls her kid Bean throughout the book. Yeah. I don't
[16:11]know what her kid's real name is, but it gives her little, you know, it's still giving her an identity
[16:16]without kind of revealing like who she is in the world or so. Yeah. I just decided to use her initials.
[16:24]Also, because not just to like anonymize them, but just so that it's not specific to like,
[16:29]you know, I mean, it is kind of memoirish, but it's not just about my family. It's really just
[16:33]I'm using my experience as a lens for people to hopefully like reflect on their own experience.
[16:39]Awesome. And the book is out already. So what have you learned since the book has come out? Like,
[16:44]what have you learned from people who have read it or from events and all of that? Are people
[16:49]surprised or who, you know, tell me more? Yeah. Well, I mean, generally, I think, you know,
[16:55]people, most people seem to like it, at least that's what they've been telling me.
[17:00]No, I'm sure they like it. But, you know, is it, do people say they're going to try some of these
[17:06]things at home or has it caused debates or were there surprising things on tour? Like, was the
[17:11]the reception what you expected? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think what I've heard the most is people
[17:17]who like Ben to Japan or lived in Japan, but, you know, aren't necessarily raising their kids,
[17:22]they're feeling like, oh my God, this is exactly what Japan is like. So we're really resonating
[17:26]with the descriptions of the culture, of some of the things that, you know, I also find
[17:32]beautiful, but also difficult. And I think that has been like the most interesting conversation
[17:37]that's come out of it. I also think just generally conversation, I'd like to do more conversations
[17:43]around like different styles of parenting, other ways that other people from other cultures might
[17:48]be bringing in or letting go of cultural ideas. I did a book talk at this, like a Japanese-American
[17:56]elder care facility. And that was really interesting because I was able to kind of connect with some
[18:00]people who had like raised their kids sort of the Japanese way, like two or three generations ago,
[18:05]that was very nice. Yeah. I love that. So has this sparked your interest in writing more books?
[18:11]Like, what is the plan now? Oh, well, I mean, I have a day job and, you know, I'm raising
[18:17]your kids. So I think it was like some sort of miracle that this book was a birth at all.
[18:24]I didn't mean to diminish what you actually did. I love writing. I don't know if I would write another
[18:39]book like tomorrow. But yeah, if the opportunity arises, maybe I need another like crisis moment to
[18:46]really think about what I'm going to write next, where I became a parent was kind of a crisis,
[18:50]like, oh my god, how do I even process what's going on in my life when we're at a book about it?
[18:56]But right now, I'm just kind of, yeah, in the daily grind, it wouldn't make very interesting
[19:01]book. But perhaps there is. And then, you know, like a book that requires a lot of research,
[19:06]like, you know, I love reading historical fiction. And like, I read a lot of fiction. Actually,
[19:10]like, I don't read. I like, I write nonfiction, but I only read fiction. And I think I secretly
[19:16]want to write fiction one day. Maybe that's my, yeah, yeah, post-day job plan. But yeah, but you know,
[19:24]I am like, just I love a amount of like research and detail that goes into like a really good
[19:31]fiction, but especially historical fiction, right? That would be so fun to just like dive into
[19:35]somebody else's life for a year to research it and write about it. I just don't think I could do it
[19:41]right now. Yeah. That's okay. There's future goals. Yeah, future goals always, always fun to have
[19:46]something else to look forward to. I don't want to sound tried and say, it does get easier,
[19:51]but it definitely gets calmer in a way where you, you have four kids you said. So I know, but
[19:57]they're older now. Like, my goodness.
[20:00]for 19 and my youngest is 11.
[20:01]So I'm in a different phase.
[20:03]Yeah.
[20:04]Not to say I wasn't like crying yesterday,
[20:06]but you know, it's just, usually,
[20:09]it's just a little bit calmer
[20:10]because you can reason with them
[20:11]as you would a friend is sort of,
[20:15]ish, okay, never.
[20:16]It's all right.
[20:17]Try it, try it.
[20:17]I mean, at least I'm not like involved with my body anymore.
[20:21]I'm not like lifting and they can do the things.
[20:26]Now it's more like psychological torture.
[20:28]But it's, yeah, basically it's easier.
[20:31]That's right.
[20:32]So there's that.
[20:34]So there's that.
[20:35]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[20:39]Yeah.
[20:40]So I think to aspiring authors,
[20:45]I would suggest to write things in little vignettes.
[20:50]That's what, like, I guess at least that is my process.
[20:53]Even if I don't know where it's going,
[20:55]I mean, some people just do like, you know,
[20:56]write 10 pages without thinking.
[20:58]I usually wait until I have something
[21:01]that looks like a headline or, you know,
[21:03]maybe a, you know, quick article that I would find online
[21:06]that, and then I would just write that.
[21:09]Yeah, and even if it's just the story of a encounter
[21:12]you had at grocery store, right?
[21:15]That could be a short story.
[21:17]And so I usually start with that.
[21:19]I think this is also how this book started.
[21:21]It started with like a short story.
[21:22]And now like if you look at it in its entirety
[21:25]and it has an art,
[21:26]but it's really a series of short stories
[21:28]that I've passed together with the support of, you know,
[21:31]a great editorial team and many, many drafts, you know,
[21:35]but really it is like, I think of it as a series of vignettes.
[21:39]Which was the story that kicked it off.
[21:43]Oh, it was the one about taking my kid to the grocery store
[21:47]and watching the Netflix show old enough
[21:49]and testing out whether or not she could keep
[21:51]in grocery listener ahead and buy the right things.
[21:53]So I wrote that first.
[21:55]Yeah, I was in my proposal, right?
[21:56]And so it was like, yeah, I had written that vignette.
[21:59]I shopped it to my agent and ended up being the little piece
[22:03]that was in the proposal.
[22:04]I was spending like $148 later.
[22:06]And we were on our vignette.
[22:08]Yeah, yeah, I did that again.
[22:12]Well, Lisa, thank you so much.
[22:14]I found this so enjoyable.
[22:15]And I know it'll help lots of people.
[22:19]And now I'm going to just like rethink how I can make my life
[22:22]a little more organized.
[22:23]Maybe that'll maybe that'll help until
[22:26]the next phase.
[22:27]But anyway, it was so nice to be in touch.
[22:30]Thank you so much for having me.
[22:32]It's my pleasure.
[22:33]All right, take care.
[22:34]All right, bye, okay, bye.
[22:35]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[22:38]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[22:41]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
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[22:48]Thanks so much.
[22:49]Oh, and bye the books.