Ayako, a happy five-year-old, plays with her dolls in a sunny corner of the kitchen-dining area of her family's small apartment. Her mother, in a clean frilled apron, is busy packing a lunch for her in a “Hello Kitty” lunch box, including a set of bright pink chopsticks in a small chopstick case, a freshly ironed napkin, and a small damp oshibori, or washcloth, in a special plastic bag. The lunch contains “something from the mountains, something from the sea”, a nutritional balance dictated by tradition, school protocol, and the “secret mothers' school” of information passed from mother to mother, consonant with the general high standards for mothering in Japan today (Allison, 1991).

Those high standards for mothering are grounded in both new and old cultural perceptions of the child and changing concepts of family in Japan. It was not always “mother” who was the point person for children's development, the person marked as responsible for the environment and outcomes of childrearing, and in many families mothers cannot fulfill this totalistic responsibility. And, yet, as Yoshie Nishioka Rice describes her (see Rice, this volume), the kosodatemama (childrearing mother) is such a strong role designation that it transcends realities of class, opportunity, and personal choice. However entrenched it may seem, the model of the “childrearing mother” cannot always be realized – especially in families where motherhood is not the woman's only defining role.