Are you a “kyoiku mama” or just an educationally-concerned mother?

This term “kyoiku mama” has negative connotations. The kyōiku mama is seen as stress factor on her child’s social and physical and emotional development in that she is relentlessly driving her child to study to pass competitive entrance examinations or to gain entry into top schools. Kyoiku mamas are also thought of as in conjunction with cram schools (juku (学習塾), and are blamed by psychologists for their competitiveness and ambitiousness in forcing their kids attend cram schools that make their kids’ lives miserable.

“Kyōiku mama” is a generalized and often unfair stereotype associated with the excesses of an overly competitive education system and all the social ills of juveniles such as school phobia and youth suicides. The stereotypical kyōiku mama has her children cowering in fear and is envied and resented by other mothers of children who cope less well in the exam system. They are judged as overbearing, selfish society views as lacking self-reliance, antisocial, and selfish

“These mothers are preoccupied with the idea that admission to private elementary schools is the ticket to happiness for the kids, the family and themselves,” prominent psychiatrist Machizawa Shizuo is quoted as having said.  

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Below are article links to *kyoiku mama* issues:

Juku jobs and the kyoiku mama
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/goyaboy/hist250/assets/pdfs/lo27.pdf

*Kyoiku Mama*’: Educating Offspring Is Full-Time
Job Education Week, February 20, 1985  … This is called the *Kyoiku mama* syndrome–the mother invested in her children’s educational progress.

The Role of School in Japanese Adolescents’ Lives (Part 4 of 6) Archived: The Educational System in Japan: Case Study Findings
This article wishes to go beyond “kyoiku mama” stereotypical role, to emphasize the importance of parental involvement in the child’s school education.

“Mommy Dearest”. Asiaweek. 10/26/07  Mutsuko, Murakami.

 

Many more references from Wikipedia’s “Kyoiku Mama” page.