What do you think?
Rate this book
The Japanese Way of Parenting: And What It Taught Me About Raising (Mostly) Calm, Caring, Capable Kids
In this fascinating half-memoir, half-parenting guide, Lisa Katayama shares her quest to raise her American kids using Japanese parenting principles which combine unconditional love with unwavering rules
While Bringing Up Bébé introduced readers to the French way of raising obedient children who are seen but not heard, and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother shared an in iron-willed parental approach to creating high-achieving kids, Lisa Katayama’s Parenting the Japanese Way brings the principles of Japanese parenting to Americans, emphasizing unconditional love, community, and harmony with nature, to nurture children who are well-behaved, respectful, and creative. Japan is well known for its culture of respect, technological innovations, delicious food, peaceful vibes, and deep connection to nature. The source code to all of it is the way the Japanese view childhood—as a time of rigorous training for societal participation, where they learn from the start that are just one part of a larger whole. Katayama takes readers along with her as she travels back and forth from her motherland of Tokyo to the East Bay of California to expose her two American, mixed-race kids to the Japanese way of parenting. Readers will be inspired to take some of her insights—the importance of routine and ritual or the benefits of simplified spaces or the power in making everyday things cute—and adopt them into their own parenting, no matter where they live.
While Bringing Up Bébé introduced readers to the French way of raising obedient children who are seen but not heard, and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother shared an in iron-willed parental approach to creating high-achieving kids, Lisa Katayama’s Parenting the Japanese Way brings the principles of Japanese parenting to Americans, emphasizing unconditional love, community, and harmony with nature, to nurture children who are well-behaved, respectful, and creative. Japan is well known for its culture of respect, technological innovations, delicious food, peaceful vibes, and deep connection to nature. The source code to all of it is the way the Japanese view childhood—as a time of rigorous training for societal participation, where they learn from the start that are just one part of a larger whole. Katayama takes readers along with her as she travels back and forth from her motherland of Tokyo to the East Bay of California to expose her two American, mixed-race kids to the Japanese way of parenting. Readers will be inspired to take some of her insights—the importance of routine and ritual or the benefits of simplified spaces or the power in making everyday things cute—and adopt them into their own parenting, no matter where they live.
208 pages, Paperback
Published April 21, 2026
About the author
Lisa Katayama
6 books2 followersLisa Katayama is a Japanese-American author, journalist and blogger. She's best known for her columns in Wired magazine, her Japanese pop culture blog Tokyomango, and her book Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 12, 2026
Memoir of a Japanese-American mom who wants her kids to grow up with the good parts of Japanese culture.
- The whole book is from a mostly American perspective. Not what I was hoping for when I pre-ordered, but still valuable.
- Japanese culture is a bargain among a group: you put in extra effort, but so so everyone else. It only works if everyone cooperates.
- "Take a cue from Marie Kondo and the Buddhist monks. Even simple "chores" like tidying up a drawer, washing dishes, or sweeping outside the house can bring immense joy."
- "Greet your food." Japanese say "itadakimasu" but a prayer serves the same purpose.
- "Let kids play by themselves". "Playground time can be a chance for you to kick back, relax, and not worry too much about what or how your kid is doing"
- There is a chapter at the end called "30 Easy Ways to Bring Japanese Parenting Principles int Your Family". This is what I wanted, more than the autobiographical stuff.
- The values/practices from the book I want to impart
- be polite
- clean up after yourself
- organize your things
- think about everyone's feelings, not just your own
- encourage an "I can do it myself" attitude
- let kids play by themselves
- be early or on time
- do one thing at a time
- greet your food (mark meal time with a little ceremony)
- enjoy even the most mundane things (this one is for parents)
- Pet peeves
- The author venerates Japanese words. E.g. defines "osekkachi" as "the art of shuffling around, doing little tasks". But it just translates to "restless".
- A cringy quote: "It's not turning her into a Japanese kid. It's giving her an avenue to express herself and explore the essence of who she truly is"
Chapter-by-chapter notes
Ch 1 - Hello, Parenting. Goodbye, Me Time
- Author introduces herself. Grew up in Japan til 18, has lived in America since. Raising two kids in SF Bay Area.
- Admits that "Old Enough" show wouldn't work in America, but maybe a toned down version would.
Ch 2 - It Takes a Village
- Japanese society is like one big organism. Each part works for the success of the whole.
- Omotenashi - radically caring for others. (I would call this conscientiousness)
- Kid independence frees up parents to do other things
- Follow the rules, be polite, be safe, don't cause trouble for others
Ch 3 - Mini Japan in Big America
- Chapter describes author's process of picking a Japanese immersion school for her kids, then describes the school
- She mentions picking a school based on the adult friends she would have if she chose it. At first, I thought that was stupid. Later, I thought that was a good way to influence the values your children will inherit.
Ch 4 - Designing a Kid's Life the Japanese Way
- Everything has a place
- Everyone cleans up after themselves
- Be punctual
- bathe kids every day
- the irony of having too much stuff is that you can't find what you need when you need it
Ch. 5 - A Day in the Life of a Japanese Hoikuen
- The longest chapter. The story of taking her kids and husband to live in Japan for a summer
- All of Japanese society is built to train kids to be responsible. Example: a toy which is a replica of the button you press to stop the bus
- Cute characters reinforce society values (e.g. police mascots)
- Cute onemonepeas make chores fun (e.g. the "brushing teeth" sound)
- Interesting looking documentary: "The Making of a Japanese"
Ch. 6 - The Care and Feeding of a Japanese-Inspired Child
- a chapter about food
- lots of small-portioned items in each meal. Think bento box.
- Meticulous bento boxes are a way of showing care
Ch. 7 - Who Wants to Be a Japanese Mom, Anyway?
- There is lot of sexism in Japan, and it is not very LGBT friendly
- Japanese parents get a 100+ page booklet issues to them on how to raise a baby (boshi techo)
Ch. 8 - Japanese Parenting in America
- Argues Japanese culture is too string, and American culture is too permissive. Best is in between.
- Try to make good deeds seem fun (e.g. cleaning with a swiffer)
- The whole book is from a mostly American perspective. Not what I was hoping for when I pre-ordered, but still valuable.
- Japanese culture is a bargain among a group: you put in extra effort, but so so everyone else. It only works if everyone cooperates.
- "Take a cue from Marie Kondo and the Buddhist monks. Even simple "chores" like tidying up a drawer, washing dishes, or sweeping outside the house can bring immense joy."
- "Greet your food." Japanese say "itadakimasu" but a prayer serves the same purpose.
- "Let kids play by themselves". "Playground time can be a chance for you to kick back, relax, and not worry too much about what or how your kid is doing"
- There is a chapter at the end called "30 Easy Ways to Bring Japanese Parenting Principles int Your Family". This is what I wanted, more than the autobiographical stuff.
- The values/practices from the book I want to impart
- be polite
- clean up after yourself
- organize your things
- think about everyone's feelings, not just your own
- encourage an "I can do it myself" attitude
- let kids play by themselves
- be early or on time
- do one thing at a time
- greet your food (mark meal time with a little ceremony)
- enjoy even the most mundane things (this one is for parents)
- Pet peeves
- The author venerates Japanese words. E.g. defines "osekkachi" as "the art of shuffling around, doing little tasks". But it just translates to "restless".
- A cringy quote: "It's not turning her into a Japanese kid. It's giving her an avenue to express herself and explore the essence of who she truly is"
Chapter-by-chapter notes
Ch 1 - Hello, Parenting. Goodbye, Me Time
- Author introduces herself. Grew up in Japan til 18, has lived in America since. Raising two kids in SF Bay Area.
- Admits that "Old Enough" show wouldn't work in America, but maybe a toned down version would.
Ch 2 - It Takes a Village
- Japanese society is like one big organism. Each part works for the success of the whole.
- Omotenashi - radically caring for others. (I would call this conscientiousness)
- Kid independence frees up parents to do other things
- Follow the rules, be polite, be safe, don't cause trouble for others
Ch 3 - Mini Japan in Big America
- Chapter describes author's process of picking a Japanese immersion school for her kids, then describes the school
- She mentions picking a school based on the adult friends she would have if she chose it. At first, I thought that was stupid. Later, I thought that was a good way to influence the values your children will inherit.
Ch 4 - Designing a Kid's Life the Japanese Way
- Everything has a place
- Everyone cleans up after themselves
- Be punctual
- bathe kids every day
- the irony of having too much stuff is that you can't find what you need when you need it
Ch. 5 - A Day in the Life of a Japanese Hoikuen
- The longest chapter. The story of taking her kids and husband to live in Japan for a summer
- All of Japanese society is built to train kids to be responsible. Example: a toy which is a replica of the button you press to stop the bus
- Cute characters reinforce society values (e.g. police mascots)
- Cute onemonepeas make chores fun (e.g. the "brushing teeth" sound)
- Interesting looking documentary: "The Making of a Japanese"
Ch. 6 - The Care and Feeding of a Japanese-Inspired Child
- a chapter about food
- lots of small-portioned items in each meal. Think bento box.
- Meticulous bento boxes are a way of showing care
Ch. 7 - Who Wants to Be a Japanese Mom, Anyway?
- There is lot of sexism in Japan, and it is not very LGBT friendly
- Japanese parents get a 100+ page booklet issues to them on how to raise a baby (boshi techo)
Ch. 8 - Japanese Parenting in America
- Argues Japanese culture is too string, and American culture is too permissive. Best is in between.
- Try to make good deeds seem fun (e.g. cleaning with a swiffer)
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
“The Japanese Way of Parenting” is like a parenting bento box: some sections are a bit fussy, but the appendix is a perfectly portioned set of 30 practical tips I will actually reread, screenshot, and passive‑aggressively text to friends.
The appendix alone earns this book four solid stars.
The main narrative is a half‑memoir, half‑guide, but the appendix feels like the part where the author finally closes the laptop, rolls up her sleeves, and just tells you what to do in plain language. As a trilingual, 4th‑culture kid born in 1970 to a Chilean mother and French father, and raised in a French school, I’m used to cross‑cultural “systems,” and this tidy list of 30 actionable ideas is where the book stops performing and starts being genuinely useful.
If you’re a tired parent, you could skip straight to the appendix and still feel you got your money’s worth, which is not something I often say about books that began life as a concept pitch.
Bay Area bubble problems
Lisa grounds much of the story in the East Bay, which delighted my SF Bay Area heart and will probably confuse everyone else the way Parisians feel when Americans gush about Brooklyn. I could picture the parks, the parenting culture, and even the particular flavor of Bay Area earnestness she’s describing, but readers outside this bubble may find the hyper‑local references oddly specific for a supposedly universal parenting book.
If you don’t know your Berkeley from your Rockridge, some scenes may feel like being seated at the wrong end of a very long inside joke.
“Making” Japanese kids in America
I also side‑eye the idea that you can simply *engineer* culturally Japanese children in the U.S. by sheer force of parental will. Japan’s parenting norms exist within a broader ecosystem of schools, peers, infrastructure, and social expectations; parents share power with the village rather than monopolize it.
Many of her suggestions are lovely in theory, but to really work, they would require a movement: coordinated schools, aligned peer families, and a community that actually reinforces the same values instead of undoing them at every playdate.
The fascinating marriage that’s mostly offstage
My second big frustration is what the book barely talks about: her marriage to her West African husband, with whom she has co‑written a West African cookbook. I've been to Japan three times, and I've visited every African country, spending a 1 year in West Africa.
West Africa and Japan are, in many ways, cultural opposites in mood, tempo, and social codes, which makes their household one of the most interesting parenting laboratories imaginable—and yet we get only the faintest hints of it.
Given that she’s publicly written and collaborated with her husband, I would have loved far more on how teranga and Japanese social harmony collide (or mesh) when raising kids in the Bay Area; instead, the marriage remains a tantalizing footnote where it could have been the book’s secret sauce.
Bottom line
Come for the premise, stay for the 30 tips in the appendix, and be prepared to supply your own village, your own non‑Bay‑Area context, and your own speculation about what it’s actually like to raise kids at the crossroads of Tokyo, West Africa, and Oakland.
The appendix alone earns this book four solid stars.
The main narrative is a half‑memoir, half‑guide, but the appendix feels like the part where the author finally closes the laptop, rolls up her sleeves, and just tells you what to do in plain language. As a trilingual, 4th‑culture kid born in 1970 to a Chilean mother and French father, and raised in a French school, I’m used to cross‑cultural “systems,” and this tidy list of 30 actionable ideas is where the book stops performing and starts being genuinely useful.
If you’re a tired parent, you could skip straight to the appendix and still feel you got your money’s worth, which is not something I often say about books that began life as a concept pitch.
Bay Area bubble problems
Lisa grounds much of the story in the East Bay, which delighted my SF Bay Area heart and will probably confuse everyone else the way Parisians feel when Americans gush about Brooklyn. I could picture the parks, the parenting culture, and even the particular flavor of Bay Area earnestness she’s describing, but readers outside this bubble may find the hyper‑local references oddly specific for a supposedly universal parenting book.
If you don’t know your Berkeley from your Rockridge, some scenes may feel like being seated at the wrong end of a very long inside joke.
“Making” Japanese kids in America
I also side‑eye the idea that you can simply *engineer* culturally Japanese children in the U.S. by sheer force of parental will. Japan’s parenting norms exist within a broader ecosystem of schools, peers, infrastructure, and social expectations; parents share power with the village rather than monopolize it.
Many of her suggestions are lovely in theory, but to really work, they would require a movement: coordinated schools, aligned peer families, and a community that actually reinforces the same values instead of undoing them at every playdate.
The fascinating marriage that’s mostly offstage
My second big frustration is what the book barely talks about: her marriage to her West African husband, with whom she has co‑written a West African cookbook. I've been to Japan three times, and I've visited every African country, spending a 1 year in West Africa.
West Africa and Japan are, in many ways, cultural opposites in mood, tempo, and social codes, which makes their household one of the most interesting parenting laboratories imaginable—and yet we get only the faintest hints of it.
Given that she’s publicly written and collaborated with her husband, I would have loved far more on how teranga and Japanese social harmony collide (or mesh) when raising kids in the Bay Area; instead, the marriage remains a tantalizing footnote where it could have been the book’s secret sauce.
Bottom line
Come for the premise, stay for the 30 tips in the appendix, and be prepared to supply your own village, your own non‑Bay‑Area context, and your own speculation about what it’s actually like to raise kids at the crossroads of Tokyo, West Africa, and Oakland.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As a biracial person raised with exposure to both Japanese and American culture, much of what Lisa Katayama wrote was familiar to me. I am also a mother and have thought over many of the considerations she mentions in the book about how to infuse my parenting with cultural values that reflect our heritage. That is why it felt strange that this was focused on Japanese parenting. As I recall, Katayama has Chinese heritage along with Japanese. Her husband was described as West African. Do these other parts not play into her parenting? Or was it de-emphasized for the sake of the book? I cannot help but wonder if this was a marketing strategy, and that leaves me feeling a bit icky. This also leads to a the thought of how socioeconomic status also plays a large role in the book. The school she found for her daughter sounds delightful, but how realistic is it for the majority of folks to be able to find an environment like that? And to be able to afford it! She points out how class shows up during her family's time in Japan as well but it isn't fully explored. For me, the bullet point list at the end was probably the only part I needed to read of this book, but for those completely unfamiliar with Japanese culture, this could be one resource for learning more.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
What a window into Japanese life! I enjoyed learning how a mother learns more about her own Japanese culture as a parent. It was insightful and easy to read. I appreciate that she doesn't just see things with rose colored glasses on. She's honest about the virtues and disadvantages of parenting culture. The tips at the end of the book were clear and direct for those of us who want a more how-to. This book made me hungry for more - more knowledge, more travel, more food and language. My thanks to the author.
Some things I did not like- the cover is drab. I feel like this should be changed to something more reflective of the book itself. Finally, the publisher made this readable only through Netgalley Reader and not downloadable to an ereader. It was so annoying having to read this book on my phone that I nearly DNF'd it. So I am pretty annoyed at the publisher for compromising my reading experience and taking away from this book.
This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Some things I did not like- the cover is drab. I feel like this should be changed to something more reflective of the book itself. Finally, the publisher made this readable only through Netgalley Reader and not downloadable to an ereader. It was so annoying having to read this book on my phone that I nearly DNF'd it. So I am pretty annoyed at the publisher for compromising my reading experience and taking away from this book.
This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 26, 2026
Having given birth in Japan and lived there for many years I am more than familiar with the Japanese way of parenting. I thought that a lot of the ideas in this book accurately reflected the culture and I enjoyed those parts of the book.
However, the author's own lifestyle was not something that many people could imitate. So in essence, she's explaining a way of parenting that most readers would never be able to pull off. And I questioned whether the book was about her and her family or about Japanese culture. I'm not sure she pulled off this mixture very well. Without societal support, this way of parenting isn't really possible to the full extent.
I think that readers who know nothing about Japanese parenting may find this interesting, but also probably frustrating. But if it manifests healthier lunches, that's a good thing.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Would that we could all afford such a lifestyle!
However, the author's own lifestyle was not something that many people could imitate. So in essence, she's explaining a way of parenting that most readers would never be able to pull off. And I questioned whether the book was about her and her family or about Japanese culture. I'm not sure she pulled off this mixture very well. Without societal support, this way of parenting isn't really possible to the full extent.
I think that readers who know nothing about Japanese parenting may find this interesting, but also probably frustrating. But if it manifests healthier lunches, that's a good thing.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Would that we could all afford such a lifestyle!
May 8, 2026
I enjoyed this parenting book/memoir. I haven't read many books about Japanese culture and I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of it, and it felt approachable because the author presented it from a perspective of someone who is deeply involved in both Japanese and US culture, pointing out how and why things may be different. The information is also presented as informative with easy tips you could adapt to your life rather than a rule book for parenting.
I was given a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was given a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This was such a thoughtful and refreshing read. Lisa Katayama blends personal experience with cultural insight in a way that feels honest, warm, and relatable. I loved how the book focuses on respect, routine, and emotional awareness without being preachy or rigid. It offered a new perspective on parenting that feels both calming and practical, and it really made me reflect on how small daily choices shape children. A lovely, insightful book for any parent or caregiver.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews