Dear Diary Boy

by Kumiko Makihara

When her five-year-old son passed the rigorous entrance exams to one of Japan's top private elementary schools, Makihara, a single mother, thought they were on their way. Taro would wear the historic dark blue uniform and learn alongside other little Einsteins while she basked in the glory of his high achievements with the other perfect moms. Together they would climb the rungs into the country's successful elite. But it didn't turn out that way. Taro had other things in mind.

While set in Japan, their struggles in the school's hyper-competitive environment mirror those faced by parents here in the US and raise the same questions about the best way to educate a child—especially one that doesn’t quite fit the mold. Public or private? Competitive or nurturing? Standardized or individualized. Helicopter parenting or free-range? Amid this frenzied debate, how does one find balance and maintain a healthy parent-child relationship?

Dear Diary Boy is an intensely personal, heartwarming, and heartbreaking chronicle of one mother and child's experience in a prestigious private Tokyo school. It's a tale that will resonate with all parents as we try to answer the age-old questions of how best to educate our children and what, truly, is in their best interests versus what is in our own.

Genres: Nonfiction, Japan, Memoir, Asian Literature, Biography, Reportage, Japanese Literature

240 pages, Hardcover

First published July 17, 2018

Reviews

[Furrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Read About Schools in Japan...

The author writes about the experiences of herself and her adopted son as they struggle with the rigid perfectionist nature of Japan’s private schools.

Somehow I erred in my understanding of what the book would be about. For some reason, I thought the book was letters that the author and her son had exchanged back and forth while he was living at school.

I was wrong. The son lives at home for almost all of the duration of the book. His notes are entries made in a diary that his school required him to write in daily for years. The author puts a bit from his diary and then tells us how things were when the diary entry was written.

Keep an open mind. Japanese culture is different from our own. I saw serious problems with some of THE SCHOOL’s policies, but I also saw a lot of good. Children who are responsible, capable, and academically strong.

I think it’s difficult in Japan or even here to raise kids who can set a table or cook a meal unless one parent (either sex) is not working. Otherwise, it’s just impossible. If you get home at 5:30 pm and your child has homework, you will push for the homework to be done. If the child is resistant or having trouble, it could be 8 pm now and you’ve not fed the child nor has the child had a bath. Forget it. You’re maybe going to do the mad dash to get the child to sleep so you have one small moment of peace. Yes, I do think being able to fold a shirt matters.

Meanwhile, American schools are wanting to get rid of the different academic tracks because of what’s in... insisting everyone is the same. We are all equal but not the same. Over here some teachers are teaching core curriculum and basically sitting back while children flounder and fail to learn.

I saw failures in both systems. I agree with the author that a middle ground would be good. If kids get a trophy for doing nothing, they begin to expect trophies for nothing for their entire lives... plus they don’t have any experiences that have helped them build up resilience. Having said that, the mother’s desperation was hard to read about sometimes. She was pushed to go too far sometimes.

I appreciate the writer’s honesty which coujdn’t have been easy... She lays her life in Japan bare for all to see.

It’s a read that will push you into uncomfortable areas as you’re forced to confront a vastly different ways of doing things.

Excellent and heartbreaking read

[Azjatycka Półka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kumiko Makihara zabiera nas ze sobą w podróż przez sześć lat wczesnej edukacji swojego syna Yatara Makihary. Poznajemy z pierwszej ręki, jak wygląda japońska podstawówka, szkoły przygotowawcze i edukacja domowa. Biegamy z Yatarem na zajęcia dodatkowe i siedzimy po nocach. Wszystko to w atmosferze ciągłego pośpiechu, rywalizacji i niekończących się rozczarowań.

Matka staje się aniołem stróżem i największym katem dla swojego dziecka, zamieniając dobrą intencję dania dobrego startu w życiu, w trudny do wytrzymania reżim nieustannego uczenia się. By to uzyskać, na ołtarze edukacji trzeba było złożyć w ofierze wolny czas, więzi rodzinne, nierzadko też karierę i tożsamość samej kobiety, która od teraz stawała się mamą, a nie indywidualną jednostką.

Autorka rysuje japońską edukację w bardzo mrocznych barwach. Z książki wyłania się też bardzo interesujący obraz japońskich kobiet, a także niesamowicie interesujący wątek zdrowia psychicznego i tego, jak w Japonii postrzegane jest ADHD. Jest to lektura często zatrważająca, ale też wiele mogłam się z niej dowiedzieć. A wnioskiem jest jak zawsze: co za dużo, to nie zdrowo.

Po rozwinięcie wątku roli matki, ADHD i tego, dla kogo w ogóle jest ta książka zapraszam na bloga:

https://azjatyckapolka.wordpress.com/...

[Sue · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of the questionable choices this mother made seemed to lead up to an epiphany and a greater understanding of her son. Except they didn't. At the end he went to boarding school and she got a book deal for being a terrible parent. I wish I had not contributed to her profit.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been awhile since I read a book that was hard to put down, and this was one of them. This memoir intersperses excerpts from her son's (Taro) diary in elementary school and was written in chronological order from when he was infant to eighteen years old. Taro is a bright boy who loves to read and is well liked by his friends. As the title says, Kumiko and her son are like polar opposites and clash a lot over his schooling (i.e. lack of motivation to do homework and study). We also get a glimpse into the Japanese education system which is quite rigorous and challenging but also traditional, in a sense that learning by memorization and repetition is favoured over creativity or self discovery learning. However, I'm positive that the education system in Japan is changing its views.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I forced myself to finish it. I don't know why; life is short.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself reading this memoir of a Japanese "kyoiku mama" (education mama) with a mixture of bemusement and horror. Makihara, a single Japanese mom with an illustrious past as a foreign correspondent, writes of her success at getting her adopted son into a prestigious private Tokyo school and of the ensuing years overseeing his education. At times, she makes so-called "tiger mother" Amy Chua seem like a kitten! Her frank and insightful account is lightened by excerpts from her son's school diary, which reveal him to be a creative, sweet boy. As the foreign mom of a Japanese-American son who attended private school, I found much to relate to. For others, this is a vivid insider's look at contemporary education and mothering in Japan.

[Monika | leniwiec_ksiazkowy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read on extremely high requirements set for a very small children who are expected to study and advance 24/7 and who need to prove their worth on every possible field - for example by winning the swimming cap that has the most prestigious colour, as by its colour you can show how good of a swimmer you are. All the struggles are presented from the mother's perspective and you can see the mix of love and helplessness inside her. What I lacked is more insight into her son's feeling and thoughts; we only get some diary pages but it was clearly not enough to have a full view on the topic.

[Jakky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book. Entirely unrelatable to almost anyone in the western hemisphere. After the first three or four chapters, I got it... but mom and child are lovable, so I kept reading.

[Diane Nagatomo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me feel so glad I sent my children to an ordinary Japanese elementary school where they could enjoy their childhoods and lead normal lives.

[Susie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose this book to learn more about modern Japanese culture. I did learn one woman’s perspective on it. I don’t doubt that much of her insight is accurate but it’s really hard to opt in to a parent who wants so badly for their child to succeed yet, in her fifties, is still somewhat financially dependent on her own parents. I also may have missed the point of the book as I’m not sure what the author really learned from the parenting experience. But I did get a good feel for her experience of the Japanese version of “keeping up with the Joneses (ie the school moms.)” She was really hard on the Japanese education system for not promoting her son’s self esteem, yet after his first two months at an American boarding school that does, her first words to him are “You got so fat!” I’m pretty sure SHE found her place in the softer, more coddling American culture. I’d be first in line to read Taro’s take on life with his mother. The mother who shuts him in the bathroom to get him to do his homework and when she thinks he isn’t doing it, turns off the light because “he’s afraid of the dark.” Without diminishing the trials of raising an ADHD child, “Really mom?”

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging and eye-opening memoir from a mother about education in Japan. Granted, this is an over-the-top intense example of an elite and competitive private elementary school in Tokyo (perhaps comparable to a competitive school system in New York City). But there are elements of Japanese culture that make this story distinctively Japanese, and I was glad to learn more of an insider’s perspective on the education system and parenting in Japan. Ms. Makihara is a very good writer (she earns her living as a writer after all!), and in spite of some of the horrible (and honest) episodes she shares, it was a very fun book to read.

[Katarzyna (hejczytacz) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Książka niejednoznaczna, wzbudzająca wiele emocji - wielokrotnie negatywnych. Japońska edukacja i zachowania względem uczniów (rodzice, nauczyciele) pozostawiają wiele do życzenia.
Nie liczy się kreatywność. Masz być nijaki, średni, taki jak reszta grupy.

[Karolina Sosnowska · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://tanayahczyta.wordpress.com/20...

[zuza · Rating 4 out of 5]

fajnie pokazane z lekko (non)konformistycznej perspektywy

[Lindaanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dear Diary Boy" is an illuminating, at times scathing expose of an elite Japanese private school that Ms. Makihara chose for her adopted son Taro to attend. I chose this book mainly because I worked for a major Japanese bank during the 80s and 90s, and my superiors were graduates of this kind of school. While kind in a patronizing sense, they were also strict and anal retentive in a unique way that was confounding to me at the time. After reading "Dear Diary Boy" all these years later, I understand much more about where they were coming from and feel compassion for them.

Although well written and highly readable, I cringed at the author's description of the constant criticism, corporal punishment and wildly unrealistic expectations foisted upon her her jovial son. Adding to Taro's woes was the fact that he was a "gaijin" (i.e. foreigner) in a conformist society that largely rejects non-Japanese students, a fact that the author acknowledged. While Ms. Makihara tries to justify her decision to send Taro to such an elite costly school (and after he couldn't cope there, to an elite boys' boarding school in the USA when he was only 12) as being "best for him", it's obvious that family money and connections fueled those decisions - not to mention the author's own insecurities and personal demons. Instead of vehemently defending her son when he was beaten and criticized at school, Ms. Makihara chose to double down and heap even more abuse on him at home, including locking him in a small bathroom and withholding his dinner until late at night when he hadn't completed his homework while he begged for food. While I found much of the book's content reprehensible, it certainly was a valuable learning experience.

[Elba M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our education system vs the Japanese system

This book is a memoir of a mother and her school age son. She wrote about all her struggles with her son while he is going to school in Japan. The Japanese school system is a very strict and the class load is immense and also believes that each child should be independent. The students are taught and the parents are judge. Perfection is expected from everyone.
She tell us about her frustration between the School and her son that suffered from attention deficit syndrome. In Japan, they don't be believe that this condition exists. She had to take her son to New York to be evaluated by a doctor there and she had a very hard time finding a psychiatrist that agreed with the New York diagnostic.
She finally decided to move to the States and put her son in a boarding school, where his needs were treated. He was medicated and the work load much less. The reason why she decided to send him to a boarding school was that she expected that her job was going to require a lot of traveling and his education was not going to be affected.
Something that I should have mention first is that Taro's family was very uncommon in Japan: his mother is japanese, his father is American and they are divorced, but Taro is adopted in Kokshetao. A very non-japanese family structure.
So, get a copy of this book and when you think that your kid's school expects to much from your child; just read the book.☺

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Taro” aka Diary Boy is both the hero and also the loser in this memoir by his adoptive mother. Both the circumstances of his birth, his adoption by his Japanese mother and their unusual financial circumstances render the whole arc of Taro’s existence almost unbelievable. Makihara is about forty years old when she and her American husband adopt Taro (Kazakistan birth). The marriage does not last and mother and son return to Tokyo where they are supported financially by Makihara’s very wealthy parents. This more or less allows Makihara to enroll Taro in an elite private elementary school where she is intimately involved with every aspect of his education. He is not an easy fit into Japanese expectations and educational demands. Both child and mother suffer, but they persevere and when things get even tougher in junior high school, Makihara decides to enroll Taro in an elite boarding school in Massachusetts. In some respects, things are no better but the reader is treated to a riveting picture of the differences of the two systems. Is there a winner here? Hard to tell but Taro does show unexpected resilience and sensitivity, much of it demonstrated via the required entries in his Japanese school diary. No matter how you frame it, there is nothing approaching average in Taro’s upbringing.

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book well worth reading for any parent engaged in or interested in the East/West educational philosophies or with an ADHD child struggling in a rigid system. For me this was very reminiscent of our struggles in the Chinese system, although that was much less rigorous and we gave up after 2 years rather than 6.
Even 12 years later it's hard to say what the answer is. Certainly I'm a huge fan of the (Japanese) Suzuki method with it's "Learn with love" philosophy and admire the resiliency and self-sufficiency and independence of some aspects of the schooling and preparation for schooling described in this book.
The extreme commitment of parents (aka mothers), the shaming, corporal punishment, absolute conformity of parent & child and undermining of self-belief is worrying, while I think there's nothing wrong with an emphasis on physical education, good nutrition and rote memorisation when relevant.
As the author concludes towards the end, if only there were a system that combines the best of each system rather than each being so binary.
Worth a read for educators and parents.

[Leeann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about a Mom telling of her son's experience at an intense private elementary school in Japan. Every now and again there is a short passage written by her son in his required school diary.

I was most surprised and horrified by the physical/corporal aggression Taro encountered at the school, and also how his Mom really wrestled with how to deal with it while not stepping on any toes.

While the 'cram schools' and such are intense, I see some of that right here in the USA, in our little area of the upper mid-Atlantic. Academic competition is intense and some cultures here DO have their kids do things like Kumon not to catch up but to get ahead, or hire tutors to cover material that their child is not yet learning, so that they will ace the test and have extremely high GPAs. Similar cramming but different name and style, perhaps.

Childhood is shorter and shorter, with more pressure these days. I feel for all the kids, really, no matter where they live!

[Elizabeth Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the book in one sitting. It is well written - clear, concise, thoughtful. The author is willing to admit her mistakes and why she made the mistakes. In a society where fitting in is so important, Kumiko and Taro had an uphill battle. There are few single mothers and even fewer adopted, foreign-born children. While her family was so accepting of her son, she knew that society wasn't going to be that easy. I also related to the struggle to get a child to do homework, pay attention, and succeed at school. My older daughter simply would not, could not, refused to even consider doing the simplest homework. At what point do you give up and let nature take its course? This book illustrates that challenge. Highly recommend this book.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

õppisin lapsena koolis (millegipärast põhiliselt vene keele õpikust), et jaapani lapsed peavad kohutavalt palju õppima. siit raamatust selgub, et nad peavad seda ikka veel, aga eriti, kui käivad glamuurses erakoolis. mitte ainult esimesse klassi astumiseks ei tule teha katseid, aga enne seda tuleb teha katsed eelkooli, mis selleks ette valmistab. selle raamatu minajutustaja laps ei olnud eriti andekas ja kukkus väga paljude eelkoolide katsetel läbi. no ja siis järgnes aastate kaupa lapse- ja emapiinamist, et kooliga enamvähem järjel püsida ja samas ka mitte emade olelusvõitluses mitte liialt prestiiži kaotada. kogu loo lõpuks on mamma järeldus, et see kõik oli seda vaeva väärt ja vähemalt on pojale korralik haridus antud, ehkki ilmselt suures osas ta vaimse tervise hinnaga. nojah siis.

aga vist tuleb selles kontekstis lugeda õnneliku lõpuga raamatuks, sest keegi ei saanud surma maavärinas ega tsunamis ega tapnud end ka ise ära. ja huvitav lugeda oli ta kahtlemata.

[Kathleen Herb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of a mother in Japan, who has lived all over the world, who comes to Japan with her adopted son (as a single mother), and puts him in a strict private school for grammar school. She describes the harsh, competitive atmosphere in great details, including her nightly fights with her son to do his homework. It really describes what I, as a private school teacher, so often struggled with; where does “too strict” start? It’s fine for the fairly academic child, but her son was slightly adhd, and they basically had six years of misery in grammar school. Along the way, she gives a great deal of insight about what is important in raising a child; that all the academics in the world won’t help a child who is left with no self esteem.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was horrified to read of the fiercely competitive attitude to education in Japan, where even pre-schoolers are required to attend cram schools in order to achieve a place in prestigious private schools. Then combine the extremely demanding curriculum with a child who is discovered to have ADHD and you have a recipe for failure. The pressures on the child and his single mum were immense. Fortunately he is eventually taken to a place where he can succeed on his own terms, and learn that there are less rigid ways of learning, as well as discovering the most important aspects of being a valued human being.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost a page-turner, which is not what I expected. I found myself rooting for Kumiko and Taro, and hoping that they would make it through the tough times of attending this elementary school. The sense of community fostered in The School is really foreign to a graduate of American public schools, and I know the US could benefit from some of the shared tasks like cleaning the classroom. On the other hand, The School didn’t leave any room for nonconformists, which is stifling to creativity and independence. Taro’s diary entries show a real talent for writing, and I hope he will return to writing in the future.

[Carol Wakefield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immensely readable book about the travails of a modern japanese mother prodding her likeable resilient son through a school in Japan,designed for high achievers. A son with some learning difficulties may not have been a perfect fit for this school which the author decided when she moved to the US at 7 th grade to continue his education ina boarding school. So we have a comparison of two school systems, both of which have strengths and weaknesses. One better than the other?? Dunno. Disposition, sociability and afore mentioned resilience may have saved Taro as he did progress through the differing systems.

[Lucy Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a single mother’s ultimately successful journey to keep up with the rigours of an elite Japanese school. It’s ok being a tiger mum when you’ve got a studious obedient children. But what do you do when you’ve a more free spirited child but you still want them to achieve academic success? Makihara has some of the answers. She tells her story with great humour in beautiful compelling prose. You won’t be able to put this book down - I read it in almost in one go. Looking forward to what this author brings to the table next.

[Gregory Rutchik · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Go Taro, Go,” is just an example of the love and energy pointed towards this child by his mother. Her journey to mother hood and then thru it as she raises Taro - an adopted son - in the rigorous Japanese elementary and middle school. Taro’s grandparents’ love of him anchors the journey in many ways. Exquisitely told, laughing and at times wincing at the difficulties of life - regardless of where it happens - makes this a great read for anyone.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read. Some aspects of the life of schoolkids in Japanese private education system are nearly unbelievable. The stress of these little children pushed and regulated by the ambition of their mothers / parents - would kill an adult. I do not understand how they survive it.
I simply have no words to describe my how sorry I feel for them....

I liked the writing style of K Makihara very much. Also he honesty.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at the elite elementary education model in Japan, as experienced by a single mom and her adopted son with ADHD. We follow Taro from ages 5-11 as he struggles to keep up with his classmates and his mom tries her best (and admittedly, her worst) to keep him on track. Sprinkled throughout are Taro's intelligent and well-composed diary entries, and the book is entertaining and informative.

[Growlcat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really just a reflection about a mother's choices for her son, and a way to express her worry that they were not the correct ones. We all worry this way about our children. If only we could go back and do it over again with the benefit of hindsight.