Showa, Men Had It Tough Too 21 Mothers Are Not Just Kind...②

(Continuing directly from “Mothers Are Not Just Kind...” ①) Haru (my grandmother) doted on her only child and heir, Tsugio (my father), in a certain sense, but her appearance, or rather her style, was far from the nuance of “doting”; it was powerful. Or perhaps it was precisely because she was a powerful mother that she was able to protect her son.
As touched upon in “

11 Family (Mother)”, Haru was such a strong-willed woman that one might think she would have been a career woman perfectly balancing work, housework, and child-rearing in the modern day. She did as much field work as her husband Kitaro (my grandfather) and never cut corners on housework. Since it was a hassle to keep picking the child up, Tsugio was always carried on Haru’s back (though it was normal to carry children on one’s back all the time back then). Once Tsugio could walk, he was taken to the fields, but since waiting for a child’s pace would make things late, Haru would place Tsugio in a basket hung from a carrying pole. On the way to the fields, she would put Tsugio in the front basket and farm tools or a lunch box in the back basket. On the way home, when carrying the harvest, she would load the front and back baskets in a balanced way. Therefore, Tsugio was carried in the basket along with empty lunch boxes or freshly picked vegetables.

Since Kitaro’s goal in life and his only real pleasure was saving money to increase his land holdings, he never gave Haru any significant amount of money; instead, he would beg her for small change for things like tobacco money, asking, “Do you have any small change on you?” <329>.

Therefore, as also mentioned in “

11 Family (Mother)”, Haru had no choice but to manage the cash for living expenses herself. Or rather, instead of “having no choice,” she might have felt something like, “If that’s how you want to play it, I’ll show you I can manage on my own.” That is how strong-willed a woman she was. So, Haru would carry the harvested crops on a pole and go to town to sell them. It took about 30 to 40 minutes on foot from the farming village where the family lived to the commercial district called “Minato-machi,” which used to be a prosperous post town and a hub of transportation—a legacy that was still strong at the time. She would go around visiting merchant houses, selling fresh vegetables and potatoes to the wives.

Before long, Haru had an idea. They made miso and soy sauce for their own use. Why not make extra and sell it? When the miso and soy sauce she had prepared were ready, she would sell them along with the vegetables and potatoes. Of course, this was all in between her field work and housework.

And Tsugio was on one side of the load on the carrying pole. Tsugio spent his time watching the scenery on the way to town, carried along with the vegetables, miso, and soy sauce for sale. It was fun to talk to his mother from inside the basket. It was even more interesting to watch his mother do “business” when they arrived at their destination and the basket was set down.

Sometimes, the town wives would give the little boy who came every time in the basket some sweets wrapped in paper. When he mimicked his mother and said “Ookini” (thank you) in a loud voice, he was praised as a “tengaramon” (a clever child).

On the way back from town, Haru would put necessary daily necessities into the now-empty basket. That said, since they “made” most of their tools themselves, the only things they really had to buy were metal items they couldn’t make, like needles, kitchen knives, or sickles. And even those were only bought after they became unusable.

As for food, they bought salt and vinegar (salt was also a “raw material” for the miso and soy sauce she sold), occasionally sugar, and very, very rarely, sweets. The rule was that sweets were to be offered at the family altar and then eaten by the family, but sometimes Tsugio was given a little bit on the way home. That was Tsugio’s greatest joy. (

Continuing directly to “Mothers Are Not Just Kind...” ③) <329> Kitaro’s frugality is consistently discussed in “The Meiji Era That Had No Written Records,” but Haru’s management and the scenes where Kitaro begs for tobacco money were touched upon in “

44 Behind-the-Scenes Support” of the same book.