Mariko - on living as a mixed-race childfree outcast

Feb 11

Raised by a Japanese father and a German mother in two contrasting cultural settings, Mariko always had the alienating sense of not quite fitting in. To spare their children the same unease, and to follow their personal life passions, she and her partner choose the childfree path.

Mariko (00:00):
I think I couldn't imagine myself as a mother. I was not interested in these kind of things. But also I would say there were times when I didn't enjoy childhood. It was not always easy, and I didn't want to repeat it. I knew if I would have a child, I would go through the same experience just standing on the other side. And this time I need to say you have to go through it. You have to go through school like I survived it. You need to survive it too.
Nandita (00:41):
That was today's guest Mariko. Hello everyone and thank you for joining me on this journey. My name is Nandita Bajaj and I'm the host of Beyond Pronatalism, Finding Fulfillment With or Without Kids - an interview series in which, through intimate conversations with women and men from diverse backgrounds, I explore how they are courageously and creatively navigating pronatalism - the often unspoken pressures to have children, whether from family, friends, or the culture at large. In each episode, I dive into personal stories with people who are forging unconventional pathways to fulfillment, including redefining what family means to them, whether that means being childfree or childless, having biological kids, adopting or fostering children or animals, or creating close-knit communities of friends and loved ones. Welcome to the podcast Mariko. It's wonderful to have you.
Mariko (01:39):
Thank you very much for having me today.
Nandita (01:42):
And Mariko, I would love for you to start by sharing a little bit about yourself - where you live, your upbringing, and what you do.
Mariko (01:52):
I am living right now in Japan in Kyoto. My mother is German. My father is Japanese. And I grew up in Germany. My first language is German. The second was Japanese. Before going to school I was just living in this German environment and later on, entering school, I started to learn Japanese and I stayed for almost nine years at the Japanese school in Germany and then changing again to the German society like going to the gymnasium over there. So as a kid I experienced both cultures, but mainly staying in Germany. In 2010 I moved to Hong Kong staying there for six years because I wanted to experience also how it is to live abroad and in a culture that's not mine. And then the next goal was to go to Japan and taking over there a teaching position at a woman's university. And here I am still right now.
Nandita (02:57):
I know from speaking to you that can be a difficult identity living in two different places where you're neither fully Japanese nor fully German. How has that impacted your sense of self?
Mariko (03:12):
I know the experience of many people's quite different who have similar backgrounds like me. My sister for example, she felt like fully being part of the Japanese society in Germany. But I somehow knew, or I felt like from the beginning of entering school that I'm not like the other kids, because at the Japanese school at that time, they were mainly Japanese, like fully Japanese kids, like their parents were working or mostly the father was working in Germany, taking the whole family to Germany, staying there maybe for three years or five years and then going back. So the reason for sending the children to the Japanese school in Germany was to give them the full Japanese education. So if the father needs to go back, there's no trouble, no problem in adjusting immediately to the Japanese society. But I was sent to the school not knowing one word in Japanese.
(04:13):
My father was always so busy, so he seldom came home early. So this meant the full education was in my mother's hand and she only spoke German to us. So this means for my first six years I was only living in this German language culture I would say. And then being sent to school not understanding one word. And the Japanese teachers over there, they couldn't speak German. So it was really like lost in translation for the very first and maybe also second year. And suddenly it started that I could get the meaning of the words and of the whole surrounding. But it was really I think not easy, but I knew that I'm not the same like the others. And while I was the German in this Japanese context, I am the Asian in the German context. And this kind of being always the other was kind of tough for a long, long time, especially as a child. You want to be the same, you want to be as your friends, you don't want to be special.
(05:22):
But I can't avoid being special. And then somehow from the age of entering university, I started to see the advantage in it and also to make it my topic. For example, I'm a designer and I'm also an author of my own books. So during university time in Germany I started making books about Japanese culture with a kind of humor touch. And the time I was in Hong Kong was for me very easy because over there I was a hundred percent foreigner and this status is quite new for me. And it was also more easy to handle than being somehow in between the two cultures.
Nandita (06:05):
Which was the case in Germany.
Mariko (06:07):
Yes, in Germany and also in Japan. Clearly it doesn't matter how good I speak Japanese, how good I understand the culture and how much I can adjust because my physical appearance, they will always categorize me as European or foreigner. So the very first thing they will say to me is, oh, your Japanese is so good. So sometimes if I'm sarcastic I will say yeah, because I'm a genius. And on other days I would just say my father is Japanese or I would say I'm Japanese. Other times I will ignore it. I also tried out to say, yeah, your Japanese is good too.
Nandita (06:50):
So really it was only Hong Kong where you finally felt like you weren't special.
Mariko (06:55):
Yes.
Nandita (06:56):
And since you were growing up with parents from two different nationalities, what was the experience of pronatalism like growing up specifically in Germany?
Mariko (07:05):
The pressure on women in Germany is maybe not so strong, like the pressure on women in Japan. So I think in Japan it is really expected that you are a mother if you are in a certain age. I have a partner who's with me since I'm 18. Many people I thought they think It is strange that we do not have kids. We are married and we are happy together, but we do not have children. But it is also a choice of us. And I think this is somehow more exceptional in this Japanese context I would say, than in the German context. So people would not ask, why do you not have kids? So somehow I was not so interested in having children from my young age on, and this could have something to do also with my mother, because my mother told us quite openly that as a young woman she was not intended to get married and she was not interested in having children.
(08:12):
But my father was extremely convincing. So he had many, many convincing materials, especially movies with very cute children. So somehow to give my mother the impression they want something like that as well. So my mother was always very open to us about this and she didn't give us the impression that we were not wanted. I think she enjoyed having us, but also she was more interested to talk to us while we are a little bit more grown up and that we can really have conversations with her. So she was not so much maybe just looking for very cute babies. So I think it was more like from my mother, I got the impression I do not have to have a child if I don't want to. My father tried to talk to me about this issue asking me, but all my friends, they have already grandchildren, but I don't have one and so on.
(09:07):
And he one time told me that he lost the battle against our dog because we decided to have a dog and not a child. And I felt like he feels uncomfortable to talk to me about this issue because he knows that I'm stubborn and to my partner it was easier for him to talk. He one time asked him, so you are sure you don't want to have a child. And my partner said, no, we don't need one. So somehow the end of the discussion. So he didn't try to push too hard with us. Yes. So yeah, I think I was not getting this pressure from outside or from family.
Nandita (09:47):
And you said that pronatalism in Germany looked a little bit different from pronatalism in Japan, with Germany being a little bit more relaxed. When you did move to Japan as an adult, what does it look like to live within that culture and to not have children?
Mariko (10:07):
Yes. When I moved fully to Japan, I was already in my forties, so they didn't put this expectation on me that I have to start getting a child right now. But there are also sayings like women are like Christmas cakes, they get bad on the 25th of December so, in a way if you are like 25, you are overdue. You better get into marriage and into partnership. And the only reason why you should get into marriage and partnership cause you need to have a child. So, because I think I didn't care so much while I was in my twenties, I didn't take it so seriously. But for example, I have a friend, she's also half Japanese, half German, and she really made up a plan for herself like saying in this age, I need to get married, in this age I will have my first child and so on. And first I thought maybe it's only her personal, but maybe there's also a little bit of Japaneseness in this because I see it with other friends, like Japanese friends and I see it with my students.
(11:09):
A lot of students they think, until maybe 24, they should find a partner and later on move on, having the first child, the second child. And you see it even if you go to the bank and you are trying to make some savings and you talk to the person, they will show you some pamphlets. And in this pamphlet you see the life stages. So if you're done with your school or university, the next stage is maybe working two years, then having a partner, then marrying. And then of course as a woman you need to retire from your job for a while, then raise the best will be two children or more. And then maybe later on you're away from your job for more than 10 years, more than 15, 16 years. So you can only go to part-time and this is the life of a woman.
(12:02):
So you are confronted with this. And what I learned is that I am teaching at a women's university. So there are life plans for women like this class. And my students told me in this class, they get to know when they're most easy to bear a child, best will be in the twenties and so on. So you get this kind of brainwashing all the time. And of course in the magazines and Instagram you see this wonderful wedding. And then we had one event at the university, it was arranged by a support center for women career. They were asking for women to discuss about their life, and I think they were maybe in the last years of their twenties, so maybe 28, 29, or maybe one was 30, and one was married with two children. And she was telling the audience that she really got this feeling she need to find somebody to marry in her mid twenties.
(13:10):
And this was one of her life goals. And then she found this person who will be capable to support financially the family. And then the next aim was to get two children. And then she was telling the other two ladies who are still working, the one was working in a corporate, the other one was, I think freelance, how wonderful it is. And they should try too. And if they visit her and just get in touch with the children, at the end of the day, they surely want to have kids too. So this was the message and I thought this is nothing you do at a university. It's preparing the next generation of mothers, but not academics, not women who can stand on their own feet or who will have their own career, their own life. And I really criticized this event because I thought this is also one kind of brainwashing and promoting the wrong thing.
Nandita (14:06):
I remember having a conversation with one of our common colleagues, Isabel Fassbender, who has written about pronatalism in Japan. And I wonder if you could speak a little bit to the fact that fertility rate is low in Japan and there has been this real reactionary rise in pronatalism and you use the word brainwashing.
Mariko (14:35):
Yes, I think Isabel Fassbender's work is really important and interesting and I asked her to prepare a speech or a class to deliver it in my own class. I am teaching graphic design theory and history. And last semester I tried something new because I think graphic design is a very, very strong tool also for doing propaganda. And so I was taking up different social issues that are connected to graphic design, and I made one section which I called propaganda. And there I was of course talking about what we usually categorize it as propaganda, like for war and so on. But then I also asked Isabel to do the last lecture in this class because I wanted to let my students think about the option that maybe propaganda is not only for war, but it could be also something else. And so I asked Isabel to talk about pronatalism, and it was very interesting to see the reaction of the students, like Isabel was showing different magazines and articles where the word ninkatsu, like the activity for getting pregnant was mentioned.
(15:55):
And I think she made very clear the point that this is a business model. It is really part of consumerism and it is a huge market in Japan. So she was talking about this and she was also talking about the pressure on women and working with their anxiety and with the pressure of the surrounding, thinking like what is the expectation towards a woman and all these kind of things. And I prepared this questionnaire that each student who took the class needs to fill out at the end of each section. And they were saying yes, but the population of getting older and older, the balance is lost and what young women they have the duty for the country to give birth. And I thought we made this part of the class in Japanese, we delivered in Japanese. Isabel took Japanese examples. She was taking in data, showing it to the students also about the fertility rate charts, which are from another century and still used nowadays to put more pressure on women.
(17:05):
And they didn't get the message because they was so much embedded in this kind of story. So this was very scary to me that they couldn't get the message right. And then I had another class where I asked another colleague, she's researching into children book and also into educational materials. She was comparing I think over 150 materials from primary schools, how those kind of class materials in different countries. In this lecture she was especially focusing on Japanese materials, on German, on French, on Italian I think, and also Taiwanese. And she was comparing in this talk how families are described. And it was really, really interesting because she gave examples that, for example, in Germany, the textbook for the certain age group, there was a family where two people having already children from another connection got together and introducing the new partner of the mother to the children.
(18:16):
And so it was like a patchwork family situation. In Germany we say like patchwork family. So they were introducing this kind of patchwork family into the class. And then there was a textbook from Spain. They were talking about an adoption of a child with another cultural background or it was just a regular part of the family, this child. So in another textbook there were two fathers. And so each textbook was introducing a diverse normal life. It was not this very traditional - there's a woman who's younger than the man and the woman is doing all the housework, the man's working. And I think also in one textbook there was a situation that the mother is earning the money and the father is taking care of the kids or something like this. There were so many different lifestyle pictured in those books. And in the Japanese textbook there was this traditional family construction, a woman and a man, two kids maybe, and then man is going for work, woman is staying at home.
(19:27):
And so the colleague was talking about this to the students. But interestingly, some of the students reacted extremely positive to this saying, yes, it could be very nice if you have parents who are divorced and you are not afraid to tell it to your friends. One student was really saying, I have a mother, she's divorced, but I can't tell anyone else about this in my friendship because this is not the normal case. So we can see a normal textbook that you use for education for the first or second grade could be implementing this kind of constructional family and the role of a man, the role of a woman, and so on.
Nandita (20:14):
I think for such a long time I looked at Japan and even South Korea as highly industrialized countries that were quite progressive. And it's only in talking to you and Isabel that I've had this appreciation that on the one hand the country has become quite technologically and economically and industrially progressive, the culture itself is still very patriarchal and this construct of a traditional family is still very much alive. I'd also love to know a little bit more about you and your personal decision to not have children. Was it really clear to you that you wanted to not have children and you were able to make that decision quite easily?
Mariko (21:02):
Yes. I think I couldn't imagine myself as a mother. I was not interested in these kind of things. And I think it's a lot of responsibility to give birth. You make a completely new human and you put this one being into the world where there's also a lot of suffering and a lot of problems that we can't solve or that we are not solving. But I think growing up is quite tough. It is not so easy to grow up. And I would say there were times when I didn't enjoy childhood. My family was totally fine, but outside family and it was not always easy and I didn't want to repeat it. I knew if I would have a child, I would go through the same experience just standing on the other side. And this time I need to say, you have to go through it.
(21:56):
You have to go through school. I survived it. You need to survive it too. And interestingly, my partner had the same opinion. He also didn't want to experience it again. We were very clear about this, that if we would have a child, maybe it wouldn't be the person who's so adjusted to the whole surrounding. Maybe this person would have a lot of doubts about society, about how the system works, about other children, about other families, about friends and so on. We try to avoid plastic, for example, and we became also plant-based four years ago. So I think this would be also a lot of pressure in the Japanese society because if you have a child and you send this child to school and the food prepared by the schools is of course not plant-based, so there is a lot of animal products in it, and I wouldn't like my child to eat animal products.
(23:00):
So this is one big thing. And either children would be like us and telling everyone how cruel it is to eat meat and dairy products and eggs and so on. Or it'll say, why am I not allowed to eat all this yummy stuff. And it'll be of course a lot of pressure on us. And also maybe we thinking, how can we cope with this that this child will not be an outsider in the society. It'll already look different like the other children in Japan. I look already quite European, so my partner is fully German. So this means we will have a child that look really different to all the other children. And then of course, behaving completely like a stranger, to go through this being an adult and like, okay, yes, I am an alien if you want to put me in this category, alien, do it if you want to.
(23:59):
But for a child it's different and it's very hard and to be accepted. And we also stopped watching TV a long time ago, so this child wouldn't watch TV and wouldn't be able to talk with their friends about what's on TV or we are avoiding TikTok. So we definitely would say, no TikTok, not in our house, and so on. So there are so many, many things. And when I entered the German school a long, long time ago, suddenly I was confronted with brands, like what kind of jeans I need to wear. That time I think it was Diesel and Levi's. Suddenly I learned these kind of words and I took it back home telling my mother, I need this kind of pair of jeans because otherwise I would be not accepted. So these kind of things, I think they're awful, but of course it would be part of our life.
(24:53):
And I still want to do a lot of things, like I wanted to make my own books. I wanted to learn more things. I wanted to be free in a way. On the other hand, I'm teaching since more than 20 years by now, and I met a lot of students. And this way of being there for students is always a personal choice, and it's always a free choice. If the student want to talk to me, look into my bookshelf or wants to talk to me after class, it is this person's personal choice and I'm not forcing this person to come to me. And of course on my side, there's no expectation. If somebody comes to me, I'm happy, I will talk to this person. But if not, I'm also totally fine to work on my own projects and research on my own. So either/or, I'm fine with it. And I see a lot of friends who have a lot of expectations towards their children. So they want their children to become this or that person, or to be happy, or to be more open, to try out more, or to have a better grade.
(26:02):
And so if you expect so much from another being, yeah, it's very tough I think, because this other being can't be exactly what you want from him or her. So it's a lot of disappointment what I see around me. And I think also sometimes maybe my parents were disappointed about me. Of course they would have gone through those kind of experiences and also feelings and emotions. And also I think I could reach many more people than becoming a mother, maybe staying at home and only focusing on my one or two children and putting a lot of pressure on them and try them to get my dreams come true and so on and get the life that I couldn't reach. So somehow I have this feeling. But of course there were times when I was thinking, am I doing the right choice? Is this normal for a woman to feel like this?
(27:02):
And I have my doctor mother from Germany, she was telling me once she was already in her sixties that she suddenly felt this deep, deep sadness that she never got the children by herself. She didn't give birth. And she was in her sixties and telling me this. And I was of course thinking about what she told me, but I never felt sad about it. So there were those kind of moments where I of course questioned myself, am I normal or what is normal? Or maybe is it important to be normal or because this kind of norm, it's not defined by nature, but it's defined by human beings. And so what was their aim to set up those kind of norms? So there were a lot of these kind of questioning my decision, maybe sometimes, but in the end, I always think it was the right decision for me. And yeah, we adopted cats and dogs and they are very important to us and through them, we also experience to care about somebody and to be responsible for somebody.
Nandita (28:12):
And so where are you at now with this decision? You made this a long time ago. You've had so many years of living as a childfree couple with your animals.
Mariko (28:27):
It's very, very good. So yeah, I think we have a good partnership. At this moment we are a little bit both overworked and I think it would be difficult to take enough time and also to have this spare feeling and just this kind of momentum for a child, to offer it to the child that we are there for this person in a way. So because you can't just be so in a hustle all the time and then have another being who really needs your attention. So I think in the way we live and our lifestyle and moving from Germany to Hong Kong, then moving from Hong Kong to Germany just few months later, moving to Japan and so on, this kind of lifestyle would be very, very hard if we were not on our own, but if we would have children taking them out of their social context and getting them into the next social context like I experienced it as a child.
(29:28):
So I was not moving between countries, but I was moving between microcosms, language-wise and culture-wise. So yeah, I think this lifestyle is okay and we can do it because we are in this constellation I think. And I had a very hard experience a few weeks ago because I was taking 25 students to Europe for a study trip. And one student, her health issue was much more serious than my colleague and me knew before we went to this trip. And she needed a lot of attention. So suddenly I had to take care of a grownup person who is same size like me and who's of course not my family, but who was really relying on me during that time because I needed to handle things for her. Like I knew if I fail or if I get sick or if I show any weakness during that time, she will just crash in a way.
(30:31):
And the whole trip would be a hell in this case because also we had still 24 other students with us who I also can't abandon. I had this almost two weeks of having the responsibility for another person who relied quite a lot on me. And it was not a good feeling, I need to say. It was a lot of fear. I traveled quite a lot for conferences on my own. I went to Lebanon a few times. I went to Sharjah on my own. I went to India a few times. I went to China, I went to Taiwan and so on. And I never really felt insecure or I never felt this maybe it is so dangerous, it's like death or it's life-threatening. I never had this feeling while I was traveling on my own. And this time I was in surrounding, which I knew, which was not so new to me. And I could communicate without any problems, but I had extreme fear. And I think this is also something what was reassuring me, that personally, I made this right decision.
Nandita (31:43):
Yeah, the constant source of fear and anxiety about a person who's dependent on you at all times. I can certainly relate to that. Well, this has been a really wonderful conversation. This was really nice to get such a unique perspective of your life, living in Germany, living in Japan, in Hong Kong, and traveling to so many different countries and the different experiences culturally that you've had around pronatalist expectation. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Mariko (32:19):
Yeah, thank you too. And I think for feeling comfortable about my decisions, your podcast helped a lot and also many things I felt or I thought about during all the years, but I never discussed it with family or friends. But listening to your podcast, it helped me a lot to understand what was going on in my mind. And it was also good to get in touch with it and to know it because suddenly it was not only my strange idea, but I understood that this is quite normal, and I think this helps a lot of women too.
Nandita (32:58):
I'm so glad to hear that. Thank you for saying that. That's all for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. What did you think of this episode? Do you have your own story you'd like to share? Check out the show notes to see how you can get in touch with me, whether you'd like to share feedback about the show or a particular episode, or whether you'd like to join me on the show to share your own story, I'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much again for joining me today, as we collectively discover and celebrate the many different pathways to fulfillment beyond pronatlism. Beyond Pronatalism is brought to you by Population Balance, the only nonprofit organization advancing ecological and reproductive justice by confronting pronatalism. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Nandita Bajaj, with the support of my production team - Josh Wild, Elisabeth Strunk, Alan Ware, and Kirsten Stade.