One of the things the Japanese media love to discuss is kazoku no hōkai (家族の崩壊, collapse of the family) — an evergreen topic that's been around since the late 1960s, a time when most urban Japanese families could first afford a television. Academics and tarento (TV personality) commentators would come on the air and warn that Japan's sacrosanct family life would fall into ruins from excessive Westernization (and too much TV). No one paid attention, of course, they were too busy fueling the rapid-growth economy, or being mesmerized by Godzilla and Yomiuri Giants' baseball games.

Besides, the kazoku seikatsu (家族生活, family life) in Japan was never much to brag about. My own experiences consisted mainly of dodging the iraira (イライラ, irritation) and frustration of the otōsan (お父さん, father) while dealing with the sengyōshufu (専業主婦, housewife) stress of the okāsan (お母さん, mother) until I could find a tiny recess in our cramped house to read manga and relax before one or another of my brothers came around to yell at me. All my friends had similar experiences and the unspoken feeling was: Konna mondayo（こんなもんだよ, this is just normal).

The Japanese never had much use for kindness when it came to family and relationship issues. Work and status always came first, supported by a centuries-old gender discrimination system designed to hoist the bulk of household maintenance onto the shoulders of women.