Japanese Mothers and Obsentos:

1. The school regulates that all children have to wait until every child had finished their obento before leaving.

2. Obsentos

2.1. The purpose of the Obsentos is to create tasty and healthy Japanese food

2.2. Japananese culture believe that The food must first look good before it cantaste good.

2.2.1. Therefore much planning and preparation goes into creating the obsentos

2.3. the mother’s duty is to prepare the food in an appealing and easy to consume way.

3. Mothers and Gender

3.1. Mother will spend extended hours to create imaginative and balance school lunch for their child.

3.1.1. With the time spend preparing the obsentos, it makes it difficult for mothers to balance work life or outside interests

3.1.2. Most Japanese women actually leave their job when they have a child.

3.2. The designing of an obentos is viewed as a creative outlet and one way Mothers can express their love for their child

3.2.1. The more elaborate the obsentos the better the mother

3.3. Mothers are held accountable for their child performance in school

3.4. The mothers willingness to make elaborate, creative obentos is considered a measure of a woman’s commitment to the mothering role

4. Culture and Ideology

4.1. The creation of the obsentos is an ideological control by the state over mothers to produce proper Japanese citizens

4.2. Successful assimilation to Japan is not when a child has learned the language or made friends, but when he began routinely finish their obento.

4.3. The institutionalization of the obsentos is considered to be a form of intensive mothering which is viewed positively in Japanese culture

5. School

5.1. The Nursery schools carefully supervised the lunch of the children

5.2. The Japanese educational system is highly centralized and focusing less on content and more on how to be an upright student

6. Children and the Lunch box

6.1. The children must eat their entire obento

6.2. If a child failed to eat the entire lunch, not only will the child be punished but the mother would be held accountable