Essay 4

Kelsey Tucker

Lauren Servais

English 100

Essay 4

Should Kiyoshi and Toshio be responsible for their family’s debt? Should any child of a family be responsible for their family’s debt? Should children have to drop out of school and work for small amounts of pay; then just hand it over to their family and have their life controlled until the debt it paid off? 

This is the Japanese culture. It’s a tradition where as a young boy in the family, you work hard for your family so you can pay off the debt before moving on with your life and starting your own family. It’s normal to the Japanese but when us American people living in the United States hear this, it just seems crazy and very unfair.  I can’t imagine having to drop out of school if I was a young boy and having to work and work as hard as I could for years until I was able to pay off my family’s debt.  But… Traditions are traditions.  I do believe in traditions and I love to follow them but I don’t think I could follow this tradition if it came to my family and my kids, when I have them.   I really do not know what is right for the boys to do. Part of me feels that yeah they should go ahead and continue paying their family’s debt because back then, it was what they did.  I feel like if it was set in the current year and time we are in now, I don’t know if I would accept it or even consider making my children doing that even if I lived within the Japanese culture.

In the story, Toshio doesn’t think it is fair.  I feel the exact way and I understand why he doesn’t think it is their responsibility.  Why exactly do they have to give up their life? Everything? The more and more children they have, the more debt they are going to be in and the more their children are going to have to work. 

Kiyoshi takes thing differently.  He doesn’t express how he feels about working or doesn’t say a word to his parents. Kiyoshi is a good child and doesn’t talk back to his parents and he knows his parents need to help and he is willing to help them pay the debt.  He even gives his winning money from playing craps to his parents to pay off the debt.  Kiyoshi is seen as a filial son and he has respect for his parents.

Thinking back on the responsibilities I had as a child and seeing how my parents treated and talked to me about the things I did, there are some things I will never make my children do or talk to them the way my parents would to me.  I do see that the way parents are raised, influences how they raise there and children and it continues most of the time generation from generation.  I know I won’t raise my children the way my parents did but I did learn a lot about what I can do, and what I shouldn’t do in raising a child. But, being me, I would always talk back or say I didn’t like what my parents would try to tell me to do which probably wasn’t the best thing to do because I would just get in trouble.  I soon learned, that telling my parents how to do their job, wasn’t my place and if I kept doing it, I was just going to get into more trouble every time.  It isn’t the child’s place to tell their parents how to do their job or to talk back.

I believe Kiyoshi and Toshio should maybe change the tradition when it comes to them having children and not making them pay off their debt.  I believe that that is the parent’s responsibility and it’s not the child’s.  There are things children should do and then there are things that just cross the line.  Children shouldn’t be slaves to their parents.  Parents should help the child learn how to do things and not take the money they work so hard for.