‘Attaining love between parents and children’ by Hani Motoko

2,900 words, 14 minutes’ reading time.

Hani Motoko (1873-1957) is another of Japan’s first female journalists, and the inventor of household account books. Born in Aomori, she attended a high school in Tokyo as well as Meiji Christian Girls High School, where she worked on Japan’s first female-oriented magazine, Women’s Journal (which ran from 1885 to 1907). After graduating she worked as a teacher back in Aomori before divorcing her husband at the age of 22 and returning to Tokyo. She worked briefly as a doctor’s maid, then joined the newspaper Hochi Shinbun as a copy editor. She soon became a reporter, but retired from that role upon marrying co-worker Hani Yoshikazu in 1901. Together with him she founded the magazines Family Friend in 1903 and Ladies’ Friend in 1908, the latter of which had a strong nationwide readership as late as 1930. The also founded a private girls school in Ikebukuro in 1921, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and today has national cultural heritage status.

The essay I’ve translated was first published in the magazine Thinking and Living, 1918. It was republished by FUJIN-NO-TOMO-SHACo in 1965, 1995, and 1999 in a collection of her works, Discovering Young Minds. It’s on Aozora here.