An Alternate Version of Events

Undated photo of Akiko and some of her children. (https://orionfdn.org/kodomo/)

Last week I posted about Akiko’s daughter Uchiko, who paints a disturbing picture about her unhappy childhood and her mother’s lack of empathy (“An Unwelcome Discovery”).  Here is a footnote.  Akiko’s youngest daughter Fujiko, described by Uchiko as the coddled ‘baby’ of the family, has an alternate version of events, a kind of apology for her mother’s behavior. Whether you think this absolves Akiko or not, is up to you.

In “As I Remember It (Omoidasu mama ni)”,[1] Fujiko acknowledges that the three middle daughters in the family were sent away to foster families for several years. She reminds us, however, of the context. 

In the space of 17 years, Akiko gave birth to 13 babies, 11 of whom survived to adulthood. This included two sets of twins (Uchiko’s twin sister died in childbirth).  Childbirth understandably terrified Akiko. Giving birth to Uchiko and her twin sister very nearly killed her; it was an experience she wrote about later in harrowing detail. 

Throughout this time, during which she must have been either pregnant or recovering most of the time, Akiko’s career was at its busiest. She and Hiroshi published and lectured at a tremendous rate. Over forty years, Akiko published over 50,000 poems.[2] More than a thousand pages of her second modern Japanese translation of the voluminous classic The Tale of Genji(Genji Monogatari) were destroyed by fire in the 1923 Great Tokyo Earthquake, requiring her to start over from scratch. She was also a public figure who weathered harsh criticism for her outspokenness. She was naturally prone to depression, and finances were always tight. 

To put it bluntly, Akiko was stressed out, and perhaps we should cut her some slack. 

I still want to know why she had so many children in the first place. Birth control was not unheard of in those days in Japan, and there were no religious considerations at play. What was husband Hiroshi’s view on the size of their family? Stay tuned, I’m looking for answers. 

[1] 「与謝野晶子を学ぶ人のために」世界思想社１９９５年。

[2] A Thousand Strands of Black Hair, Seiko Tanabe, translated by Meredith McKinney, Thames River Press, 2012, p.5.