Japan’s ‘monster parents’ heap misery on teachers with absurd demands

When the cherry blossoms fail to bloom on cue or a lunch menu falls short of expectations, teachers in Japan know what to expect: a barrage of late-night emails, angry phone calls and, increasingly, a sense of despair. The problem has reached such proportions that authorities in Tokyo are planning official guidelines intended to protect educators from parental harassment and establish boundaries around what schools can be asked to do. According to a draft released this month by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, the guidelines are “aimed at enabling teachers and other school staff to work with peace of mind”. The phenomenon, first labelled “monster parents” by educator Yoichi Mukoyama in 2007 – referring to “unjustified, incomprehensible demands” from parents who berated teachers day and night – has since morphed into something even more insidious. Today’s parents are more aggressive and entitled than ever, teachers say, fuelling a mental health crisis among staff and worsening Japan’s chronic teacher shortage. Yet many teachers are reluctant to speak openly about their experiences, fearing that complaints might be escalated by irate parents to school administrators or local education boards. Teachers’ unions share this wariness, with one union official candidly acknowledging a rise in problematic interactions, while carefully avoiding the “monster parents” label. With an audible sigh, the official told This Week in Asia that recent incidents have centred on autumn school excursions, with “parents calling or messaging teachers at midnight or even later to ask what their child needs to bring, where to meet, what time to arrive, what they will be seeing, and on and on”. The frustration was compounded by the fact that all the relevant information had already been provided well in advance, she said. Absurd demands A one-off request might seem innocuous, but with teachers often overseeing multiple classes of around 30 students per year group, the demands can quickly become overwhelming. Some parental complaints verge on the absurd: teachers have been berated for cherry trees not blooming at entrance ceremonies, school lunches allegedly lacking flavour, students’ inability to use chopsticks properly, and even bug bites. In one case, after a child suffered a minor injury, parents reportedly demanded the school cover not only medical expenses but also their dinner, according to a Fuji TV news segment that recently resurfaced online. “It can sometimes be hard,” said a private cram-school teacher in Kawasaki, noting parents’ high expectations were often driven by their financial investment in after-school lessons. “In my experience, there are two types of parents: those who are demanding but nice, sometimes offering us gifts when their child does well, and those who just seem to be unhappy all the time, no matter what,” said the maths and science teacher, who declined to give his name. “In my school, it is usually the front desk staff who have to speak with these people, but things can get very heated. Some parents are convinced it is their right that their child gets into a top school, but we cannot guarantee that. I find myself feeling sorry for their children.” Izumi Tsuji, a professor of the sociology of culture at Tokyo’s Chuo University, linked the rise of these issues to demographic and societal shifts. “This problem has been increasing in recent years and the Tokyo government would not have acted if it did not feel the situation was worsening,” he said. With fewer children being born in present-day Japan, Tsuji said parents were focusing all their attention on the well-being and academic success of those offspring that they do have, heightening pressure on teachers. He said the collapse of traditional multi-generational family units and supportive local communities also meant that parents lacked alternative support structures and resorted to venting their frustrations at schools instead. Parents have nowhere to turn to when they have a question or a worry or are frustrated in some way Izumi Tsuji, sociologist “That means parents have nowhere to turn to when they have a question or a worry or are frustrated in some way. So they go to the only place that they can to vent their frustrations – the school,” Tsuji said. A report published last November by the Japan Mutual Aid Association of Public School Teachers identified interactions with parents as a major source of teacher stress, while a Tokyo Board of Education study this year found around 20 per cent of teachers had faced “problematic” parental behaviour. The board’s proposed guidelines recommended limiting parent-teacher meetings to 30 minutes after the school day ends, extendable to one hour in special cases, with conversations recorded and parents informed. Initial meetings should include two or more teachers, the guidelines state. If issues persist, senior school officials should step in for a third meeting; a fourth meeting should involve a school psychologist and any subsequent encounter should involve a lawyer from the educational authority to advocate on the school’s behalf. Should a parent use abusive language, become violent, or refuse to leave school premises after a meeting, police should be called, the guidelines said, adding that parents should also be requested to remove any defamatory social media posts about the school, teachers or officials. Alongside these measures, Tokyo’s education authorities plan to provide enhanced mental health support to teachers traumatised by encounters with difficult parents. Despite the changes, Tsuji fears “monster parents” are here to stay, with the phenomenon now spreading to universities. “These children are now at university, and still their parents insist on telling their professors what to do,” he said. “The university has had complaints from parents about the quality of the food, and one mother called demanding to know why her son had not made any new friends.” One mother even approached Tsuji recently to ask why her son could not find a girlfriend. “I did not have an answer for her,” he said. “But I’m a kind person, so I gave her a gentle answer, saying he should work on his communication skills and he would soon find a girlfriend. But I wanted to say that it’s not my job.”