These pre-school children’s gangs are very free with each other. Many of their games are unabashedly obscene from a Western point of view. The children know the facts of life both because of the freedom of grownups’ conversation and because of the close quarters in which a Japanese family lives. Besides, their mothers ordinarily call attention to their children’s genitals when they play with them and bathe them, certainly to those of their boy children. The Japanese do not condemn childish sexuality except when it is indulged in the wrong places and in wrong company. Masturbation is not regarded as dangerous. The children’s gangs are also very free in hurling criticisms at each other – criticisms which in later life would be insults – and in boasting – boasts which would later be occasions of deep shame. ‘Children,’ the Japanese say, their eyes smiling benignantly, ‘know no shame (haji).’ They add, ‘That is why they are so happy.’ It is the great gulf fixed between the little child and the adult, for to say of a grown person, ‘He knows no shame’ is to say that he is lost to decency.
Children of this age criticize each other’s homes and possessions and they boast especially about their fathers. ‘My father is stronger than yours,’ ‘My father is smarter than yours’ is common coin. They come to blows over their respective fathers. This kind of behavior seems to Americans hardly worth noting, but in Japan it is in great contrast to the conversation children hear all about them.
Every adult’s reference to his own home is phrased as ‘my wretched house’ and to his neighbor’s as ‘your august house’; every reference to his family, as ‘my miserable family,’ and to his neighbor’s as ‘your honorable family.’ Japanese agree that for many years of childhood – from the time the children’s play gangs form till the third year of elementary school, when the children are nine – they occupy themselves constantly with these individualistic claims. Sometimes it is, ‘I will pay overlord and you’ll be my retainers.’ ‘No, I won’t be a servant. I will be overlord.’ Sometimes it is personal boasts and derogation of the others. ‘They are free to say whatever they want. As they get older they find that what they want isn’t allowed, and then they wait till they’re asked and they don’t boast any more.’
The child learns in the home his attitudes toward the supernatural. The priest does not ‘teach’ him and generally a child’s experiences with organized religion are on those occasions when he goes to a popular festival and, along with all others who attend, is sprinkled by the priest for purification. Some children are taken to Buddhist services, but usually this too occurs at festivals. The child’s constant and most deep-seated experiences with religion are always the family observances that center around the Buddhist and the Shinto shrines in his own home. The more conspicuous is the Buddhist shrine with the family grave tablets before which are offered flowers, branches of a certain tree, and incense. Food offerings are placed there daily and the elders of the family announce all family events to the ancestors and bow daily before the shrine. In the evening little lamps are lighted there. It is quite common for people to say that they do not like to sleep away from home because they feel lost without these presences which preside over the house. The Shinto shrine is usually a simple shelf dominated by a charm from the temple of Ise. Other sorts of offerings may be presented here. Then too there is the Kitchen-god covered with soot in the kitchen, and a host of charms may be fastened on doors and walls. They are all protections and make home safe. In the villages the village shrine is similarly a safe place because benevolent gods protect it with their presence. Mothers like to have their children play there where it is safe. Nothing in the child’s experience makes him fear the gods or shape his conduct to satisfy just or censorious gods. They should be graciously entertained in return for their benefits. They are not authoritarian.