Parenting abandonment: The trapped mother and the neglected daughter

Introduction

On December 10, 2000, a girl died in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A young couple put their three-year-old daughter Mana in a cardboard box for nearly 20 days. Mana had almost no food during this period and eventually starved to death. At the time, they also had a one-and-a-half-year-old son, and the mother, Yami, was pregnant.

This case shocked the entire Japanese society. Sugiyama Haru is a nonfiction writer and also the mother of a boy. She spent three and a half years interviewing the parents and their families, child protection organizations, hospitals and other parties involved in the case, collecting court trial materials, and finally restored the full picture of the case in detail and objectively, deeply revealing the deep personal and social reasons behind it, and also raised the question: Why is it always the mother who is accused and convicted?

This book is a documentary work focusing on the social phenomenon of "child-rearing abandonment" in Japan. Mana's death is by no means a special case. It is a concentrated projection of the living conditions of three generations of women and a tragedy caused by the child-rearing environment in modern society. In this book, you will read about everything a girl may encounter when she becomes a mother. It also reflects the most real and hidden pain in the hearts of every daughter and every mother in a society with structural gender inequality.