FAMILIES : Japan : Crush of Work Strains Centuries of Tradition : With clear roles for mom and dad, households evoke America of the 1950s. But children and parents get little time together.

Smiling graciously, Kayo Mochizuki opens the door to her apartment and shuffles forward in a starched lace apron and red calico slippers to greet her visitors. With two smiling children at her side and her husband away at work, she is the picture of domestic bliss, a throwback to 1950s America.

The cohesion of the Mochizuki family is no exception in Japan. Family statistics here buck international trends on almost every count. Authorities estimate that 20% of Japanese marriages end in divorce, less than half the U.S. rate.

The number of children with single parents--just 5.1%--has barely changed in the past quarter of a century, Japanese government figures show.

Yet even in Japan, change is beginning to transform the social landscape.

Divorce rates, though low, have doubled in the past 30 years, people are marrying later and family ties are said to be weakening as accelerated lifestyles leave less and less time to spend together. The Mochizuki family, for instance, usually eats together just once a week.

The changes reflect a gradual shift away from putting family first, analysts say.

“In the past 20 years, individual actualization has become more important than being parents in Japan,” says Shigeo Tatsuki, a sociology professor at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan.

The parents of today’s teen-agers are the children of Japan’s economic boom. And those parents, says Tatsuki, had so little time with their parents that they lacked role models--especially a paternal role model.

Mothers rule the household, and increasing numbers of women are pursuing their own careers rather than motherhood. The number of women in the work force has increased by one-third in the past 25 years; they are also delaying marriage and having fewer children.

Sitting in the Mochizukis’ small Tokyo apartment, one can forget the hazy delineation of roles that plague some American families. In the Mochizuki family the roles are clearly defined. Kayo rules the domestic domain, taking charge of everything from cleaning and shopping to decisions about the children’s education. But she is reluctant to admit her matriarchal powers publicly.

When asked who manages family finances, Kayo bursts into embarrassed giggles. After much prompting, she confesses that, yes, she is in charge.

“Of course, something big like a car, or a big trip, I consult with my husband, but he pretty much leaves it all to me,” Kayo says.

Kosho Mochizuki is the family wage earner. As an elite bureaucrat in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), his waking hours are consumed by his job, leaving little time for his family. Kayo says during the budget season in July and August her husband often doesn’t get home until 4 or 5 in the morning. He sleeps for an hour, takes a shower, then heads back to work. During slower times, he gets home by midnight.

Kosho’s sacrifices for the family are appreciated, but with the respect reserved for a brave soldier drafted to fight on a distant front.

“He’s not around much,” says his daughter, Keiko, 14. “Even when he’s here he doesn’t talk. And on the weekend he mostly just sleeps.”

Kosho describes his own role in the family as a sort of last-resort consultant. “There are many times to make decisions,” he says. “The small things Kayo decides, but for the hard decisions I like to think that she comes to me to ask my advice.”

However, he couldn’t think of the last time that had happened.

Today’s parents are a far cry from the authoritarian Japanese parents of the past, whose word was law in an era when respect for elders was an overriding value. Both Kayo and Kosho seem committed to bringing up their children in a less-strict atmosphere.

During the interview, their 3-year-old son, Kyohei, dashed in and began tearing bananas from a bunch on the table. As Kayo tried to gather up his stray half-peeled bananas, she explained that occasionally he gets excited when young friends come over, but generally he is a quiet, well-behaved child.

“Ours is a new kind of family,” the father says. “In our kind of family the parents are more understanding. When I grew up there was a strictness, but it was a strictness without reason.”

Kayo originally was from Kagoshima on the southern island of Kyushu, and tradition also ruled in her home.

“My father was very strict,” she says. “When I talked to him I had to kneel down and bow to him. When I left the house I had to say, ‘I’m leaving the house now.’ I never talked to my father as a friend. I wanted it to be different for my children.”

The Mochizukis’ family life revolves around education. Choices of where to live, when to take vacation and, in Kayo’s case, even whether to work are based on educational considerations. One reason the Mochizukis moved to their current apartment in a complex for government bureaucrats was so Keiko could attend a nearby private school.

The mother began working part time, not for extra money but to make Kyohei eligible to attend a Montessori nursery school designed for the children of working mothers.

The obsessive drive to attain the best possible education for the children comes from Kayo. Kosho, relaxed on a Sunday afternoon, is unconcerned.

“I don’t think education is so important. If you can do the things that you love, and manage to feed yourself, that’s what’s important,” he says.

His simple advice is born of experience. Originally from an isolated town in the mountains, he won a place at one of Tokyo’s best colleges and joined one of Japan’s most elite ministries. By every social standard he is a success.

And yet, sitting quietly in his home on a rare day off, he describes himself as a man without dreams.

“When I was young I had dreams. But as I got older they disappeared. Gradually my family and my job took over my life,” he says, lightly running his hands through his graying hair.

Like highly charged electrons, family members spin through the same space, but rarely interact with each other. Keiko says she seldom plays with her younger brother. Kosho says he hardly ever sees his children. Kyohei bubbles with excitement when he has a chance to play with a neighborhood child, but mostly plays alone in his room.

How does this generation differ from the last?

Kosho, leaning back in his chair, looking slightly overwhelmed by the buzz of female energy enveloping him, says: “When I was a child, right after the war, we still had a system of dansonjohi “--the phrase for male dominance that literally means esteemed man, humble woman. But this generation is different, he says.

“I’m not around much, but the people who rule this household are women,” he says. “Women are stronger now. This will be the women’s generation.”

Profile

* Husband: Kosho Mochizuki, 41

* Wife: Kayo, 38

* Home: Tokyo apartment

* Father’s occupation: Government bureaucrat

* Mother’s occupation: Part-time window washer

* Annual income: $92,000, with housing heavily subsidized