How Family Closure Is Redefining Elder Care in Japan’s Super-Aged Society Amid a Rise in Toxic Parent-Child Relationships

A consultation service specializing in concerns about family caregiving has opened

“When I listen to the people who come to us for help, I can strongly sense their desire to cut ties with their family. That’s why I felt that ‘Kazoku-jimai’ (family closure) is a really powerful phrase. Still, to make it easier to understand, I deliberately named it ‘Kazoku-jimai.com,’” says Hideki Endo (57), representative director of the general incorporated association LMN.

Now in its 10th year as of May, LMN has been providing support for the elderly, such as guaranteeing identity for those moving into care facilities. In March of this year, they launched Kazoku-jimai.com as a dedicated consultation service for people struggling with family caregiving. Currently, they receive around 100 inquiries per month. Here are a few examples:

“They keep calling me, constantly asking for help or care, no matter how busy I am with work. I’ve been struggling, thinking I’ve had enough and I just want to break away from my parents.”

“My parent, who lives alone, shoplifts at supermarkets or yells at neighbors, and I keep getting complaints from all over. Every time, I have to sacrifice my own life to deal with it—I’m just exhausted.”

Legally, caring for one’s parents is considered a duty in Japan. But not everyone has a good relationship with their parents. If those parents are what’s commonly known as toxic—abusive or neglectful during the person’s childhood—it can feel extremely unjust to be expected to care for them. On the other hand, many elderly parents believe caregiving by their children is natural, since they did the same for their own parents.

This disconnect has been growing with the onset of a super-aged society. As traditional community support systems—extended family and neighborhood ties—have collapsed, the burden increasingly falls on individual children.

At LMN, the number of consultations from people saying they don’t want to care for their parents or want to sever ties has been increasing year by year, now comprising the majority. This led to the creation of Kazoku-jimai.com as a dedicated consultation hub. We asked Mr. Endo about the typical image of a “toxic parent” shared by those who seek help.

“The term toxic parent has become common in the past 2–3 years, and we also use it as a key term. But when I actually meet people labeled as toxic, they don’t always seem that bad.

It might be because I’m an outsider, but I suspect that from a third-party perspective, their families might not appear so unhappy. Even those who say ‘My parents have a seriously abnormal personality’ often turn out to be people who simply couldn’t adapt beyond their own sense of normality or who had such rigid mindsets that living with them was extremely difficult.”

The stereotypical image of a toxic parent usually brings to mind neglect or domestic violence, but in many cases, the reality seems to differ somewhat from that.

There are many cases of educational abuse and excessive interference

“Stories of domestic violence or child neglect don’t come up very often in consultations. Maybe in 20 years, those will be the most common cases. But for people currently in their 40s and older, even if they experienced DV, they internalized it as discipline, so they don’t see it as abuse. The most frequent types of ‘toxic parent’ cases we deal with involve educational abuse and excessive interference. These are the parents who pressure their children by saying, ‘I invested this much in you, so you owe me in return,’” says Endo.

People who don’t want to care for their parents have long had no one to talk to about it. Relatives of the same generation as their parents, or even welfare professionals like care managers, have traditionally held the belief that it’s natural for family to take care of each other. So, what exactly does LMN’s Family Proxy Service do for those who don’t want to care for their parents?

“If you sign a contract and pay 550,000 yen, we provide complete support—from caregiving to burial. We interact with hospitals and administrative care offices as the family’s representative. We also stay in regular contact with the children to keep them updated on the support being provided.

We offer 24-hour phone support for tasks normally expected of family members. That includes accompanying the parent to doctor’s appointments, picking up prescriptions, shopping, laundry, and more. The on-call service costs 11,000 yen per 4-hour visit, plus a 2,500 yen transportation fee.”

The service also handles hospital or care facility calls as the family representative, and after the parent passes away, they even arrange the funeral and burial. Many clients simply say, “Just contact me when they die,” and leave everything else to LMN. Currently, the service mainly operates in the Kanto and Kansai regions, but with the launch of Kazoku-jimai.com, Endo hopes to expand nationwide.

“In the past 10 years alone, the landscape around caregiving has drastically changed. The term ‘lonely death’ has become common, and it’s no longer seen as unusual. About 6–7 years ago, the ‘direct cremation’ format without a traditional funeral started gaining traction, and now about half of funerals are handled that way. I believe even more changes are coming in the next 10 years.

The caregiving industry itself might collapse due to labor shortages. And since the next generation—our children—tends to be emotionally detached, fewer people will want to take care of parents they dislike, even if they’re paid to do so. If that happens, maybe there won’t be any need for ‘Kazoku-jimai’ anymore.”

The style of caregiving evolves with the times. Kazoku-jimai is a service that was born because this era demands it.

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