Why not my child? The Pitfalls of Parents’ Proxy Marriage Activities: “Accompanying and Intervening in Their Children’s Meetings

Following on from Part 1, I would like to discuss marriage activity on behalf of parents through my own experiences with social networking services, matching apps, marriage agencies, and government support for marriage activity. Despite the variety of dating opportunities, the rate of unmarried people continues to rise, with 51.8% of men and 38.5% of women in their early 30s (2023 White Paper on Health, Labor, and Welfare), indicating that the majority of men are never-married rather than married.

Part 1: Report on the experience of participating in marriage activities on behalf of parents: “Money, occupation, and youth are more important than character.

However, this does not mean that they have decided not to get married. According to a survey conducted by the Child and Family Agency (2024), approximately 60% of never-married men and women aged 19-39 answered that they “want to get married soon” or “want to get married eventually.

Thinking about this from a parent’s perspective, one would tend to think, “If they want to get married, they should engage in marriage activities and find a partner,” or “Why don’t they just marry someone they meet at work or through their hobbies?

On the other hand, children’s own marriage activity is not as easy as parents think. For example, our eldest son, who was 34 years old, spent a year and a half searching for a marriage through a marriage agency. He searched for potential “mates” every day using a special application, and paid an “omiai” fee of 11,000 yen per meeting to meet with a woman in a first-class hotel lounge. The rule is that the man pays for tea at the time of the meeting.

If both parties agree, a “tentative relationship” is arranged, which is a trial date, followed by a one-on-one “serious relationship” if all goes well, and then “marriage. My son had no success in meeting or tentative dating with about 20 women, and after spending a total of 1.5 million yen, he gave up, saying, “Marriage activity is impossible for me.

Old.”

At the time, I was unaware of such an inside story, and had doubts and fears, wondering why on earth I kept failing. I sometimes thought, “Why don’t they just make a decision and get on with it instead of choosing this and that,” with the gutsy thinking common to the Showa generation.

In other words, for me, the motivation for the proxy marriage activity was to solve the question, “Why can’t my child be the one? In addition to the conditions of the person himself/herself, such as annual income, educational background, and occupation, the reality that the level of family members was also required made me reflect upon my naivete and arrogance.

One of the parents I met during my three proxy marriage activities mentioned the difficulty of “meeting” a man. 36-year-old daughter likes to drink and is hoping for “a man who can go out drinking with her.

He said, “Then you can meet someone at a drinking party at work or at a restaurant where you go out for a drink, can’t you?

When I asked her this, she laughed and said, “That’s old-fashioned.

Nowadays, power harassment and sexual harassment are considered a problem, right?　I’m told that if something goes wrong at a company drinking party, it is immediately reported internally. Even when it comes to meeting people for drinks, young people nowadays go to restaurants they find on Instagram or other places. My daughter also goes to various restaurants for girls’ parties, so there are no encounters at all.

Even picking up girls or going to a party can be considered sexual harassment if you make a mistake. Parents who want to avoid problems between men and women in their children’s lives may find comfort in the “identity guarantee” of proxy marriage activities.

A stay-at-home mother of a 41-year-old daughter was blamed by her husband for her daughter’s problems, who told her, “You’re responsible for taking care of it.

I have always wondered if I had done something wrong in the way I raised her. As a mother, I can’t just sit back and do nothing, and if there is anything I can do as a parent, I will try.

Although she understands the earnest parental feelings, she would like her “partner” to buy a house and a car, provide her children with a high level of education, and give her daughter a life where the family can enjoy traveling together. This may seem like a lofty expectation, but to the mothers in question, it is the “normal” way of life.

In short, parents are engaged in proxy marriages based on their own lives. Men make a good living and support their wives and children. Women work but do not neglect housework and childcare. They say that they do not have high expectations because this was “normal” for them.

One mother was asked by her 43-year-old daughter to go to a social event. One mother told us that her daughter had left a marriage agency after half a year of marriage activity and now left it up to her mother.

She said, “It’s better to ride the rails recommended by parents.”

She said, “When I tried marriage activity by myself, I found it difficult to know how and whom to choose. If the other person rejects me, I get hurt, so I think it’s easier to have my parents do the work for me and ride the rail that they recommend.”

Children ask their parents to act as surrogate marriage partners. I had never thought such a case existed, but I was surprised again when I talked to other parents.

I’ve heard that there are quite a few children like that.

When an arranged marriage is arranged, the parents often go along.

After the application process, the parents prepare a personal statement, and after the parents have met each other, they even accompany their children to the matchmaking session. It is no longer a “proxy” activity, but rather a “parent-led” marriage activity.

Parents are free to seek a suitable “partner” for their child with high requirements. However, parents are forgetting something. While they can choose, they cannot move forward unless they are chosen by the other party.

How many people are willing to “marry” their sons and daughters whose parents initiate, interfere, and even accompany them on blind dates? That is the “pitfall” of proxy marriage activities.