A family life

Having studied piano since she was in junior high school. my wife gave piano lessons to the children of the neighborhood after we were married. At the time, I was in my third year as an elementary school teacher; I had 40 students in my class. My salary was low (40 percent of it went to pay our rent), so I, like many other teachers at the time, supplemented my income by tutoring a child privately after school, something public school teachers are no longer allowed to do. At the time, it seemed more natural for a wife to do things at home rather than to be employed somewhere. There weren't very many "working women" then; in fact, there weren't many places for them to work.
When our son turned three there was a World's Fair in Osaka. He remembers us taking him to the pavilions, holding his hand tightly so he wouldn't get lost. The economy was strong at the time, so the salary level for government workers, including teachers, was scaled up almost 30 percent that year. Our hopes for a do...