Guilt - Balance of Individuality and Responsibility

Center of my mother's world was her children - me and my two brothers. She devoted her time to us and nothing else. She did not go out with her friends, and her socialization was limited to her neighbors, other school parents and her sisters. When we grew older and she began to have more time to herself, she tried to find hobby. She was not very interested in anything in particular, and tried many things but never stuck to one thing.

My oldest brother was 6 years older than me, but three of us got married in less than 2 years. Since my middle brother was still living with my parents until he got married (which is very common in Japan), once we all got married, my mom was left alone. My father works late coming home 1 am every night, so she was truly lonely and alone. No hobby, no kids, and only things left to her was her cat and tv. She went into deep depression and did not want to talk with me for about a year because I was the least obedient child of her (I left Japan and married a "white boy" against her will).

After living in US, I learned that importance of individuality. Though you become mom, you are still individual and allowed to be who you are aside from the time you have to be responsible to your children. Watching my mom for the 20 years I was raised in Japan, I learned how much I was supposed to devote my time to my children.

If I do what my mother did to my children, I would be destructive to my "self"; I would lose my identity, not take care of myself, and put a lot of pressure on my children to meet MY expectation because I sacrifice my "self" to them. Since my mom invested so much time to me and my brother, she became very unhappy whenever we did not meet her expectation.

This is a very hard challenge for me. Who do I need to please? I need to devote all of my time to my children to please my mom so that I can be a traditional Japanese mom. If I do that, my American family (husband and mother-in-law) and eventually I and then my children will be disappointed because I will no longer be an individual. What I know is what my mom did for her children. It seems selfish to seek my individuality while being a mom.

The balancing of the two will be my goal. What can I do? Being a Japanese mom in US is certainly a challenge and confusing.