Writing Project #2 - Ethnography
A marginal mother (belongs to nowhere)
I chose to investigate the mothers' community in South Korea to which I belong regardless my preference. You may or may not have heard of the term "Tiger mom" or "Helicopter mom"; Asian mothers are notorious due to their enthusiasm in children's education. In this rapidly changing society, a mother's role has been adapted to given social and cultural circumstance. Women's participation in economy has skyrocketed since the Korean war (from 1950 to 1953), and statistics shows that more than 60% of married women in South Korea are under employment in the present. (See the below graph attached)
Dramatic change in a short period of time entails conflicts among different interests. the fact that 60% of married women have a job means, at the same time, remaining 40% is staying at home, unemployed. Inevitably, there is a rising tension between working mothers and full-time mothers. I am feeling the graphic tension personally, since I was a working mom until a month ago and now I am a modent, which would be classified into the full-time mother category strictly speaking.
Therefore, I found myself interested in this mothers' community and decided to investigate it deeply not only to compose the essay but also to position myself in this community. The conflict has been recognized by many people in South Korea and there were lots of secondary sources in forms of research papers, news articles, TV documentary, etc. That was good for me making my research much easier, however, mainly I drew on my personal observation and perspective to write this essay. I interviewed a couple of mothers of my daughter's daycare friends; I closely observed mothers in playgrounds while I played with my 3 year old daughter, and I was consistently in and out internet community sites for local mothers to capture ongoing issues.
One of the mothers I interviewed said that the tension is getting worse if a kid goes to a school. She said there are exclusive groups of mothers and only full-time mothers could be considered as members. She said, "They are not sharing information with working moms. I mean those kids go to same afterschool classes and are invited to birthday parties. It is like they are screening friends for their kids. So unfair." Another mother said "I feel isolated and it makes me frustrated. I don't think I am doing well with both my job and parenting. Sometimes, situations are overwhelming and I need help but no one helps me."
It seems like that working moms consider themselves as disconnected from the community and feel loneliness. My daughter is only 3 years old, so I have not experienced a school life as a parent, but I think I got the same feeling as the second interviewee. While I was working as a CPA in a major accounting firm, I was always working late up to night and my work-life balance was total mess especially in winter audit seasons. My daughter could not get proper care from me.
On the other hand, full-time mothers also have their own agony. Another mother who is not working and raising two children said, “I don’t think I am fully living my life. My head is full of house chores and family tasks that need imidiate actions. I used to have dreams when I was single but now.. I don’t know what else I can do except taking care of my family. Sometimes it feels like I am incompetent and useless in this society. I envy working moms in this regard. Anyway they have professions and go to work every morning.”
Why these women covet each others’ life? I vaguely think that may be this is a certain tendency of human minds – imagining “the road not taken”. However, it seems clear that no one is happy in this social circumstance. Working Mothers are lack of time which is essential for their children’s needs such as school activities and social gatherings. They are missing important moments with their children. Piano recitals, dance competitions, school visits, councelling meetings, etc. Full-time mothers are not happy because they feel like they don’t have a life, a sense of self.
I was curious about this tension among mothers, because I thought we-mothers- should have sympathy to each other regardless their employment status. We are already under too much pressure in this society so why would we check each other making one more problem? It perflexed me.
Come to think of it, things also occured to me in the past. I have a group chat in Kakaotalk (an instant message application popular in South Korea) with other mothers in my daughter’s daycare. I didn’t usually participate in conversations rather answered simply when it was required. I thought that was becuase of my introvert personality, but I was quiet talkative when I was in the office. Almost every week, they made gathering appointments letting their kids be playmates for each other. However, I could not show up because of my work. Sadly, my daughter had to play by herself with her babysitter. In addition, I always had to have counselling meetings over the phone with a daycare teacher of my daughter, as the day time meeting schedules did not work for me. I was too busy to give a thought for those events, as now I have a plenty of time in my hands, a step behind agony is growing at back of my mind.
The tension seems not likely to be resolved in the near future. One of the major issues in South Korea recently is a conflict between genders. More precisely, you can see millions of malicious comments fostering gender conflict in almost all community sites, if they don’t have a filtering system. [Article: South Korea's Misogyny -NYT] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/opinion/south-koreas-misogyny.html?mcubz=1 [Article: Anonymous interview on Misogyny -huffingtonpost] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asiatoday/inout-korea-anonymous-int_b_11747806.html Misogynists are actively producing tons of hateful comments targeting mothers - especially full-time mothers. Working mothers are not free of those cruel offence such as “working mothers irresponsible of their work, always giving excuses – I have to go home becuase my baby is sick – or – I cannot show up for late night meeting becuase I couldn’t find a babysitter – which are lame.” However, cruelty is even harsher for full-time mothers. They are referring full-time mothers as a germ or virus means that full-time mothers are doing nothing good for the society and rather harmful wasting husband’s money.
I feel embarrassed to depict such a depraved side of my country but this impatience to the weak can be explained: South Korea is super competitive society. Students are studying more than 16 hours a day without weekends and workers are working more than 80 hours a week without being paid for overtime. To some people’s eyes, full-time mothers can be seen as surplusage while they are exploited, which is unfair.
I saw many fathers taking care of their children while I was wandering around for the purpose of the field work. Some of them are even taking paternity leave which was 100% impossible 5-10 years ago. I think this society is still changing raplidly. I wish that one day my daughter grow up and say “Wow, that must have been hard for mothers, I can’t believe it actually was happened!”