Before getting to the main point, I would like to point out to the fathers. Although this is a societal problem, which I will get to in a future post, Korean fathers are pretty much absent from their children's lives. They disappear throughout the week and are there on the weekends mostly sleeping or yelling at their sons and daughters. They easily get annoyed and do not talk much to their children. They would rather spend their time watching the 9 o'clock news or some tv shows, rather than conversing with their families. Rather than coming home, they would rather go out to drink with their colleagues and friends. In the list of priorities, their children will probably be on the bottom of their list.
The main problem with this is that the kids come to think of their father as an intimidating and distant figure. The fathers are only there to punish them when they do something wrong. The moms wait for the dads to come home so they can tell him what the kid did wrong that day. As the kids hate their dad coming home (and go directly into their rooms to avoid him), they don't really get a chance to talk to their dads about their daily problems. Thus, when dad comes home early, it makes everything awkward.
Especially for sons, they need their father in their lives. Dad is somebody they could really talk to about things that moms don't understand. Dads are those who you can go out to exercise with or play ball together on the weekends. Sons and dads are supposed to be best friends. In Korea, however, that is nonexistent.
The real problem arises with the moms. Korean moms are the definition of "helicopter" moms. They are involved in everything that is going on in their children's lives. They decide which school and academies the children will go to, when their kids are able to go hang out with their friends, and even which friends they can hang out with. The kids' lives are totally controlled by their moms that they live like zombies. The funny thing is, most kids hate their moms, but eventually they don't know how to go about living their own lives that they come to rely on their moms.
This doesn't just stop at high school. Going into college, it almost seems like a lot of kids go to school for their parents. So that their mom has bragging rights. Once a kid gets into one of the top schools in the country, it is time for the mom to go out and party. (It's quite crazy to see how devout mothers get religiously while their kids are in their final year of high school. Churches are always packed daily with mothers praying for their kids) She goes out and buys everybody dinner (while bragging about her child). This makes all the other moms jealous and they come back home and nag their children for not being as good as the one that got into the prestigious school.
I would say throughout college is when parents let their children loose for a while. This is because kids finally have to live a little after all the studying they did since middle school. Some kids go crazy because they have never experienced such freedom before. They go out and drink every night that they lose control of their lives. However, as they become upperclassmen, the parents come back into the picture. Now they are busy finding internships and part-time jobs for their kids. They nag their kids on how important it is to get employed and advise them on what type of job they should apply for.
If you think the controlling parents are gone after college, you are mistaken. After graduation, parents are also trying to find jobs for their kids. They also try to find the right girlfriend or boyfriend for their sons and daughters. I mean they obviously have to try to arrange a marriage for their kids now too, right? Once their son (daughter) gets a job and receives her first paycheck, guess who that goes to? MOM.
I was actually discussing this with my mother and was shocked in her beliefs. She believes that it is right for the son to give his whole paycheck to his mother and still receive allowance from her. Now the job for the mom is to save the money in a bank and eventually with enough money, start investing in buildings and stocks. As for the son, he doesn't know what is happening with his money since he is still receiving allowance from his mother. I am not trying to say that we can't trust mothers in how they invest the money. The problem with this whole situation is that their sons and daughters will lack the ability to manage their own bank account. Even as they grow into their 30s and 40s, they wouldn't know how to manage money since all their lives they lived by getting money from their moms.
Overall, the main problems with Korean kids is lack of independence and lack of bonding with their fathers. Even with their mothers, the relationship is pretty much a dictatorship, controlled by the 'helicopter' mothers. Korean moms have to let their kids live a little. Let the children go out and play. Let them experience things on their own and learn on their own. Let them learn life lessons by getting hurt a little. This will make stronger men and women in society. And with stronger people, there will be a stronger society.
A post related to topic on Time : http://t.co/i3N388S via @TIME
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