Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Babayaga]

Have been mulling over this particular situation lately and just need to get it off my chest. When I was a young 21-year-old university student (music performance), in addition to my full-time studies, I also worked part-time and was involved in a music program in our church. During the summer months, I worked and studied part-time. Despite my year--round busy schedule and the fact that my music program required many hours of practising and studying, my mother still insisted INSENSITIVELY that I get married in my third year and have a baby in my fourth. My mother comes from a country where it is customary for women to get married and to have babies while still in university. However, my mother is a highly educated woman(she's taught university) and at that time we had been living in Canada for over 8 years, so she should have known better. Also, she insisted that since I was the oldest in the family as well as very hard-working and responsible, then I was obligated to take on this extra burden. It was particularly hard to take, since I had been working hard in school since the tender age of 7!


Anyways, I don't want to bore anyone or to turn this into a "sob" story. It's just that I'm still smarting from her lack of sensitivity and want to know whether most parents are inconsiderate tyrants.


Also, do you think that my mother was grossly insensitive, or am I just over--reacting?


I really need your input here, people!

[YoungLi]

Just tell your mother you are NEVER EVER going to get married or have ANY children and to get off your back. Buy a copy of the movie "Joy Luck Club" and give it to her for Christmas with a card that has your hand writing, "I'm swearing off ALL men, Merry Christmas." Tell her you don't want to hear another word out of her mouth AGAIN about babies or marriage and that you resent her pressure. If she still continues, tell her you are bisexual or lesbian!!! I mean every word of it. Your mother has NO right to meddle in your life like that. I stopped telling my mother about men long ago because she would immediately ask way toooo many questions about his marriagability when all I was interested in was a "friend with benefits." I explained that to her and she knows better now than to ask anymore questions. SET those boundries!!!!

[desultude]

I'm not sure I understand- you didn't get married and have a child during university, did you?

Mothers and daughters can be insensitive with each other. I've been on both ends of the equation. You can set boundaries without being brutal about it. Once you are clear with yourself about your boundaries, you will communicate it clearly. Until then (until you resolve the psychic hold she has on you) she can still push your buttons- after all, she knows where they are- she installed them.

I know this may sound like psychological mumble jumble, but it does work. I love my father and go to the States to see him every year. He is a serious emotional manipulator, and twists my guilty-feeling siblings in knots. Yesterday on the phone he was trying to manipulate me into changing my travel plans to suit him. My sisters would have been engaged in a fierce battle of his needs versus their guilt, and it would not have been nice. I just moved the conversation along and didn't take the bait. He knows my boundaries, and didn't prevail on me. We ended up having a really nice conversation and the the guilt trip was entirely dropped. It took me decades to get to this point!

Allow your mother her feelings and her say, don't let her engage you on the old mother-daughter tug of war emotional level, and change the subject. Can't change the subject? Get off the phone- "'sorry mom, I have to go teach a class", or whatever. We're all trainable- she'll get it sooner or later, probably. If not, at least you won't be wasting your emotional enegy on it.

If this is simply an issue from the past, forgive your mother for her weaknesses and get on with a good relationship with her. Wait until you have raised your own children and have made your own mistakes with them, then you will understand how much we suffer for those mistakes. My mother is dead now, your's will be someday. Get past it if at all possible.

[uberscheisse]

[joe_doufu]

My brother and I are both bachelors, I'm 28 and he's 27, so I think my parents are getting a little worried. I live in Korea and he's a Peace Corps volunteer in west Africa, though, so they haven't urged us to get married probably because they aren't sure who exactly we might bring home!

[Maserial]

After taking this

[Yu_Bum_suk]

What a funny story. I'm sure you have a lot of empathy for Koreans.

[Babayaga]

[Babayaga]

I was such an insecure young adult at the time, with no ability to appreciate myself, that it never occured to me that maybe my cousins weren't that successful in their studies precisely because they were having babies while in college. It also never occured to me to argue with her that they were studying in college---a less demanding workload than university. I simply meekly accepted that my academic abilities were not of the first order, that's why I only had time for my studies.


However, now I can rejoice that I stuck to my guns. I received a good education and have had good employment, whereas my more "talented" and more "responsible" cousins didn't get to finish their studies, are poorly employed, are now divorced and cannot raise their kids properly---and all despite displaying "superior" ability while attending school and having kids.


This post may sound inordinately bitter, but then I think it's quite appropriate to feel spiteful, when you were ridiculed and put down. And this actually goes on to this day: I still am constantly compared and found wanting.


Sorry,guys,just needed to vent!!!


And thanks A LOT for your advice.

[Babayaga]