Sadness in Korea

This article that popped up on my facebook feed has been haunting and haunting me.  It's an article about the elderly taking their own lives after abandonment by their own children and society.  I suspect some of the elderly do it to not be a further burden on their struggling children, honestly, but many of them commit the awful final act after becoming depressed and abandoned by their children whom they poured their life and money into.  The whole situation hurts my heart.  How much sadness there must have been to get to that decision.  How much sadness they leave behind.

How it worked in times past in Korea was that Korean parents would spend their days giving their best to raise bright and healthy Korean kids - fighting tooth and nail for every single wonderful opportunity they hear of/ come by to give them that "edge" in such a homogeneous society.  Grown up Korean kids would then turn around and give their parents a roof over their heads, warm yummy family meals to join in (because everyone lived in one house), and a monthly stipend of "spending money." with occasional trips thrown in. With all the apartment living and two income families now in Korea constantly up to their ears in debt because they've fallen for the whole credit card con I can imagine how this is just getting much harder to do.

My parents have given me, and really, given up too much for me.  That's honestly how I feel.  I have always felt burdened by it.  They worked to the bone to send me to an amazing private school, helped me through college and graduate school....and though I begged them not to, they insisted that it was their duty to help me with our first down payment on our home.  While we bounced around the country and overseas on military assignments, my mom would come visit for months at a time, especially when the babies were little and help cook and clean and raise the babies.  Among my friends, this is not an uncommon thing for a Korean mother to do.  Now retired and living on a fixed income and living within walking distance, they still come over everyday after picking up my children from school while I am at work.  Most often than not, my mom will have started an amazing and healthy Korean dinner that we will finish together to put on the table.  It is so much. 

Sometimes I wonder if it's too much.  But what's the alternative here?  They do so out of love. Now that I have finally started working, I am so happy when my pay trickles into our bank account to share some of it with them.  So very happy.  Because it is mine to give to them, in thanks.  

But I could see.  I could see if I didn't have that luxury how it would be difficult to accept the help and love from them.  To have them around.  To visit them even.  I could see how it could get so bad.  Maybe.

 

- Jooliyah who learned the other night that it is her ummah's wish that she buy house big enough so her parents can live with her family someday.  aigoo.