Kimchi Mamas

To Specialize or Not To Specialize. That is the Question.

(Please forgive the "first-world problems" feel of this post.)

As my children have gotten older (they are now almost 10 and just a touch over 12), I have noticed a disturbing pattern that I may have been unaware in the past: specialization.

My daughter's into soccer. She plays in a youth sports group and they practice for about 1 hour once a week, play once a week and the season is only about 2 1/2 months long at a time. She plays probably 2-3 "seasons" a year. Though she is 12, most of the girls on her team are 10 and 11. They "play up". Playing up is based on the theory that if you raise the level of competition they will play to meet that challenge (or something like that).

Many of the girls on her team will probably leave in the next season or two to move into "club" soccer. Club soccer here is more . . . specialized. This is when teams practice 3-4 times a week for an hour or an hour and a half each practice and will play 2-3 games a weekend. They will also travel to surrounding areas (and in Texas that could mean 3+ hours of driving) and play in tournaments that go on for entire weekends (Saturdays and Sundays).

My son was participating in Tae Kwon Do and in tennis.  A few months ago, he had to make a very difficult choice: he had to choose.  He is 10 years old and he was being forced into specializing. As a 10 year old he would do tennis 2 times a week and then TKD 2 times a week and depending on visitation weekends, TKD sparring on Fridaysa and TKD tournament team on Saturdays or a tennis tournament. Tennis was 2 private lessons a week plus 'clinic' for a total of about 7 hours of tennis a week. This wasn't enough . . . his new schedule is tennis 4 days a week (about 10-12 hours a week) and an average of 2 tournaments a month (tournaments begin on Fridays and end on Sundays if you're playing well).

I look around and I see it amongst many of our friends: a 12 year old who plays club volleyball - tournaments are all weekend long and consist of many games per day, a 14 year old who is now home schooled so she can pratice tennis 8+ hours a day, and a 17 year old who has been taking tennis lessons for 12 years.

And this is just the sports side. I know children who practice piano 15-20 hours a week, a neighbor's child plays drums for school, church and 2 bands (he's 16) and on and on and on...

In all of these cases (and from personal experience) I have been told that kids HAVE to specialize if they want to remain competitive. Competitive for school, college, scholarships, professionally.

As parents we want what's best for our children.

We want opportunities for them that we didn't have.

We give them the best so they can be their best. 

We want them to be competive and have an edge.

To have THE edge.

 

 

But what does that mean? And at what cost?

Little Prince Kids Restaurant Review

Five words for you: Meet me at Little Prince!

Little Prince is a Korean-born chain of kid-centered cafes, and it is basically the healthier, cleaner, saner alternative to Chuck E. Cheese's.  Instead of cacophony, consumerism, and chaos, kids can play in a variety of settings: an indoor jungle gym and ball pit for the more active tykes, a dress-up and pretend play area, and a library.  All areas are supervised by attentive staff who speak both Korean and English, and you can also keep an eye on your little ones from your table thanks to the video camera feeds displayed in the dining area.  Littler kids can stay close to their parents by playing in the middle of the dining area in a quieter, more padded zone.

The menu is eclectic, highlighting Korean-style cafe food.  There is pizza, pasta, and house-made chicken nuggets for the kids, and more sophisticated fare for the parents such as hamburger steak, galbi, ddukbokki, and "grown-up" pastas.  My personal favorite is their kimchi fried rice with cheese, washed down by a couple glasses of their iced coffee.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Little Prince has greatly expanded my social life.  It's the perfect spot to meet up with old or new friends who are in town. 

Do your friends have other kids that aren't quite the same age level as your own?  Send them all on their merry way to play with the unnis/nunas/oppas/hyungs at their own pace.  Chances are, they will start playing with each other as well.  

Is your friend childless, but they would like to meet your kids and hang out with you?  Again, perfect venue: your kids can be around to say hello and be hugged and adored, but then they can zoom off without either party being antsy or nervous.  Then you and your friend can catch up in peace.

They also offer packages for birthday parties, and I think it would be a perfect venue for a dol, or any year up to about age 6.  It's especially handy if you expect a mixed crowd of kids, older and younger siblings, and adults without children.

Food is pretty pricey, but the servings are HUGE.  In addition, you pay a per-hour fee per child.  So, if you are in the southern CA area, you should definitely try it out.  Awesomely enough, Living Social is offering a deal with Little Prince right now (and for the next 6 days).  You get $25 credit for $12, which amounts to 52% off!

So, am I going to see you there?  We can do plan a formal Kimchi Mamas meet-up or just keep it small.  Let's discuss.

Little Prince Kids Restaurant
5300 Beach Blvd. #118
Buena Park, CA 90621 
714-690-1432 

Little Prince website
Facebook page 
Link to Living Social deal

--Julie
(No disclaimer needed; I'm promoting them purely because I've been there a half-dozen times and I love them.)

Teaching Kids Korean - how to resolve different opinions?

I have not and am not planning to teach my kids a lot of Korean. I am not ruling it out. If they have interest, I am happy to teach them in the future or enroll them in Korean school. You know, the dreaded Saturday classes?

BUT, I am having some internal struggles on how to reply when my parents or my MIL ask about this subject. They want my children to know Korean. Especially my dad and mom since they don't speak a lick of English. My MIL, even though she lives in Korea, actually has learned English a bit and can converse decently, so she has not yet been insistant on requesting that her grandsons know Korean but I feel the question coming in the near future.

I don't see my parents or talk to them often, so that kind of helps... but it seems like almost every time I do see my dad, one of the things he says is, "You should teach your kids Korean." My response so far has been either 1. no response or 2. the docile "neh" meaning something like "yes" or "sure."

What's the "right" way to ask about your children's ethnicity or race?

I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on my last post about ethnicity/race here... but now I am curious...

What is the "right" way to ask questions about a bi-racial/multi-racial (or not-so-obvious ethnicity/race) child's ethnicity/race? Especially if the child is only with one parent and it's not obvious, or if the child is adopted from a ethnicity/race not the same as both or either parent. Or is it even Kosher or PC, to ask about ethnicity/race anymore?

Some of the wrong ways might be:

Is your child adopted?

Is your wife/husband Oriental?

Is that your friend's son/daughter?

Are you the nanny?

Is he/she from China?

Where is your family from?

If you are the parent of a multi-racial or biracial child, how would you prefered to be asked about your child(ren)'s race, if at all?

 

- Mary

Guilt or Resentment?

Are Korean moms especially apt at laying on the guilt? Did the NPR writer who reviewed Please Look After Mom (sorry, I forget her name) have a grain of truth in her otherwise racist review? Or is the laying on of guilt an equal opportunity character flaw, available in abundance to all mothers to dole out?

I guess I won't know until my kids are grown if I made them feel overly guilty but I sure notice myself feeling guilty a lot. Almost every time I leave the kids with the sitter, I feel guilty. I feel relieved too, and I almost always come back more refreshed with more of myself to give... but still the guilt is there. I think it's better than feeling resentful, but I still don't like the guilty. Why do I feel guilty? Do I judge myself, compare myself to other moms who tell stories of how they didn't watch a movie for five years, or didn't spend the night away from their kids for 10 years? Sometimes I wonder if they are really sharing that information to pine about their life or to secretly brag.

The alternative is to give in to the guilt and not ever do anything to feel guilty. That would mean that I would not have any needs. Of course, that's impossible. I think I would be overcome by resentment if I was trying to avoid feeling guilty all the time.

I want to teach my children that it's OK to take care of yourself. It's OK to have needs. It's OK to give yourself a time out. I cannot make everyone around me happy. The best I can do is figure out what I need to be the best mom I can be most of the time, even if that means that the sitters watch the kids sometimes. I'm only human. Maybe some moms don't need a night out, or a weekend break every once in a while... but I guess I am one of the women who do. Does that make me a bad mother? I don't think so and I certainly hope not.

I definitely think that there is this expectation in the Korean culture that Korean moms are supposed to sacrifice everything, I mean EVERYTHING for their children. I don't agree with that. Sacrifice may seem like a virtue but not if the one sacrificing is building up a mountain of resentment the whole time. Sometimes I wonder if that's what han (한) is.... a huge mountain of resentment that the person carries along their whole life, buried deep within their soul, too afraid to let it see the light of day, lest it ruin everything in its path.

 

- Mary

Korea's own word for Hapa: Honyol

I've learned a great many things living in the motherland.  Mostly by just listening and watching.  I do it a lot more here than I did back home in the states.  At home, everything is so familiar I think I just go go go.  But here, even with all the Korean drama watching, there's so much that's new and foreign.  So I like to just hang back and watch.  I watch to see how people interact, how they react and how they go about daily life because often times it's with a twist from what I expect.  At first it was easy to point and say the way we do things at home are better.  But soon I could see that the way they do things here, works here and could teach me a thing or two.

I guess you can't say I'm completely immersed and away from all things familiar here because I am here with the American military.  I have access to an Army post with all the trappings.  Several times a day, I travel between a little America and the Korea outside the barbed wired walls that surround it.  Inside, I can buy Organic Valley butter and Jet Puffed Marshmallows, and then outside I can get fifty kinds of korean yogurt drinks the kids are slowly growing addicted to.  During the day, my son attends the Department of Defense school on post along with a lot of other military and government worker children. 

We could have lived on post too, but we chose to live off post because we wanted to take advantage of living in actual Korea as much as possible.  It was more painful at first.  We had to learn to throw away our garbage properly (so complicated!) and the houses offered on base are just set up in a more familiar and therefore more cozy layout.  But, I think we've grown accustomed and we are now reaping the benefits. 

One such benefit is making friends with families who know a lot about Korea who live in our building.  It's been a little more difficult to make make actual Korean KOREAN friends, but there are a significant number of families where there is an American father and native Korean mother.  They have, who I'm used to calling, "hapa" children.  Because these hapa children have lived in Korea most, if not all, of their lives, their Korean is often fluent. If they don't attend the American school yet, it's usually better than their English skills.  I'm just so used to seeing Hapa children in America, that it's been eye opening to see them here.

After a few months, I started to pick up on a word these mothers married to non-Korean husbands would use among themselves when talking about their children or other children mixed racially like their own. They would use the word "Honyol."  It kind of shocked me at first because the only contact I'd had with the word was in the book Ten Thousand Sorrow by Elizabeth Kim.  In her story, she'd stated that it was a derogatory word to call a Korean person who was racially mixed with another ethnicity.  In other words, that it was an insult.  But here were loving mothers, standing around, using the words to refer to their bright beautiful children.  Interesting.

After listening to them for several weeks, I finally asked outright if Honyol was the word for mixed children in Korean.  They all agreed.  I told them about my word "hapa."  They said the difference is that "Honyol means always Korean mixed with something.  It's how Koreans tell that the children have Korean blood in them."  I asked them about negative connotations that went with the word.  They agreed that there were some, especially in the past.  But, that attitudes were changing and people were more accepting...that it wasn't the word, but how someone used the word to express themselves.  If someone were to spit out the word in a hateful statement during a fight with their child, then it would be used in a bad way.  But facts were facts.  Their children were mixed and there was no hiding it in such a homogeneous society.  Their children are Honyol. It is now a common word to describe their children. Korea is slowly starting to come to realize that there is not only one "kind" of people.

At first it was hard to use the word. All this time I'd thought it was a bad word, and now I was using it to describe precious children in conversation.  But the more I thought about it, the more I think those moms were right.  It's not the word.  It's how it's used.  At least that's what people have decided to do here.  Watching them talk about their children lately though, I wondered, could we use this word for our children in America?  I may not have had Honyol children myself but I expect Honyol grandchildren someday and I am hoping for Honyol nieces and/or nephews soon.  Will this word have traveled over by then? 

- jooliyah who always grew up thinking she'd marry someone to make Honyol children with, but had to abandon such thoughts when a hot Korean American swimmer dude ended up becoming her best friend.

 

Parenting Style

I haven't read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom. Just the excerpt in the Wall Street Journal. But I got to thinking, what kind of parents did I have? My mom was pretty much out of the picture, so what kind of dad did I have? He certainly was not a Tiger Father.

My dad did not sit with me and drill me on math. He did not make me practice the piano or the violin. I never had to learn tennis. I don't think he even owns a tennis racket. He never asked me if I did my homework, or even if I had homework. I had no curfew. I consistently came home well past midnight on Fridays. I never had any lessons. I could do whatever I wanted to on the weekends. I watched TV, Korean dramas, and played video games. I was in the school musical.

Happy Children's Day!

The school halls and classrooms are empty here in Korea.  Well, all of them except the American schools on bases, that is.  Jun still went off on his school bus today- all regular like- with promises of fun when he got back.  But he was ok with that.  Probably because he has no idea that the Korean kids around him have today off.

Growing up in America I heard about Children's day but I didn't actually experience it.  In Hawaii we had May Day on May 1st with lots of elaborate Hawaiian hula pageants and flower leis.  And since the Japanese culture is pretty dominant, that meant May 5th was Boy's day.  At school we had little class parties where the boys got served first and the girls had to put the boys chairs up on their desks at the end of the day for them and let them get lunch first or something.  (Incidentally, I think in Japan it is now Children's day in May 5th too and this tradition of just it being Boy's day is old?  I think.  But in Hawaii it's still pretty separated between Boy's and Girl's day.)  At home, my parents would mention something about Children's day in Korea, but gifts never appeared and we never went out even for dinner or anything so it always sort of passed as one of those bits of information they threw at you about your culture that you never really grasped.  Or at least that's how it was for me.  I think that's how it is a lot with Konglish life.  You can't experience a 100% of both cultures, but when you miss something you really don't know that you are.  So it's interesting to finally be here to see what it is I've been missing.

You know what?  It's a big deal.

The kids get a day off from school.  Which means that the parents schedule to take off from work as it's also an age in korea when there are more and more two income families.  Which means that there are a lot of businesses today either closed down or running low staffed.  Requirements of the day are to spoil your child rotten.  They get gifts and treats and taken out for a day of pure fun.   Apparently the gifts and treats can come from anyone.  Gracie and I just returned from picking up a carton of eggs at our local market where the cashier gave my very excited little girl a plastic bag full of candies, packets of cookies and sweet yogurt drinks.  Lots of admission prices for various amusement parks and similar places are waived today.  That means a lot of Kimbaps are being packed (along with Choco pies and Pororo drinks) as I type this in anticipation of a day of fun at whatever fun place the child chooses.  You can bet that nobody in this family will be going anywhere near any of these places anytime today.  We will be staying far far away from the madness.  I shudder to think of the lines and crowds.

Not that Children's day will pass quietly this year for our family.  I do admit we are getting swept up in the excitement.  I want it to be different for my kids than it was for me.  I still like that they can celebrate how other cultures celebrate things in May (and isn't it interesting how all of these fun things fall in May?  there's Cinco de Mayo too!) but we have this cool one that's our own all this time.  When I explained what the day was for, Jun, whose behaviors sometimes overshadows his accomplishments, puffed up and said "I'm a children!  The day is for me!"

When Jun gets home today we will celebrate their childhood.  There will be gifts for him and Gracie.  Books mostly.  Hardback ones to fill out their library.  Then we will probably gorge on video games for him and play some beauty shop for her and then eat a dinner of their choice.  Probably keem and rice with chocolate milk (I never understood how they could stomach this combo!)  But before dinner, a prayer of thanks for these lovely children who fill this home and our lives with such love and joy. 

 

 

A wish for all our Kimchi children today:  May they grow healthy and strong into compassionate people who change the world for the better. 

- jooliyah who will be playing a mario game on the wii and getting her toenail painted by a three year old in a few hours after writing this.

Poetry - A South Korean Film

 

There is a new Korean Film that's playing in the Bay Area. Here is synopsis.

 

Poetry

Mija (veteran actress Yun Jung-hee) is a beautiful woman in her sixties who moves gracefully through life, contemplating a trivial daily routine that is ill-suited to her refined persona. With warmth, elegance and a dash of eccentricity, Mija takes care of her ungrateful grandson Wook (Lee David) and makes a living by cleaning house for an elderly man who, though paralyzed by a stroke, still responds to her charm with bouts of drug-induced arousal. On a whim, Mija enrolls in a poetry class at the local cultural center and begins a personal quest to find the perfect words to describe her feelings. However, she’s plagued by the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and struggles with new vocabulary and the challenges of the creative process. When her world is turned upside down by the discovery of a monstrous crime, it is Mija’s unique and touching poetry that allows her to continue to embrace life. A mysterious, redemptive, cathartic film. Written and directed by Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine, Oasis). (Fully subtitled)

See other locations.

I think I might go see it in Berkeley. Anyone interested in joining?

- Mary

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Recent conversations, FB status updates and varying degrees of parent status of fellow parent friends have me wondering about the great myth of “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

  ***

I don’t know what’s in the water, but I have what seems to be a lot girlfriends who are expecting in the upcoming months.  All of them are looking for the light at the end of [their] tunnel.  (*I apologize for the crude joke . . .) Some have spent a blissful 6, 7, 8, or 9 months of pregnancy; others have suffered swelling, nausea, and “tummy issues” for 4, 5, or 6 months; while others have had a combination of both the sweet and the sour.

Then there are my mother-in-arms who have infants and toddlers.  The tantrums, sleepless nights, crying, screaming and disciplining.  And those are just the parents… Their light at the end of the tunnel comes down to wanting a semi-regular schedule, a little person they can reason with without the tears (mom's or child's) and maybe getting into the shower before 2:30 in the afternoon or eating a hot meal that does not include partially chewed-on rice and ghim rolls.

There are my parent pals who have school-aged children. The light at the end of their tunnel is blocked by soccer/basketball/t-ball/baseball practice schedules, music lessons, language school, Sunday school/CCD, gymnastics, endless birthday parties/slumber parties and ensuring their well-roundedness as responsible, compassionate members of a global community on top of burgeoning school assignments and other academic pressures.

And of course there are the tween/teens.  Changing bodies, changing voices . . . changing smells(?!).  Hormones, tantrums, sleepless nights, crying, screaming and disciplining (it’s infants and toddlers re-do but super-sized!). New fears about sex[ting], drugs and rock and roll in the car while driving… Where has the child who used to fit in your lap gone? And who replaced him/her with this giant, taller-than-mom, locust eating his/her way through this week’s groceries in 3 day’s time?  The light at the end of the tunnel is a well-rounded child who will take their place in our world and a fridge that’s no longer raided by marauding teenage school-band gangs . . .

But alas, then it’s onto young adulthood.  You’d think watching your son/daughter get through college, medical an/or law school (Tiger Mom moment) and develop their place in our world would be the light at the end of the tunnel . . . Instead, it’s the time to see your offspring become the adult you always knew was in there, meet and fall in love with someone who makes them happy . . . and then observe as you watch them journey through their search for the light at the end of their tunnels.

--Angie in Texas knows not all tunnels are dark . . .