A Family History of Women’s Work

This flow follows the work and sacrifices of Kim Jiyoung’s mother and family, showing how women’s labor sustains successive generations while their aspirations are repeatedly deferred.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Childhood of Sacrifice

A Childhood of Sacrifice Education Deferred Oh Misook grows up in a rural family whose resources cannot support all five children’s schooling. After finishing elementary school, she moves to Seoul as a teenager and works in a textile factory with her older sister. The sisters’ wages help support their brothers’ education. Their effort is treated as a natural expression of family loyalty, while the boys’ schooling is understood as the investment most likely to bring honor and prosperity. Recognition Too Late Oh Misook eventually studies after work and earns further qualifications, but only after years of labor that have already been directed toward her brothers’ futures. By then, the path to the profession she once imagined is largely closed. Her experience becomes an inheritance of both capability and regret. It shapes how she will later respond to her daughters’ opportunities, even as economic pressures lead her to recommend safe choices.

Work Inside the Home

Work Inside the Home Making Ends Meet While raising children and living with Koh Boonsoon, Oh Misook takes on piecework she can do at home. She assembles goods, folds envelopes, and rolls adhesive weather strips while keeping the household running. Kim Jiyoung and Kim Eunyoung help with counting and cleanup. Their mother’s paid work and domestic labor occupy the same rooms, making it difficult to draw a boundary between employment and family care. A New Trade When her husband worries about the smell and debris from the weather-strip work, Oh Misook stops doing it and trains in hairdressing. Without a formal license, she begins visiting neighbors and builds a local clientele through skill and practical business sense. Her work demonstrates resourcefulness, but it also depends on her ability to absorb risk and labor that the household economy does not formally recognize. She creates income from opportunities that remain insecure and informally organized.

The Dream of Teaching

The Dream of Teaching A Regret Named After reading a teacher’s comment on Kim Jiyoung’s schoolwork, Oh Misook tells her daughter that she once wanted to become a teacher. She explains that she had to work to send her brothers to school, as women of her generation were expected to do. Kim Jiyoung is surprised: she had imagined that mothers had always been only mothers. The disclosure reveals a person whose ambitions existed before family duty took priority. The Pattern Repeats When Kim Jiyoung asks why Oh Misook does not become a teacher now, her mother answers that she must work to send her own children to school. The sacrifice has changed its beneficiaries, but not its structure. The moment makes Kim Jiyoung feel the weight of being among the reasons her mother’s dream remains unrealized. At the same time, Oh Misook’s tenderness shows that affection and regret coexist rather than canceling each other out.

Practical Dreams and Choice

Practical Dreams and Choice Economic Uncertainty The 1997 Korean financial crisis unsettles Kim Jiyoung’s household, and her father faces pressure to retire from his civil-service job. Oh Misook considers whether Kim Eunyoung should choose teacher training for its lower tuition and likelihood of stable work. Kim Eunyoung objects that a profession should not be recommended to women only because it suits future childcare. Her challenge forces the family to confront how practical advice can repeat gendered expectations even when it is meant as protection. A Deliberate Decision After reconsidering, Kim Eunyoung explores teacher training herself and concludes that the profession genuinely fits her interests. Oh Misook then worries that her daughter may be giving up an earlier dream for the family’s security, a sacrifice Oh Misook knows too well. Kim Eunyoung insists that the choice is her own and enrolls. The distinction matters: the same practical path can be either imposed or freely chosen, and a mother who once had little choice struggles to trust that her daughter has more.

A Business Built Together

A Business Built Together Risk and Persistence After retiring, Kim Jiyoung’s father tries several small businesses, but ventures close as trends shift and nearby competition grows. Oh Misook opposes risking the family’s security on a speculative import business and later uses money from a property investment to help establish a shop. When a porridge business finally prospers near a pediatric hospital, the success rests on both parents’ decisions and labor. Oh Misook’s financial judgment is central, though family pride initially gathers around the husband’s role as provider. Naming the Contribution After a celebratory night, Oh Misook reminds her husband that she proposed the business and bought the apartment, and that the children were not raised by one person alone. She jokes that her share of the achievement exceeds his. Her humor makes a serious correction: household prosperity has depended on women’s work and judgment, even when those contributions are less visible. Kim Jiyoung grows up watching her mother claim credit that custom might otherwise leave unspoken.

Oh Misook’s youth, before the 1970s

Kim Jiyoung’s childhood, late 1980s

Kim Jiyoung’s elementary-school years

1997–2000

Late 1990s through early 2000s