I don't have a child. I know that, you know that, we ALL know that, now build a bridge and get over it.
We're not all the same because we're not all made from the same mold, something a teacher once told me that I'd like to argue because perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps her words of wisdom only applies outside the border of Korea, for every country but Korea. Sometimes I think all Koreans are made from the same mold and that my husband just happened to be one of the rare ones that cracked it. He is a "broken Korean" in that he doesn't think like the stereotypical Korean but even he on some issues thinks totally like a typical Korean.
Unlike my open-minded public school teacher who believed everyone was different, my university Korean culture teacher had a very different opinion. He told me that when I go to Korea I will meet one person, Korean.
Today I stepped into an apartment, a house-warming party for one of Snickers' cousins who just got married, and as guests arrived one after another I felt more and more like the odd one out. I definitely hadn't been made from the same mold they all had been. The same Korean entered the house but just in different outer shells and I could sense them trying to fill in the cracks on Snickers' broken mold, in an attempt to make him just like them and get him to help push the issue of babies down my throat.
Next thing I knew it there were five children running around in the apartment and I was thrown into the spotlight because everyone had a baby and I didn't.
I reacted like a cornered cat and lost my cool.
"She walked down the isle last week 7 months pregnant, but I'm labelled the bad one here?!"
Side note here, I really don't care if she was doing the horizontal mambo before her vows or not, my point was that they are no one to judge me and say what I'm doing with my life is right or wrong when I know for a fact how many Koreans view pre-marital pregnancy. They had viewed her as the black sheep of the family but now, low and behold here comes Amy. Me not having a baby scores me the black sheep of the family position every time. It's like the get-out-of-jail free card that all others can bank on using because no matter what they've done it can't possibly compare to me not wanting a child. That's just so unimaginable.
... or is it?!
After all the pressure I've been constantly subjected to and put under with regards to not having a child, is it really any big surprise that I still argue I don't want a child. Do they not see how damaging their constant pushing is? Do they not hear my bitter answers and cornered-cat reactions. Many of them were there when I one day yelled out "I hate babies" to Mama Kim. I don't hate babies but yes I hate being pushed to believe that my value as a woman depends on whether or not I will reproduce. Maybe I should just tell them I once was pregnant and my baby died. Throw that into a random conversation to really spice things up and make them feel as awkward as I do with their constant pushing.
If I'm such an odd one then why are they continually surprised when I don't follow the norm?!
I don't fit the mold of the typical Korean and I am more than okay with that but it only gives me yet another reason why I don't want a child, more specifically why I don't want a child in Korea. I know what it's like to be me in Korea and I wouldn't wish the struggles of my life attached to being me upon anyone, especially not my own child. I wouldn't want my child to follow the flow here in Korea but yet I know wishing her, or him, to be like me would mean wishing them a life of hardship. I'm the black sheep in the family here, I know I'm not totally accepted but I'm fine with that. I don't know if they'd accept my child and if they do I don't know if I'm fine with that either, after all that child would be part me and I they don't particularly like me.
I really don't want to go on more here and talk ill of Mama Kim's family because I think I've said enough. I don't think they mean bad when they bring up the issue of babies but I also question whether or not they realize just how mono-thinking they are. Sometimes I feel like there's no room for difference among them.
I'm here in Korea as a foreigner, living a life that's fufilling and happy, I just wish they would understand that and respect that. I wish they could be happy for the life I've made for myself. I've created my own boxing club, represented Korea with a fight in Japan, completed business start-up school, and learned their language but all they seem to put value on is whether or not I will have a baby... oh, that and if I can cook Korean food.
It's days like today I really appreciate my family back in Canada and my Hulk family at the club. They both are so incredibly accepting of me and they love me because I'm me, not because I am someone they hope they can mold me to be. It's days like today I wish my mother was by my side here in Korea. She'd defend me and she would seriously give them an ear full. If Mama Bere ain't happy ain't nobody happy and she'd make them wish they never ever said the word baby again; it'd be as if it were the newest curse word.
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