Kim Ah-young, 22, is a single mom with 27-month-old son. Daily life is a battlefield to Kim. She goes to school, works part time and supports her child. At night, she cuts her sleeping hours to study. It is the only time when she can concentrate on her learning to gain scholarships from school.
On the first day of 2012, she had 110,000 won in her pocket. Fifteen days later, she had 300 won left after buying baby’s diapers, milk and water and paying for transportations. The only luxury she enjoyed for the past few months was an 8,000 won lotion. Despite the harsh condition, when her son mumbles “mama,” she sheds tears of happiness.
Kim’s son was born four months before she entered a community college in Busan. She was living together with her boyfriend at that time. “Getting pregnant was a mistake, but I couldn’t abort the child or send him to an adoption center because of my religion,” she said. “The baby’s dad was also supportive.”
However, Kim’s boyfriend changed his mind and abandoned her several months later due to mounting economic pressure. He left a note reading “Send the baby to the adoption center.” Kim tried to get in touch with him several times after she got the baby, but he did not call her back. She thinks he was drafted to the military.
It is far more difficult for her to nurture the baby by herself and keep up with her studies. Kim had no one to ask for support, with her mother physically disabled. To make matters worse, her relatives robbed a little property left by her father for school tuition. She had to borrow money for the tuition and work at every available part time jobs. Her body hasn’t fully recovered from the childbirth yet, but she still suffers from back pain.
“I was about to die out of pain,” she said in a calm voice. But she has never given up studying at night because she had faith in overcoming the misery through studying. She hopes that a little attention will be given to single moms so that they can at least graduate from school. “Many single moms give up education for economic burden. I wish the government can be little more supportive.”
With undefeated faith, Kim has been studying, parenting and working but she couldn’t bear people’s prejudice against her life. People pointed fingers at her and criticized her for being irresponsible and immoral. Some people whisper at each other or frown on her, others curse her face to face. “Even public officials who take charge of single mom affairs are unkind and cold-hearted,” Kim said.
Kim thought of giving up her baby when an old lady yelled out to her in the subway, “The world must to be coming to an end, baby is nurturing a baby.” She feels sorrowful about her son who might suffer from the same misconception in the future for having a “young mother.”
All single mothers receive similar response from the society. They say the most unbearable is that they are treated as sinners. “It is cruel to judge us for being irresponsible because if we had aborted the baby, they would have called us as murderers.”
Even if the world turn back against Kim, she believes that tomorrow is a new day. She is graduating this year as a child welfare major. She will be employed as an intern at a childcare institute in March. She found a shelter to live in with her son and has received a subsidy of 320,000 won from the government for the first time last month.
However, most importantly, her son began baby talking. “Hearing his sweet little voice relieves me of every pain and worry. My son will always be on my side. I just hope that he would understand me for bringing him up in this harsh environment without father,“ Kim said.