Skating Moms Tougher Than Hockey Moms
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
Few would disagree that Korea's skating icon of hope Kim Yu-na's winning the 2009 ISU World Figure Championship with her magical performance in Los Angeles last month would have not become a reality without her mother's single-minded devotion.
The story behind Yu-na's triumph and phenomenal score suggests that there does exist such a species as the skating mom here.
Drawing from the experience of Yu-na's mother Park Mee-hee, a ``skating mom'' is a middle-class, stay-at-home mother who drives her children to an ice rink far from home, which usually takes four to five hours.
Skating moms tend to reschedule their families' budgets to finance their children's private lessons with professionals, for which tuition is seven times higher than amateur skating lessons.
``I quit painting lessons, stopped attending several other courses that I had been taking at the nearby community center, and even skipped social outings with my friends to fully support my daughter,'' Park recalled.
For other skating moms as well, it's business as usual to rearrange personal schedules by cutting time for hobbies and leisure, as they have to spend most of their time with their children driving them around and monitoring their training on the ice.
Unlike soccer moms or hockey moms, skating moms have not gained much attention from campaign strategists, probably because their portion of the entire population is not as significant as their counterparts.
Hockey and soccer moms became campaign buzzwords in the 1996 and 2008 U.S. presidential elections when the Republican candidates brought the powerful catch phrases to the campaigns.
Back in 1996, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole's media consultant Alex Castellanos defined a soccer mom as ``the key swing consumer in the marketplace and the key swing voter who will decide the election.''
Soccer moms are white suburban mothers who drive their children to soccer games in sport utility vehicles or minivans. They can be full-time homemakers or have jobs outside the home.
Prof. Andy Jackson, who teaches American politics at Ansan College in Gyeonggi Province, told The Korea Times that the terms soccer mom and hockey mom are broad demographic marketing terms referring to mothers who are so busy between their various duties that they feel harried and stressed because their time is pulled in so many different directions.
``Over the past couple of decades, the white aspect has become a little less important, as the suburbs have diversified somewhat,'' he said.
Jackson noted moms are not just taking their kids to soccer practice.
``It could just as easily be baseball practice, music class, swimming lessons, meetings with teachers or any number of activities. Over half of the women in that group work outside the home, either part or full-time,'' he said.
Jackson noted that the term hockey mom, which became a hot campaign catchphrase in the 2008 U.S. presidential election after Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin described herself as one, is a more aggressive northern variant of a soccer mom.
Palin drew big laughter from her supporters at the Republican National Convention last September with her witty comparison of hockey moms to pit bulls.
``I love those hockey moms. You know they say that the differences between a hockey mom and a pit bull… lipstick,'' she said.
Skating Moms vs. Hockey Moms
How do skating moms compare with hockey moms?
Based on Park's experience, skating moms are a little more focused, tougher and goal oriented than hockey moms.
In a joint news conference after her winning the 2009 world championship at the Staples Center, Yu-na said that she would probably not encourage her daughter, if she has one in the future, to be a skater even if she's talented enough.
``I wouldn't do it because being a figure skater is a hard slog and I don't want my daughter, if I ever have one, to become a skater,'' she said.
When it came to expertise in figure skating, Park said she is as knowledgeable as professional figure skaters, saying she ``majored'' in Yu-na and she is her textbook.
Park's remark was construed as her complete understanding of her daughter's physical and psychological conditions in detail and even the small, minor effect of Yu-na's necklace on her performance on ice.
Prof. Jackson said stereotypical skating moms like Yu-na's mother are noteworthy for their single-minded devotion to their children's success.
``Korea already has a strong tradition of mothers actively participating in their children's lives to a degree that many Americans would find obsessive. The skating mom is just a few steps beyond that,'' he said.
Asked what caused them to be so focused on their children, Jackson said Korea's low birthrate probably contributed to observable differences between American soccer or hockey moms and Korean skating moms.
``The fertility rate is much higher in America (2.1 children per women) than in Korea (1.2). That means that Korean mothers are more likely to have only one child to spend their time and efforts on, while American moms must divide their time between two or three children,'' he interpreted.
Jackson also observed Korean mothers are less likely to work outside the home and therefore they have more time to spend supporting their children's needs or desires.
``The combination of fewer children and more time means that there is a huge difference between stereotypical skating moms and soccer moms,'' he said.
In addition to the above characteristics, skating moms also have to pay a good deal more to get their kids on the ice than their hockey counterparts.
Park stated that a life altering experience came when she was told by Yu-na's coach that her six-year old daughter was talented.
Then the coach asked Park in a cautious but serious tone if her family was affluent enough to support her daughter as a professional figure skater, explaining that letting her daughter take appropriate private lessons would take a great deal of cash.
Park paid 50,000 won per month for letting her second daughter take skating classes when she was six years old but had to pay seven times as much for private lessons.
Yu-na wore 90,000-won skates as an amateur, but her mom had to buy one million won skates for the tailored lessons.
According to Park, skating moms spent approximately 10 million won for their children to join two-month overseas training camps during summer breaks in the 1990s.
Park decided to take the risk and changed all her personal schedules and rearranged the middle class family's financial resources to support the talented youngest daughter's career as a professional figure skater.
And her early investment and Yu-na's extraordinary hard work of many years paid off when she became the first Korean to win the world championship.