Perfect Kids Nextdoor Plague Children
By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
Maybe, it's the opposite of the perfect mom next door. In Korea, sons and daughters feel stressed growing up under demanding moms who compare them with the children of their friends, who oftentimes are A-list students, so to speak. The phenomenon is so prevalent that there is a name for it ― ``eomchina'' the combination of the first word of mom's friend's sons in Korean.
Ko Min-a, a 20-something fund manager, says even though she is an only child, she felt like she grew up with an evil sister, whom she got compared to day and night.
``From high school grades, college admission, employment to marriage, my mom always compared me with her friends' daughters around my age,'' said Ko. ``I never met them, but I hated them. It was like having a third person in our mother and daughter relationship.''
For sons and daughters of Korea, where education-crazy ``helicopter moms'' hover, it may have been natural ― as it was for Ko ― to grow up competing against a never-met, but super perfect figure that always seemed to do everything right: the dreadful ``mom's friend's child.''
This faceless know-all is oftentimes the source of family conflict, as parents scold their kids for not being as successful as their friends' children.
It was thought that adolescents were the biggest victims of this common parental habit, but a recent survey shows that men and women in their 20s and 30s are still undergoing ``torture.''
Career, an online recruitment site, polled 1,010 working men and women and found that 50 percent of them were stressed because of the anonymous eomchina competitor, which is so popular that lately, it has been casually and humorously used to label hotshots.
More than 70 percent of respondents said salary was the biggest comparison factor, followed by their employer's name value, school prestige and looks.
While parents gave the biggest stress, according to Career, a significant group of almost 40 percent said they put stress upon themselves for not being as successful as their peers.
Career CEO Kim Ki-tae said, ``Many young men and women feel inferior due to excessive comparison,'' and warned that this could deeply hurt one's confidence and self-esteem.
When asked what type of eomchina they wanted to become, 50 percent said they want to be one with a fancy well-paid career, while 12 percent preferred to have a good social life.