For The Children

By Bernard Rowan

When I lived in Seoul, my life felt richer because of volunteering at a home for foster children. I enjoyed visiting once a week with about 20 elementary schoolchildren interested in learning English. My, how their bright faces gladdened my spirit! My experiences with Korean children gave me an expectation of one day becoming a father too!

This column shares my impressions and regard for Korea's children. I had an honorary role as uncle to several of my Korean friends' children. They are now young men and making their way into the advanced society that is Korea today. Through friendships, I've gained an understanding about Korean children ― as a foreigner at any rate.

Korean children form the focus of family life and the basis for continuing the lineage, just as in all societies. Children have more free time early on. A rude awakening to responsibility comes at schooltime. With some correlation to income, school-age Korean children are already novices in the Confucian academies of old in a sense. They have many hours of formal schooling supplemented by many hours of hagwon classes or private tutorials. These costly experiences give life a fuller educational experience, drain parental income, but also form young minds and bodies to a seriousness of purpose and conscientiousness in learning. Learning also places family, peer, and personal expectations on children about their futures.

Korean children still absorb what I think of as Confucian ethical norms. They must respect elders, including those outside their families. The words referring to family members imprint hierarchy and respect with associated practices and behavior. There's also a particular intimacy and respect among Korean children as peers. This affinity encourages Korean children to form strong peer bonds as they age. The ties among Korean peers will help Korean young adults through the challenges of high school, university and beyond.

Korean pedagogy centers on the expectation to learn, on the expectation for respect for social norms, and on the purpose that children make friends among their peer group. I'm not sure many Korean adults would think it's strong on individuality, though perhaps it's improving.

Korean society values expressing emotion, but expectations channel its expression via a social norm of han. This acceptance of hardship accents realism or pessimism for those who are younger, junior, less socially powerful or less socially approved. This isn't unique in many respects to Korean society either, though the idea goes by different names.

Children's rights supporters argue for the need to treat child abuse as a crime in Korean law. Several commentators have written about the prevalence of physical punishment. Many parents with pressures of their own transfer them to their children who don't perform up to their expectations, creating a cascade of unhappiness and sadly, violence.

There's still an overemphasis on having sons! Even though Korean law has changed for registering children with families, most couples prefer to have a son. There's nothing wrong with boys, but this bias forms part of the basis for gender inequality, depending on how it produces family and societal treatment of boys and girls.

The preference for boys goes with inequality for girls and women. The problems faced by ajumma begin much earlier in the ways that young girls, teenage girls, and young women learn society's expectations and find approval. This applies to sons as well.

Present-day society features more anonymity and dislocation because of the rapid pace of change. Nonetheless, Korean children still enjoy life in and around their homes, apartment buildings, and neighborhoods. Having the chance to explore their parts of the wider world fires the imagination and energizes young spirits.

It seems Korean children grow heavier instead of taller, compared with previous generations. Korean diets likely take a beating with the popularity of fast and processed foods and the absence of time for many to take proper meals.

I'd like to comment on a persistent and growing incidence of hazing and bullying among Korean youth. With all that preteen and teen lives entail naturally, it's certain that social media and technologies perfected by South Korea enable antisocial and negative influences and behaviors. There's a reproduction in the virtual world of the peer pressures and scapegoating that characterizes youthful lives in our societies. I wish the government would consider creating a youth campaign, including through social media, against these influences.

University life transitions a teen to adult roles for those making it to one of Korea's many fine institutions. Countless others study in America, Japan, or Europe. This experience carries pressure to pass those state exams, too many parental expectations, and too much status consciousness about not getting into Seoul National, Korea, or Yonsei University. National service, or its avoidance, characterizes the lives of young men. Pressures to marry or these days to justify waiting face both men and women.

I'd like to suggest that Korean leaders place even more stock on cultivating a society that respects children as equals and on a renewal of Korean family values in contemporary life. The strengths of your values and culture provide many strengths and opportunities to guide improvement for the public good.

Bernard Rowan is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University, where he has served for 22 years. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com,

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