Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: A Novel

“When Daehyun came back from work that night, she was sleeping next to their daughter. Both were sucking their thumbs, looking cute but absurd. Gazing at the two side by side, he tugged at his wife’s arm to pull her thumb out of her mouth. Jiyoung’s tongue stuck out a little and she smacked her lips, just like a baby, and then settled back into sleep.”

Mothers who sacrifice their careers to care for children are shown regressing from mature, self-assured women to a pitiable, infantilized state. The pattern reappears at the end of the novel when the psychiatrist condescendingly describes his wife—a former doctor—spending her leisure time completing children’s math workbooks. The psychiatrist hopes that Jiyoung can find a similar diversion, an indication that he shares the patronizing view of women that Daehyun has upon encountering his sleeping wife and daughter.

“Jiyoung was starting to feel like a stranger to Daehyun. After all this time—the stories they shared, as countless as raindrops, the caresses as soft and gentle as snowflakes, and the beautiful daughter who took after them both—his wife of three years, whom he married after two years of passionate romance, felt like someone else.”

Daehyun acts surprised that his wife feels like someone else. But he has been standing by as she gives up her career, income, friends, and physical and mental health to care for the child that resembles them both. Jiyoung has been estranged from her former life and therefore is estranged from the man who shared that life with her.

“The combination of her tone, expression, angle of head tilt, position of shoulders, and her breathing sent them a message that was hard to summarize in one sentence, but, if Jiyoung tried anyway, it went something like this: How dare you try to take something that belongs to my precious grandson! Her grandson and his things were valuable and to be cherished; she wasn’t going to let just anybody touch them, and Jiyoung ranked below this ‘anybody.’”

Jiyoung’s grandmother is one of the first people to initiate her into gender hierarchy. Jiyoung is taking sips of baby formula. But grandmother perceives her as stealing from a more significant family member: the lone male child. In the eyes of her family, she is less than “anybody” when it comes to a boy’s well-being. The pattern established in childhood will follow her through every phase of her life.