20260329 운동장 3바퀴 돌며, Running Through Thoughts of Care and Choice

This morning, I woke up as early as 4:30. Lately, I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’ve been trying not to rely on any medication. By around 5:50, I left home and went for a run around the nearby high school for about an hour. As I ran, despite the lingering fatigue, I felt refreshed, and naturally, my thoughts drifted back to what had happened the night before.

Yesterday, I invited a close friend’s family over. We became close back when our children were born around the same time and we stayed at the same postpartum care center. It was a warm and pleasant evening, and I was genuinely happy to see them enjoying the meal I had prepared. In fact, they stayed until well past midnight, which made the night feel even more meaningful.

During our conversation, my friend B shared something quite personal. Although she is now a young professor, she said that her income is not as stable or substantial as one might expect. Even though both she and her husband are working, she feels that their situation is not necessarily more efficient financially. sometimes even less so than when only one person was earning. What troubled her the most, however, was not the financial aspect, but the emotional one. She often has to leave her son alone after school, and that makes her feel deeply guilty.

At one point, her son quietly walked into my son’s room and began looking around. What struck me was how carefully and attentively he observed everything. His eyes lingered on the schedule sheet attached to the cabinet, as well as the math progress chart. It wasn’t just casual curiosity. I had the strong impression that he genuinely wanted to do well, and perhaps even wished that someone would guide him more closely. There was a certain eagerness in his eyes—a quiet desire to improve, to be supported, and maybe, in some subtle way, even a hint of envy toward the structured environment my son has.

Later, I noticed her husband quietly whispering to her, saying something along the lines of, “I wish you could be at home.” It seemed that, in his eyes, my son appeared well-rounded—socially capable and academically on track and he believed that having a parent at home might play a key role in that. Perhaps he thought their own child could benefit in the same way.

Hearing that, I felt the need to share my honest thoughts. I told them that I don’t necessarily recommend staying at home. There are times when I feel completely exhausted. Sometimes, I feel like a candle slowly melting away. Of course, I’m happy to see my husband and my son doing well, but at the same time, I occasionally feel empty. I hesitate to call it a sacrifice, but there are moments when it doesn’t quite feel like my own life. And perhaps most of all, the results of what I do are not always visible.

When I expressed this, her husband responded in a thoughtful way. He said that, from his perspective, the results are actually very visible. He could clearly see the positive impact of having someone at home, and he believed that those efforts were meaningful and real.

I wasn’t entirely sure whether they were trying to encourage me or whether they sensed something in my expression. But they left me with kind and considerate words. Still, deep down, I genuinely hoped that my friend would not feel pressured into staying at home. Of course, it is entirely her choice. And in my view, being a working mother can offer something equally important a sense of personal fulfillment, identity, and independence. It’s natural to want your child to do well, but that alone cannot define everything. A mother’s own well-being, her sense of purpose, and her life as an individual matter just as much.

At the same time, I also recognize that this perspective only holds true when the work itself is meaningful and rewarding. What if the job doesn’t suit you? Or if it’s simply repetitive, low-paid work with little sense of purpose? In such cases, from a purely economic standpoint, it might actually make more sense for the mother to stay at home providing emotional stability for the child, easing her own sense of guilt, and even contributing more effectively to the household overall.

This thought led me to wonder, perhaps a bit too far, whether this entire structure is, in some way, intentionally designed. A system in which both parents are encouraged to work, even when it does not necessarily lead to greater well-being, subtly diminishing the value of caregiving. A system that makes stay-at-home parenting seem less valuable, while extracting the labor of two people at a relatively low cost for the benefit of the broader economy.

Of course, this may simply be an overextended thought perhaps even a bit of a fantasy. But when I run, thoughts like these tend to surface naturally. And somehow, they linger with me long after the run is over.

 

As I write this, a part of me wonders whether these thoughts might come across as the words of someone speaking from a place of comfort. Even so, I couldn’t bring myself to simply let these reflections slip away.