Prologue: June 3rd

Act 1: The Misconception of Innate Talent

I guess it's all my fault - long nights - empathy and understanding - even though you resemble me, be your own - there are many mothers like this - the power of children - it's not motherhood, it's loyalty

Act 2: The Money-Making Woman

Pushed out - I hate hospitals and homes - Working women - Korea will go under at this rate - Be ambitious while looking for a place to sleep

Act 3: Family Politics

My enemy is not patriarchy, but kitsch - How care becomes a tragedy - My case - The problem is not in differences - A chronicle of the struggle for recognition - Compromise is not defeat

Act 4: Visible Salvation

Dangerous Family - Caring Heart - Now I Need an Answer - Don't Stare Too Hard - Hyunsoo's Round Moon - Two is Better Than One, Three is Better Than Two - Labor in Old Age

Act 5: The Attitude of Medicine

Children's Happiness - Medicine and Poison - To be good at school and have a good personality - Disease: Cancer, Treatment: None - A Place Called Hospital - Asking in the Emergency Room

Opening the door
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Marty At Series Volume 3
Publication of "Suspicions That Follow Love"

“When politics fails, love falls apart.
“Without exception, everywhere.”

Daily life came to a halt and doubts began to creep in.

A dual-income couple and a young child, a daily life of finding small happiness in the midst of a hectic day.
It's a familiar scene that can't even be used as a drama cliché.
She is a busy office worker working as a National Assembly member's assistant and a first-time parent who sent her child to elementary school during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. One morning, she receives a phone call out of the blue from her husband, who is in charge of taking the child to school.
"Cancel everything and come to the National Cancer Center." (Page 12)

A child who was preparing to go to school had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop, and was transferred to a higher level hospital before arriving at the National Cancer Center, where he was diagnosed with a malignant disease.
It was only half a day.
Therefore, this book has no preface.
The incident that occurred without preparation was named 'Prologue', and for one year and six months from that day, in the midst of dramatic tension where the child's life was at stake, the author continued to provide 24-hour care without replacement, and raised difficult and heavy questions that no mother could bring up.

If I had to give it a name, it would be loyalty

She had to leave work in a hurry and was unable to return to work.
The child was seriously ill, so the mother's going to work was out of the question.
The child clung to the mother, the husband did not question the wife's role, and both the family and the company encouraged the mother's nursing.
In Act 1, the author asks about ‘motherhood’.
Is motherhood an innate talent? Despite long-standing scientific evidence that motherhood is a hormonal response strongly influenced by oxytocin and prolactin in both men and women, the myth of motherhood persists because it presupposes caregiving.


The author writes, “The myth of motherhood simultaneously forces women to make sacrifices while simultaneously erasing the complex and unique experiences of each woman’s life.
“The idea that each mother’s life can be divided into working moms and stay-at-home moms is extremely complacent and narrow-minded” (p. 55), and she realizes that the love she shares with her child, stuck together all day long in a small bed, sharing the pain, is not based on motherhood.
“Ultimately, love is putting someone else’s needs before your own.
Love is thinking of that person before yourself.
And this attribute of love is the very foundation of compassion.

Compassion, a word that is very unfortunate to translate as pity or sympathy as is often done, literally means sharing (com) someone's pain (passion).
Unconditional care and unconditional care are the very idea and visible reality of compassion.
And once someone experiences this compassion through someone else, they return it to others throughout their lives.
“It is learning how to love with all your heart, how to care for someone.” (p. 62) The author says that her care is based on reciprocal love, not the one-way love expressed in motherhood, and “I willingly sacrifice my time and freedom for the excessive love I received from my child, for the pure love that rushes in without calculation.
If we had to give it a name, it would be “loyalty” (p. 64). At this point, we subtly come to sense that the child is not the “object” of care, but the “subject.”


Women who can't separate this work from that

Many women struggle to separate caregiving and work life.
Social life and the professional world implicitly urge a separation between the two.
Of course, this also applies to men.
So I know that we can't blame individual men for the shifting of caregiving to one side. (p. 84) But women who have tried will know.
The fact that you can't separate money-making work from non-money-making household chores.
It cannot be said that the part that consumes oneself is caring, and the part that helps one grow is social work (work, including work that earns money).
All household chores are repetitive, yet each requires a different level of sensitivity and skill, and care is never one-sided or flat.
Care is interactive and three-dimensional.
Moreover, making money and using that money to support one's life are never vertical.


The author emphasizes that neither women nor men can pursue happiness within the existing corporate inertia and social system.
“I worked very hard to prove that my identity as a caring mother did not in any way affect my work.
At the time, caring was more of a branding element for me at work, like sharing a cute little commotion I had with my child over the weekend or sharing my struggles with other women in similar situations.
I had to adjust the tone to make it comfortable for my mostly male counterparts, and reassure them that it wouldn't threaten their identity as workers who dedicate their time entirely to their workplace.
(...) The company took care of the member of parliament like a child.
The author's confession that "when I got home, I treated my child like I treated a doctor" (pp. 87, 95) is an experience that comes as naturally as breathing to women who work two jobs simultaneously.
In Act 2, the author examines the urgent and divisive situation faced by 'money-earning women' and asks and ponders how care can be shared.


The answers are set to A and B
Women fall into a trap

When women discuss the division of labor within the household, men's answers are essentially limited to two options.
Faced with this impassable wall, the only attitude a woman can adopt is silence. (p. 99)

Answer A: But isn't it okay for me?
Answer B: Why make something difficult when it can be done efficiently?

Question: Did I give birth to the child alone? Isn't this your house? → A
Question: You should try it yourself.
If you can even provide food for your child, then that's real childcare sharing.
→ B
Question: They say that if a father does a good job with housework, his daughter will learn to choose a good man.
What do you think? → A
Question: I have to go back to work too.
Shouldn't we really share the responsibility of looking after the child now? → B

In the end, I feel guilty for causing trouble by making unnecessary comments.
However, unless you decide to cause trouble, you will not be able to find even a hint of change.
Moreover, the disaster the author faces is enough to close off any doubts.


What you will learn when you live as a 'guardian'
Problems beyond the family

In a society where families are at the forefront of caregiving and nursing, the author delves into how desperately this issue extends beyond the family.
Hospitals view patients not as individuals, but as a disease. (p. 180) In the treatment process that eliminates the cause of the disease, humanity is erased, and the author's daughter loses her name, "Yuni," and is diagnosed with "acute lymphoblastic leukemia."
Where does this attitude of doctors, nurses, and professional caregivers not distinguishing between the sick and the sick person come from?
Is this simply a matter of 'kindness'?
The author's suspicions persist.


While staying within the medical system as a “guardian,” the author becomes frustrated with her child’s inability to attend regular school.
Basically, we find that schools are completely unprepared to welcome children with physical disabilities, neurodiversity, and severe and chronic illnesses.
I also realize that being able to continue practicing social relationships with peers by entering a 'hospital school' is based on the 'family resources' that allowed me to have my child admitted to a hospital with such facilities.


The author's thoughts extend beyond the hospital ward to include the stagnant number of medical school seats, the enormous resources invested in medical school admissions and their inefficiencies, and the closure of local public medical centers.
Written by a mother whose daughter is in need, a caregiver who must make big and small decisions between hospitals and patients, and a citizen who questions the current medical system, this book presents a three-dimensional view of the real-world issues of nursing and care.

This situation is not special.

The reason the author spent the night in the narrow caregiver's bed, reading many books and asking questions and appealing was because he knew that his situation was not special.
The universal oppression that occurs in every special situation drives the situation in a common direction.
Even if the child was not seriously ill, and had simply caught a seasonal cold, the outcome would have been the same, just the timing of the impact would have been different.
The author argues that marriage is not the problem.
But that doesn't mean giving birth.
The problem is the '1+1 care' that naturally follows childbirth.
When a child is born, the woman's responsibilities for caring for her husband begin to be added to her responsibilities.
The table is set anyway, the washing machine is run anyway, the vacuum cleaner is run anyway, and all the other things that need to be looked after anyway are added naturally.
These fixed gender roles and social atmosphere are nothing but a burden and misfortune for both women and men.
Additionally, the 1+1 care burden, which gradually falls on women, begins to shift more quickly and heavily when family members, including both sets of parents, begin to require care.
Women are summoned to every case requiring care, and those who do not respond are branded as unscrupulous, cruel, and ruthless family members who have neglected their duties.


This book is not a monologue, but a dialogue.

The author's epilogue ends with 'Opening the Door'.
Because I made a different choice.
I also know that I have to accept criticism, not condemnation.
The child's illness was critical and the family was in crisis.
A situation that seems to require no questions to anyone.
Yet, the author lifts the responsibility and share that lies entirely with him and asks, 'Is this really mine?'


The fact that 'politics', which the author considered his profession, and his daily life are politics, enters the author's day in a very unfamiliar way.
In this situation, the author begins to discuss the problem of caregiving, which she has been burdened with alone, with her husband.
It calls for political compromise in the face of seemingly impossible odds.
I want to practice everyday politics, not extreme politics.
By creating the necessary distance between people, we aim to prevent the corruption of love and to compensate for the vulnerability of the family. (p. 120)

Therefore, this book is not a monologue but a dialogue.
Open the door and speak to your husband, your neighbors, and society.
Not to find answers, but to ask more questions, to propose more complex compromises.