The traditional family structure in Korea has weakened and in many cases broken down in the past few decades. We are seeing nuclear families and a great deal of divorce in our Korean Society. Part of this is the secularization and globalization that is taking place throughout the world. The good is that there is much more of an equality in family relations and an improvement in the status of women but it is doing havoc with many families.In the small community in which I am in residence there are only 6 children who are part of our
Sunday School program, all of which are from broken families. The sons married and with the failure of the marriage, divorced, and sent the children to the homestead to live with the grandparents. The fathers do remarry but find it difficult, in most cases, to bring the children to the new marriage. Many of the mothers do not seem interested in the children, for they also want to remarry; without the children it is much easier. In most cases it is understood that the children stay with the father. This is the predicament that many of the families have to face. If the grandparents are healthy this difficulty, at times, can be surmounted but in most cases the children suffer a great deal and it is easily seen in their faces.
Just as in the west both the parents usually have to work. The traditional Korean family where all would be living under the same roof is disappearing. The norm is the sons leave the homestead and move to the city to find work and start a family. This seems to be the choice of all concerned. The farming families continue working without the sons and this lack is made up with modern day farming machinery.
There is also the case of grandmothers who live alone. They prefer at times to live away from the sons , for the freedom that it gives; they do not want to be a burden but poverty, at times, is also part of the picture. These woman have a difficult time for they have to do all the work and take care of the upkeep of the house but it is apparently easier on them then to live in the restricted atmosphere of family.
It doesn't take long for a society to change the way things are done and part of the reason for this is what they see and hear both in Korea and from the the rest of the world.
