On Mother's Day last year, the Beijing News Children's Book pushed a set of books containing 15 books - "Mom, they praise your greatness, and I just want to understand your true | Each book represents a type of mom, presenting a different state of mom in parenting. This Year's Mother's Day, we came across a new picture book, My Mom, by a Korean mom who just won the 62nd Korea Publishing Culture Award.
"My Mother", [Han] Kwon Young-hyun, translated by Kim Hyun-ling, Relay Press, April 2022 edition.
It is also a "mom" theme, but this is a non-fiction work, delicately painting multiple parenting moments of a novice mother, including even the embarrassment of the mother having to take care of the child when she sits on the toilet, the seriousness of checking why the baby does not pull the stink, the moment of quiet hiding in the corner of the sofa to look at the mobile phone, and the exhaustion of the old man who collapses on the sofa when the elderly come to help.
These moments are the personal experiences of the picture book author Kwon Ting-hyun, but it took her several years to publish the book. The mother in the book is presented through the perspective of a little girl, just like on the cover, the baby holds a magnifying glass and carefully studies the changes of the mother, and the text in the book is her voiceover. But what is interesting is that the mother in her eyes is very different from the mother presented in the picture.
Although the contradiction or complementarity of text and illustration is a technique of picture book creation, it seems that the difference in the perception of mothers and children that Quan Tingwei sees here is also vaguely expressed. In the interview, she said, "Now that my child is 8 years old, she will often say to me: 'Hey, you always do things whatever you want!' Even though I didn't, the child always thought differently than I expected. ”
I watched my mother's night quietly.
The book is also like Kwon Ting-hyun's exploration of himself, a review of his original intention to become a mother several years later. She said that after becoming a mother, she will experience a lot of things that challenge her limits, things that cannot be encountered when there are no children, and mothers may think, "I am such a person."
This Year's Mother's Day, we interviewed Kwon Ting-hyun, and here are her answers.
Write 丨 Shen Chan
"After becoming a mother,
Will go through a lot of things that challenge your limits."
Beijing News: "My Mother" portrays the new mother very delicately, is each of these illustrations your personal experience?
Kwon: Yes, these are all things that I have personally experienced, and there are some things that can be extended all the way to the present. For example, after the birth of a child, the changes in the body, I now occasionally have symptoms of waist pain, in addition to those external aesthetic factors in the figure, waist discomfort can be said to be the most obvious changes in the whole body.
When I painted these daily scenes after becoming a mother, I actually wanted to sort out and record my most vulnerable and tired period. I understand that being a "mom" is "although I give my own 24 hours to my children, no one will think that all this is important", I recorded it, just so that more people can see that mom is a living body, they are very hard.
For the first 100 days after I was born, I had to run the toilet with my mother.
Beijing News: How do you know the identity of your mother?
Kwon: I think the ideal mother doesn't exist, it's a fiction. The mother of the Virgin Mary will continue to appear in literature and art, perhaps because such a mother does not exist in real life. The world is unpredictable and sometimes even cold. So we will long for a warm, detached embrace, no matter what we look like, we can be recognized, perhaps this primitive human hope is projected on the title of "mother", so that there is a tendency to deify motherhood.
But accepting the fact that such a mother does not exist, and trying not to be a mother who is not bad, I think it is good to have this attitude. There are a lot of moms in the world who blame themselves for not being good enough, and I'd love to say to them that being a not bad mom is enough.
When you become a mom, moms experience a lot of things that challenge their limits that they couldn't have encountered without children. When they encounter an unimagined, embarrassing appearance, mothers will think, "I am such a person."
Children only tell the truth, so when they get along with children, they will find their own contradictions and dualities. While saying , " It's not about winning, it's better to lose " , you still ask " Who's better than you , what's her name?" "It's painful to realize that I'm in the worst-case situation, but I think I can still hope that I can exercise myself so that I don't become the worst."
Beijing News: There are many pictures in "My Mother" that make people unfinished. For example, the page of "Hide and Seek", after reading it, you can't help but think, why should my mother hide next to the sofa and look at her mobile phone? In the page "I Quietly Observe My Mother's Night", after reading it, I can't help but wonder, what book is my mother reading? Can you tell the story behind these illustrations in detail?
Quan Tingwei: Actually, looking at the mobile phone in the illustration is not playing, but I just want to find a place to quiet down and do some of my own thinking and things.
I often read some parenting books, which may have something to do with my relationship with my children. But in life, I would like to jump out and keep a certain distance from my children, but as a mother, I can't do it, so when I see my children's problems like this, I will feel that I am not affected by me, I will blame myself, so I will turn to all kinds of parenting books, especially the years when the child is a child. I also read some literature books, which are the words that I like to read, and these are sometimes read when the child is asleep.
No matter how much I pestered my mother and asked her to play with me, she sat there motionless. It is more important than me, what is the research?
Beijing News: In many of the illustrations in this book, mothers are tired and busy, will you worry that it will make other women afraid to be mothers?
Kwon Ting-hyun: I didn't mean to scare the reader, maybe the visual impact of the mother's image in the book is too strong. There is a big gap between fantasy and reality in fertility and parenting, and I think it is still necessary to close this gap.
Although our brains are well aware that the glamorous images of moms created by the media are fictional, there has always been a voice within us that commands us to pursue that example. But whether or not to follow this command is the only choice that can be made if you correctly recognize what it means to be a mother. I believe that only by getting rid of the illusion of maternal love and letting go of the idea that breast milk will continue to flow out of the mother's body can we better, healthier, and fairer to accept the identity of the mother.
Beijing News: Mothers are prone to maternal anxiety, worried that they have not taken good care of their children and become meticulous, and will often accuse their fathers of inaction in parenting. Can you talk about the anxiety and confusion about parenting in Korean culture? At the individual family and social level, is there a good solution to this?
Kwon Ting-hyun: This is also the case for Korean mothers, so there is a movie called "Kim Ji-young born in 1982". I think the parenting reality should be about the same in all countries, and someone asked me why there is no dad in this book. In "My Mom", I described a flesh-and-blood mother, who was obviously wandering and busy when she first obtained the identity of a new mother, at this time, she did not know how to accept and digest the identity of "mother", and at this time she could not see the existence of "father".
Maybe it's because there is a lot of time in parenting that moms need to bear and accept alone, although "dads" as nurturers have the same responsibilities as moms, but in reality, moms spend far more time taking care of children than dads. Time can tell a lot.
South Korea attaches great importance to education, and it can be said that the competition in education is very fierce. The pressure of employment will also invisibly fall on the parenting of each family. In this context, it is actually difficult for individuals to have good solutions, but each child will have their own lifestyle and methods, and good results can be achieved because of the situation.
When Mom's mom was there, mom was almost as good as when she was with me.
"Just a little story
Doesn't fully carry the mom's state."
Beijing News: You are a baby born in 2014, the line draft drawn in 2017, and the book will not be officially published until 2021.
Kwon Ting-hyun: I started creating in 2017, 3 to 4 years after the birth of the baby, during which time I also painted other works, but I did not draw the topic of mother for a long time. Because I am a little worried, readers will not think that this is "mother's unreasonable teasing". After all, the newborn child is very weak and should be taken care of by the mother, so if I draw these, will the reader feel that I am playing a small temper because I do not want to fulfill the responsibilities of a mother. So when I started to create, I could always hear a voice of accusation in my heart, and I couldn't put down the pen for a long time.
But in the end, I found that these hardships and helplessness are not my own business, although these are more personal scenes, but once we find the emotional outlet, we can get a lot of breathing. I also got a breather because I drew them out. If there are many people who say that it is comforting to see this book, I also firmly believe that this topic can be discussed in the medium of books.
I've also created picture books about plants before, and there are about 5 of them. Because I have been painting, I will think of recording some of my thoughts as a way to paint. When this book was created, it did not think to highlight anything different from other books, but simply wanted to present the life state of the mother that everyone took for granted and would ignore in life, and this presentation was not a continuous story but a picture book, presented in a long-term recording way, because I think that a simple small story cannot fully carry the state of the mother.
Since she became a mother, the family has received courier boxes almost every day, who is constantly giving us gifts?
Beijing News: In other interviews, why would you say that the life of a new mother is a private topic? After all, there are a lot of picture books with the theme of mothers in the children's book market, isn't this a very good picture book creation element?
Kwon Ting-hyun: There are a lot of books about moms in the market, this creative element is very good, there are many in South Korea, and I believe there are many in China. But there is still a difference between fairy tales and reality, and the biggest difference is that one is fictional and the other is non-fictional. What I want to present is not the "fictional" moms who appear in TV dramas or fairy tales, not the moms who comb their hair, wear dresses, and smile and prepare dinner, but the "non-fictional" moms who appear in real life. Once it becomes non-fiction, it involves private topics, because it comes entirely from life itself, and you must show your emotions, appearances, and states that you don't want to be known to outsiders.
Beijing News: In the current reading feedback you have received about this book, has it particularly touched you or impressed you?
Quan Tingwei: The various evaluations I have received have also been provided to me by the publishing house, and after reading it, I have a very deep impression, the original text is:
"This book observes the appearance of the mother from the child's point of view, and portrays it very realistically, so when reading this book, I can always think of my past appearance, sometimes I think it is funny, and sometimes I shed tears." This book seems to tell through the child that those who neglect their mothers because of taking care of their children, you are also the cherished daughter of grandma, our beloved mother, a person worthy of being cherished, so I hope that the mother can take care of herself, and this wish of the child makes my heart very soft. Giving this book to expectant mothers who are about to welcome their own little babies is also a great option. At the same time, like me, the children in the family have grown up, and if the mothers who have lost their original intentions read this book, will they also be able to remember themselves when raising a newborn and turn themselves into a kinder mother? ”
I feel the same way this mom said, because by now, my child is also 8 years old, and she will often say to me: "Hey, you always do things as you please!" "Even though I didn't, the child always thought differently than I expected.
Mom loved to play hide-and-seek. Sometimes she would hide where I couldn't find it.
Beijing News: On Mother's Day, what do you most want to say to your mothers?
Kwon: I hope that mothers will not force themselves too much, so that they must become a perfect mother who meets the expectations of the world. Hopefully don't hate yourself for feeling like you're not a good mom.
Perfect mothers don't exist, because perfect humans don't exist either. It doesn't matter if it's not perfect, you're just having a tough time.
You are all precious people. Before being a good mother, you must first live happily as a person, let go of the psychological burden, even if you say such a thing out loud. Happy holidays!
Reporter Shen Chan
Edited by Li Yongbo
Proofread by Wu Xingfa
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