Psychodrama for dual-income families

“Mom, can’t you stay at home today?

The play starts with a tug of war in an average family before their parents go to work. Seong-mi’s mother who is busy preparing for breakfast and going for work is so busy while waking up her husband having a hangover and helping their children take cold medicine. Seong-mi, the main character in this play, complains about the way her mother does her hair and her dress. Her mother gets a phone call from work that her meeting place has been changed to other place far from her home. And after arriving at home after the work, the tired married couple’s day ends with a fight. “Quit your job and take care of the children!” “Do you know how I got this job? I can balance both work and family!”

Some 70 people including couples with their children were at the theater to watch a participating psychodrama for working moms at the convention hall of Chungmu Art Hall in downtown Seoul on Sunday afternoon. The play hosted by a social enterprise called The BEFU was to help audiences participate in the play and solve the never-ending problem of dual-income families.

Throughout the 50-minute play, married couples nodded their head or said, “That’s right.” After the play, a vote and a discussion were held over who is the most responsible for the family crisis on the stage. Thirty people cast a vote to the indifferent husband who left his wife to take care of all the house chores and child care. An audience said, “He should split the chores before going to work and talk more with his wife.” Others said, “The family seems to face a crisis because the woman became angry due to the pressure that she has to be responsible for everything to work all alone. She needs to trust her husband and children and share the burden.”

An audience, who is a housewife, played an impromptu role as another “Seong-mi’s mother.” When she revised some of the script based on the audiences’ solutions, and had her husband do the house chores, the audiences applauded and burst into laughter. Yoo Jeong-min, a 38-year-old housewife, said, “I heard that children these days are divided into two groups: working moms’ children and stay-at-home moms’ children. I realized that it is important to take care of all children as if they were my children.”

After the play, dual-income couples wrote their difficulties and what the government can do for them: “As a father, I have to love my family with embracing my wife`s difficulties and my daughter’s concerns. Men need paternity leave, too,” “Companies should have a child care facility. There should be more child care facilities run by community centers. It would be nice if there is a safe place or a library near schools so that children can go after school when they are free or lonely,” and “Wouldn’t it be nice if there is a legal system that allows a housewife in a career break due to child care can return to work?” The hosting organization decided to deliver various ideas from the audiences to the Gender Equality and Family Division of Seoul`s Jung Ward Office.