Things can get better

“Remember: things can be bad, and getting better.”

- Hans Rosling, ‘Factfullness’

I draw webtoons titled “Dr. and Dr. baby book.” I am a webtoon artist with a doctorate degree in engineering. My career had stalled after three years of child-rearing in a society where the phrase “career-stalled woman” was commonplace while “career-stalled man” was not so much. I chose a path as a webtoon artist after giving it thoughts.

I talked a lot about the issue of career discontinuity and the difficulty of juggling child-rearing, my original career and the webtoon. I wanted to suggest a solution but was only able to talk about it and have it resonate with others because the issues were too complicated and my thoughts and knowledge were not sufficient. I slept fitfully for a while due to the guilt that I was somebody who points out problems but never suggests useful ideas. One day, I read “Factfulness.”

This book shows based on large data that the world is headed for is not so bad. It doesn’t say that our society is free of problems. Things are bad but clearly getting better. It was a moment of realization. Indeed, the problems that I have had were improving. Clearly, there were positive changes such as diaper change tables in men’s room, family toilets and expanded free child-rearing. But things are still pretty bad, where giving a birth to and raising a child is not easy without tremendous sacrifice of the primary caregiver.

We are living in an era where people spend too much energy on parting sides and hating each other. But some issues affect everyone regardless of gender, race and religion. I, as a male caregiver, had the same issues as female caregivers. We should gather our wisdom and resources to resolve issues like this. Even though we are living in a difficult era, but things can get better.