[vol.1] Feature 3. This is the way to make a democratic family

May which has Parents' Day following Children's Day, makes us think of how precious our families are. Now that the living style of young couples and the roles of husbands and wives have positively changed, it is women's important task to make clear what it is to be a really democratic family and lay the foundation of the family. Therefore, this issue of 'working women' will examine the aspect of a desirable family which provides us with comforts and look into what is the women workers role in laying the foundation which we hope can be helpful for making a democratic family. Let's think of democratization within our homes Whether wives or husbands, most of young couples say that, unlike the happiness they imagined before marriage, the dreams of marriage have gone and life is getting boring. If we look inside these homes, we find the husbands are weighted down by the responsibility for supporting the family and taking the role as its head. Wives are frustrated because of monotonous house work. no voice in family decisions or no time to fulfill themselves children complain that parents excessively re strict their activities. What makes our precious resting place, the home become irritating and boresome? Though each family's reason is different, 1et's find out the causes of the reasons given. One or the biggest causes driving our families to be non-democratic is patriarchal authority in which the total family life is controlled by the head of the family, breaking up the morale of mutual respect. That is, most of men have an excessive idea that only they can be responsible for the whole life of their families, over and above their responsibility for their families' living in terms of finance. However, this idea ignores the important fact that al1 the members of a family lead the family through their cooperation when they play their roles faithfully. the husband handles al1 matters arbitrarily in his dictatorial & authoritative way. In order not to go against his authority, the wife suppresses her own opinions, apreads all day doing routine housework, negates her own important role and submits to a state of helplessness. On the other hand, subdued by the authority of their parents, children become passive and follow whatever their parents say or they rebel and go against their parents' directions without any consideration. As things stand in this way, what efforts should we make in order to plant in the home the roots or democracy where each one can equally speak out their own thoughts and play their own part with cooperation? Toward couple's relationship with mutual respect and equality. A couple is a small community bound together equally and companionship for encouraging each other throughout life. Although people agree to the above statement, when the matter of improvement of women's position at home comes up they say with dissatisfaction ' As there is a husband's role at home so is there a wive's. Then if they are equal, what happens to the home?' However, this is nothing but an opinion that unfairly forces women to play submissive and partial roles under the assertion that there is a big difference between men's role and that of women at home. On the contrary, if a couple respect and accept each other's role at home. the rest or domestic matters will be divided in a natural way. If a couple forms a mutually respectful and equal relationship at home women will energetically do their own work with the help of families instead or giving up outside employment or doing their duties under pressure with lack of confidence. Trust & Love become a solid bounding through conversation and Family Meeting. Although it is said that to know a person's inner mind is impossible, through conversation over daily happenings and feelings a married couple can dissolve their conflicts and help to correct each other's weaknesses. As for children, instead of unconditional commands, sufficient explanation and conversation to make them understand can lead them with practice to forming an independent life with self-judgement. Accordingly it is necessary that between a couple or parents and children should there be frequent talks and family meetings on a regular day say once a week or once a month. In the beginning it would be regarded as an irritating thing but as time goes by, the family will feel that trust and belief in each other become deeper. Sharing housework with all members of the family When both are working, it is the burden of housework on women that causes the most trouble for women. As women need to take a rest at home to recharge them for the next day, it is necessary for children and husband to share housework as members of the family with a certain degree of taking responsibility for the family community. In the morning while women prepare the breakfast, children and husband can clean bedrooms and arrange things around the home if necessary. In the evening if whoever comes home earliest naturally washes the dishes piled up and prepares supper, everyone who comes later will feel refreshed and happy. Even better, through such a life all the family members will be happier even with their duties at work. Turning 'my' children into 'our' children Getting into an age of nuclear families, it becomes the parent's big concern that children are raised to be selfish rather than to share in a common country. In particular, when the father of the family head, passes the role of children's education onto the mother, the chi1dren come to be lack in independence and have trouble associating with others due to growing up as spoiled children through a relationship with only the mother. On the other hand, as mother pours out on her children the stress accumulated by wrestling to discipline them the result causes bad effects on both sides. Since it is baby care that forces women workers to give up theirs jobs, it is important for couples to get over the biased idea, 'Mother should care for their baby'. That is, the matter or baby care should be resolved positively with cooperation through day care centers at work places. The husband should help and not pass the responsibility of baby care totally onto the women. As we previously look into the requirement for democratization of families, in the light of the facts, to what extent has our family's democratization proceeded and what l should put into practice right away? Democratization of families has to be the first task for our women workers who are so busy everyday as if they are fighting a war, and family democratization will serve as a basses to establish social democratization. Therefore, to build up democratization of the family, it is we who should draw out our husband's and families' support. A variety of efforts for democratization within families Love of family deepened by establishing a family meeting. Pucheon YMCA has carried out active programs in many areas such as a campaign for not buying foreign cigarettes, Consumers Cooperative Union campaign and Activation of a campaign for local self government through reform of educational environment nature preservation campaign, recommendation or civic candidates and a civic campaign for fair elections and so on, which the YMCA gradually extended into a family democratization campaign. Beginning with the members who used to attend various other programs or projects, the YMCA runs such new projects as couple camp, class for father where 'family meetings' have been recommended. As a result of this 100 families have come to hold family meetings. For sure the meetings help the families establish democratization within their families. Jang Kyung-moon's family that has brough1 democratization of the family to reality through family meeting was introduced to our edition department by the courtesy of the YMCA. So we met 4 members of the family that lives in Joong-dong, Pucheon. It was not until son, Sukjae (now the second year of elementary sch001) became a member or an athlete group of the YMCA at the age or 7 that Jang Kyung-moon's family started a relationship with the YMCA. The couple without hesitation took part in a couple camp held by the YMCA after hearing their son say the camp. The camp suggested family meetings for democratization of the family, introduced good examples and some caution points and also handed out record book of family meetings on which they can write down the substances of their family meetings. In the April of the next year the father, Jang Kyung-moon, finished a program called 'class for father' held by he YMCA which became an important motive to put the family meeting into practice. After learning about children's education, couple relationships, the detailed role as a father and a husband and father's position occupied in modern society, he became a model of a good father who leads a happy family in a healthy society and at last began to put the family meeting into action.Starting like this, at present the family meeting is held every third Saturday of the month. Until establishing the family meeting there were many problems. It is difficult for a couple, to say nothing of children, to get used to atmosphere of the family meeting. In addition, when they have a domestic fight, it is not easy to face each other at the meeting pretending that nothing has happened. In particular, Jang Kyung-moon felt frustrated at first since, through the meeting, his authority as father would fall down to the ground and sometimes he thought it was uncomfortable because there were so many elements to restrict his authority as the family head. However, he reflected on the past when he thought housework should be done only by his wife and all he had to do was earn money and assume authority at home. Since then he realized it was not merely his authority but voluntaries and creativity that will bring about the family's development. A family meeting starts with reflection of the past week, selection of topic, discussion. resolutions and announcements in that order. Results of the meeting will be written down in a record book of family meetings without fail. Topics presented frequently at the meeting are: practices for nature preservation, frugality, responsibility for doing one's own work, sharing housework and using correct and polite words. As a specific way of practicing the topics there is a penalty rule like 150 won(Korean current unit) for insisting on one's own opinion without condition. 10O won for speaking ill of others, 100 won for being disorderly, 100won for not eating a11 one's mea1. Son, Sukjae economizes on energy through saving tap water and puling out plugs of electric appliances. Daughter, Hyeryun cleans and collects empty packs of milk and rearrange shoes and other trivia1 things around the house. Of course basically they do their own work by themselves. When asked what is good about a family meeting, the children replied clearly 'Families get closer through more conversation than ordinarily. The regular pattern of life helps us to express ourselves at school'. Mr. and Mrs. Jang said they were surprised when they saw their children think and judge in a nature way at the meeting. As their children do their work for themselves, they have hardly had to scold or blame their children since the family meetings started. This is one of the greatest fruits from the meetings. Of course, sometimes their chi1dren's behavior is not satisfactory from the parents' view. However, Jang Kyung-moon decided not to scold their children in such way as saying 'Why didn't you do what you had promised at the family meeting?' since by doing this the original purpose of the meeting to proceed toward a right way of life wil1 be distorted. If they restricted each other's activities under the veil of a family meeting, it will be painful then for each member of the family. One of the meeting's purposes is to provide their children with an opportunity to reflect on past living. As seen from the points above, as a topic of family meeting we need to choose one that we can carry out with ease The record of 14th family meeting Date April 28. 1993 Place Living room Participants Jang Kyung-moon(father), Yeom Dong-sook(mother) Jang Hye-ryun (daughter), Jang Suk-jae (son) M.C Jang Kyung-moon Recorder Mother Reflection on the past week; 　 Father : Too much spoke bad words. Will be careful with tongue. Mother : Not paid any penalty. Will keep going in this manner. Son : Got rid of the behavior of saying 'O. K' since the penalty started. Daughter : Paid a penalty once for stubbornness. Will keep the rule with caution. Topics Sharing parts of housework. Not passing it onto only Mom 3 persons approved (topic selected) Keeping what we resolved to do (with penalty method) Doing one's own work for oneself frugal Iiving Discussion Daughter : Clean up bedrooms, Rearrange shoes, Do errands for parents son : Clean up his room. Switch off lights, Turn off tap water Mother : Help father's work Father: Help mom with general housework Clean for spring time Resolution Will become an exemplary family to keep well what was discussed and decided at the meeting. What the couple wishes to build up is a good relationship with their children(One is 2nd year of elementary school and the other is 4th) so that their children may confide in their parents about problems of life, friends or sexual matters without reserve even during adolescence. To be sure, every parent has dreamed of having such a relationship but Mr. Jang's family tried their best to make the dream true which is certainly sure of being a cornerstone for democratization within the family and further within society. Meeting for those who want to be a geed father Since the patriarchal authority of our husbands and our children's fathers are deeply rooted and accordingly their voices have a strong influence on our families, so also their efforts plays an important role in forming a democratic family. Lately a movement has begun in which fathers of their own accord try to become good fathers and to devote themselves for democratization within the family and society. As a result of the movement, 1ast May a meeting of those who want to be good fathers was inaugurated and May l was declared as "Good Fathers' Day". They carried out various activities such as family camp, awards for a good father, education of good parents, travel for father and children together and so on for the purpose of father for a happy family, father for a secure family, family for a good neighborhood, father for a peacefu1 society, farther for being a model adult. Though we can't describe here in detail all the efforts and activities of the meeting of those who want to be good fathers, we will 100k at the ideas and resolutions of the fathers at the meeting which will be a good mode1 for good fathers of our families. We'd like to be a good father We would each like to be a good father. However, it is difficult to say what kind of father is a good father. Even though l think I am a good father, I can't be sure l am. 'What do our children think of us? Man also earns money? Workaholic man? Drinking man? Man sitting before T. V or man not easily to meet? Whatever, we'd like to know how we can be a good father and how we can carry it out. However, to be a good father can't be accomplished only by our wishes. For sure we need to have an effort to be but we feel stifled in not knowing how. It is not only l who feel awkward. Those who feel the same way started to gather and talk. 'To be a good father we should be interested in our children. "I think we should be rich with 1ove. "Wel1, we should present exemplary behavior to them. "We should help them develop independence." As a our ideas grows bigger, if gets vague. So we try to think out more specific ways. In my case, to show my interests when l get up in the morning. I gave a big hug to my children. "I always prepare a gift for their birthdays." "I let them do hard work to train them to be independent." It was good to have frequent talks. Since we learn a lot from each other, the time of meeting can be far better than time of drinking. O. K then let's have a regular meeting and search for a good method. Our efforts started like this. Since then the times of the meetings increased and we learned a lot there about how to be a good father. Now really we can lead the life of a good rather. We realized that to be a good father can not be done only through to have a good relationship with children. To have a good husband and wife relationship is pre-requisite and to do our best can never be enough. However, do you know what happened? It didn't work as we had resolved. So again we started to feel discouraged. To talk with each other over the phone doesn't work effectively. All of us have already known what we should do. We didn't realize before that to know is one thing and to practice is another. Therefore, we decided to make a meeting for practicing and we set a topic for the month such as 'Let's draw out good things from our children and praise them for that.' We put the topic into action and then discuss it. The meeting came to be very helpful. During the meeting we came a closer to one another and while we were trying to be good fathers, we became good neighbors. As much as we have thought of good things, so good things happened. Now we share our difficulties and pleasures with each other. Not only fathers but also mothers and children come to make many new friends and our concern about children decreases. We know these activities of ours are just beginning. We feel very sorry to just keep these ideas to ourselves. We would like to share the ideas. Then we are sure that not only our life at work will be more meaningful but also our society will be more enlivened. The thought that our children will take after our behavior which try to live the life of a good father makes us happy. Resolutions to be a good father Whenever we are with our children, we should have many talks with them so that we may understand what they think and what are their goals. As conversation between any one means to equally exchange one's thought and ideas, we should think if we are insisting on our own thought rather than listening to our children We should make a time even for a few minutes with our children every day. when it is impossible to have time with them, we should continue to communicate with them through 1etters, memos or phone calls. And if possible we shouldn't make any excuse before our children saying 'I am so tired or l am so busy.' More than once a week let's go out with children or do sports or hobbies with them. . Not only through words but also through action (smiling, hugging. playing or bathing) show your affection to them. . Make a frequent visit to your children's room and look at memos, notes or textbooks or your children or check out the state of arrangement in their room by which you show your interest in the living environment of your children's. Let's possibly praise our children for good behavior and understand their wrongs as much as we can considering they are not a perfect being from the physical and menta1 point or view. In addition, when you have to scold them make clear the reason you are doing it. and make sure you blame them, not for their characters but for their wrong behavior. Don't force our children to have the same life as our saying it is the best. Though we wish our children to do as we like, we should understand they think in a different way from the way we do, and respect their ideas and judgement. We should provide children with an opportunity for them to take part in house work or other social work according to their abilities not prejudice they are too young to do something. Children grow up learning from the realationship with their parents. To be a good couple should be a pre-requisite for being good parents. Therefore, let's show each other's concern and affection for one another by having frequent talks and understanding each other. In case we should have a domestic fight, 1et's not do it in front of the children. Don't forget that disharmony between parents will shake the roots of trust and love in families. Father should be a mental support for his children. He should always show them a coherence in behavior and thought as this wil1 serve as an adult model and a psychological support for them. Class for making a happy home led by women The wives section of the Pusan Women Workers Association realized their meetings had been focused on making friendship and upgrading their own quality and developing themselves. So since the second half of last year, they decided to enlarge their meeting to include the women who are around them in the neiborhood. A project which they think can be carried out in a friendly and intimate way is to develop various efforts and take action for the purpose of making a happy home. Therefore, the name of the 'Wives' Section' was changed into "Class for Making a Happy Home" One or our women's concerns urgently needing to be solved is to solve the conflicts and problems that occur at home where they spend the whole day. Through solution of these problems, women can make a happy life in a happy home. However, in reality there is almost no opportunity where we, women can confide the problems that happen in our daily life and get the way of solving them. Therefore, the class for making a happy home of the Pusan Women Workers Association gathers these women helps them to understand their frustrated emotions. However, then it is found they are not big problems but ones that can easily be solved. Of course there were some problems that could not be solved. We see the reason for this is because patriarchal customs and family selfishness has taken root deeply in our homes. In the 1ong run, the time provided us with an opportunity where we realized that to make a happy home, we should rectify women's problems and social problems which are prevalent in our society along with efforts at our home and our own efforts as individuals Starting with 6 members, the class for making a happy home has a meeting now with 5 members because one has to rest due to frequency. In the beginning they started to tell about their own domestic troubles which they are usually reluctant to reveal. As a result, they found out that the common problem that all of them have was caused by lack of conversation between family members. Therefore, they decided to make a program for other women to join and to make a specific preparation to sort out their issues. At present, the common thinking is to be a good couple is pre- requisite to having a happy home. They read books called 'The way to be a true couple', 'Love and marriage learned in a reverse way' and confide to each other their feelings about their experience in domestic fights whom conflicts between coup1es come out, Though this they try to find the methods for developing a right relationship between couples. Based on such activities, they are planning in the future to hold an open lecture, to put on a drama and to open talks with invited couples of workers. Later this year there is a plan to publish a reference with a collection of case studies and reports of successful practice which have consistently been done. When they accumulates the more experience and upgrades their capabilities with an enlarged member organization, they plans to do a project in 1994 on the relationship between parents and children based on the theme of "Conversation Section with Children".