Finally, a Son
“Umma, are you pregnant?”
One day, Mom’s belly looked rounder than usual, so I asked her, though I figured it was unlikely. I was in fourth grade and she was already in her thirties. A woman in her thirties doesn’t get pregnant.
“Yes... I am,” she said, her eyes expressionless.
My eyes widened. “That’s great. I hope it’s a boy this time.”
“If God is willing...” She let out a long breath. “I’m praying.”
“I know it’s a boy,” I said, not because I believed it like I had with Hyeri, but because I knew she needed encouragement. We all needed encouragement. “I’m very sure, but I’ll still pray with you.”
Since God hadn’t listened to my prayer last time, maybe He would this time. I mean, if God had a heart at all. If not, He must hate me.
Since God hadn't listened to my prayer last time, maybe He would this time. I mean, if God had a heart at all. If not, He must hate me.
When ajummas saw my very pregnant mom on the street, at the grocery store, or in the public bath, they’d ask how far along she was. When Mom answered, they’d ask how many kids she already had, since she was older than most pregnant women.
“This will be the fourth one,” she said, looking tired.
The ladies would gasp. No exceptions.
“You mean three kids already, and you’re having another one?”
“We don’t have a boy yet.”
“Really? I’m sorry.” The corners of their mouths always turned down as they let out a small, pitying sigh. “Then it really better be a boy.”
“Exactly.” Mom gazed down at her belly, rubbing it as if begging it to be nice and be a boy, everybody nodding as they all gazed at her belly.
“It will be, don’t worry.” I wasn’t supposed to interrupt when grown-ups were talking, but I couldn’t help myself. “Jesus will help us.”
“I hope you’re right,” the ladies said, smiling at me. Then they turned to Mom. “Even your daughter wants a baby brother so badly.”
But when I noticed their eyes turning sad, as if they felt sorry for me, I wanted to tell them not to worry. That my sisters and I were good children, and that should offset what those ladies were really concerned about: too many mouths to feed.
The Korean population had been exploding on that small landmass since the Korean War, and the government had been campaigning for family planning: two children per household. Even before that, people preferred smaller families—one or two children, no more. The collective feeling was that it was better to raise fewer children well than have too many who would only survive, never getting any further than their parents had.
This was especially true in places like Jigokdong, where you could see what a college degree could get you: a higher salary, a bigger apartment. Status. Families in this town had only one or two kids, rarely three, so they could allocate their resources smarter, more efficiently, so their kids would get better education than they did.
In this town, families like us—a family of five—better stop here, unless we wanted to look uneducated, irresponsible, like a family of dogs or cats or pigs. That’s why most of my friends’ families who had three girls and no boy stopped there. No more trying. But if you didn’t stop there, and you became a family of more than five, you’d hear whispers or tsk-tsks behind your backs as you walked by: “Did you know there are four kids in her household? Can you believe that?”
My parents did nothing to help.
“How do I know this is mine? How do I know it’s not the pastor’s—the one you’re so in love with?” my father asked, over and over, sober or drunk, as if there was nothing wrong with a question like that.
Most times, Mom would roll her eyes and ignore him.
But sometimes, she didn’t. That’s when she’d scoff and say things like, “How dare you? I know why—because you’re a lunatic.”
My father had two buttons that she could push: his height and his mental state. At the mention of the forbidden word—”lunatic”—his face began to distort like a crumpled piece of paper, an expression I never failed to recognize. Darn it, I thought, my eyes darting between the two of them, why couldn’t Mom just say yes or no?
“Did you just call me a lunatic?”
“Yes, I did! Not only that, you’ve got a massive inferiority complex, too, because you’re too short. Like a midget’s poop bag.”
That was it. Another explosion, the same result. A scene that no matter how often I watched it, I could never get used to.
One February morning in 1984, my parents were leaving for the hospital. It was time for the baby to come.
“You can take care of your sisters, right?” my father asked, already out the door, my mother breathing hard beside him.
“Of course, don’t worry about us,” I said. “Go, hurry!”
Now left alone, Sori, Hyeri, and I sat in a circle and started praying. Or rather, I, a fourth grader, spoke to God on behalf of all of us: a first grader and a three-year-old. We didn’t hold hands; we had been taught to clasp our own hands when praying, like the baby angel in the picture.
“Please forgive all our sins in Jesus’ name. Forgive us for not being good daughters or good sisters, but we promise we’ll do better,” I said, with Sori and Hyeri chiming in with “amen” after every sentence. “We’ll take church more seriously, and we’ll bring our friends so they can go to Heaven with us.”
When I had given God a long list of promises—enough reasons for Him to be touched and grant my wish—I finally told Him what I wanted, though I was pretty sure He already knew. “Please, please, please let it be a baby boy this time.”
Please, please, please let it be a baby boy this time.
That night, when my father came home, Sori, Hyeri, and I ran to him, dying to know what Mom had delivered. I couldn’t wait for him to finish taking off his shoes.
“So? A boy? A girl?”
“It’s a boy!” he said, looking me in the eyes, then Sori’s, then Hyeri’s. His shoulders straightened, his eyes sparkling, his chest puffed, his smile so bright, his voice so singsongy he sounded like a morning bird.
“Yay!”
We shrieked. We jumped. We fist-pumped and danced—all the things we weren’t supposed to do because the thin apartment walls let every sound travel. Any other day, my father would’ve yelled at us to keep quiet, worried about annoying the neighbors. But not that day. That day, he just pressed a finger to his lips, a silent shh, and let us celebrate.
Nothing could annoy him in that moment.
We shrieked. We jumped. We fist-pumped and danced—all the things we weren't supposed to do because the thin apartment walls let every sound travel.
Mom named the baby Kwang-Young, the word Young-Kwang—glory—spelled backward. At church, people always said they “give the glory to God” when they were proud of something: their husbands getting promotions, their children being accepted into college, or their families moving into bigger houses. Mom, proud of delivering the coveted son, wanted to give the glory to God.
My father didn’t like the name, though. He didn’t think it was God who had given him a son—it was his own ability, a biological one. Still, he didn’t oppose the name too much. He’d gotten what he wanted. Besides, the name wouldn’t be the official one on the family register anyway.
Almost every Korean family had its own naming conventions, one or two syllables decided by ancestors hundreds of years ago. For our generation, it was “Woo.” So my father named him Myungwoo.
Now, our family’s wish had finally come true: my brother, Myungwoo, would deliver our father from the disgrace of being heirless, and my mother from the misery of a dissatisfied husband.
Surely he would, and this should’ve been the end of my story.
Surely he would, and this could've been the end of my story.
Yuri thought good grades could camouflage everything else. Then her teacher knocked on the door.
© 2025 The SteelMaker’s Daughter by Yuni J. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use or duplication of this material without written permission is prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used with full credit and direction to the original content.