Comedian Jo Hye-ryeon revealed her philosophy on parenting.
On the 12th, Jo Hye-ryeon, Shin Jae-pyeong, and Lee Jang-won appeared as guests on KBS2's 'Problematic Children in the Rooftop Room'.
On that day, Kim Sook asked, "Didn’t Jo Hye-ryeon’s daughter rank first in her class and study well?" Jo Hye-ryeon replied, "My daughter studied hard to make her parents happy. But now, after going through various experiences, she studies what she loves. She is fully active, working part-time, and enjoying her life. As a parent, that makes me happier. My daughter said, 'This lively side is me,'” she laughed.
Jo Hye-ryeon's daughter had never missed being the top student until one day she dropped out. Jo Hye-ryeon recalled, "On the day my daughter dropped out, I went to pick her up from school and cried a lot. Looking back, I think it was out of regret. Didn’t I know how my daughter felt? I thought what she showed me was everything, but inside, she had a real dream."
She continued, "I really like how my daughter is now. I think it was a good decision to support her when she decided to leave school. Studying well isn’t everything, right?" she raised her voice.
Jo Hye-ryeon also shared updates about her son. She said, "My son graduated from college. He went to an international high school and dropped out, then went to a Christian school and dropped out, and then went to the Philippines and dropped out. So he was a high school dropout at 18."
She added, "When I asked my son, 'What do you want to do the most?' he said he wanted to play games. We didn’t ignore that. We encouraged him to try, and he attended a game academy, where he found planning fun. He created a 270-page project proposal and applied to six universities, getting accepted to all of them," surprising everyone.
When asked how she endured her children's wandering times, Jo Hye-ryeon replied, "Looking back on my life, my mom couldn’t be involved in my life. With eight children, she didn’t know when I came back home after a month. She told me not to go to school, but I wanted to go instead. It wasn’t because my mom had a philosophy of education; it was just the environment she was in. She had to pick and sell edible plants from the field."
She continued, "Looking at children living in modern times, parents are too involved. While I want them to go in the direction I want, children also have their own paths they want to take. So I looked at them as they are. It’s not easy to endure that. I have my standards, and when they deviate from that, it feels like a big problem. But after enduring it, I found that as they turned twenty, they started to manage things on their own," she added.
[Lee Se-bin, Star Today Guest Reporter]
