Joohee Kang

2.27 The Unnecessary Worry of a Condescending Mom: An Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry (Paper) – virtual

Joohee Kang – Mokwon University, Daejeon, South Korea

Abstract:

Tomorrow, I leave for Tallahassee with my daughter. While I was frantically packing, I suddenly became curious about what Da-yeon was doing. When I looked in her room, I found her drawing and making houses and dolls. It seems like Da-yeon is expressing her excitement and anticipation for the upcoming move to Tallahassee. The images could indeed be her way of envisioning her new life in the U.S. It might be her way to process and understand new experiences. When I asked her to put the essential things she would take with into her backpack, without hesitation, she packed her coloured markers, a fox doll, and a sketchbook. I sneakily added a math book to her nearly full backpack. Unlike me, who packs science books and math worksheets, how would I fit in with my daughter, who packs nothing but things to draw? The purpose of this study was to explore what drawing means to my 11-year-old daughter, Da-yeon, who is living in the United States due to my sabbatical. As an art educator and parent, it was a process of finding answers to my concerns about her drawing. As an art educator, I want her to enjoy drawing, but as a secular parent, I wish she was more interested in math and science instead of art, and sometimes I worry that she’s always drawing by herself. The fact that my perspective on Da-yeon’s drawings as a parent is different from my perspective as an art educator has always made me uncomfortable, so I thought it was necessary to critically examine these thoughts. As Da-yeon grew older, this difference in perspective seemed to increase. I used to get impatient, thinking that if she was drawing, when was she going to work on math?