Wild Goose Daddies Say, “It’s Not Just for English Education"

You know that feeling at an airport when you are busy helping your loved ones check-in and they just look so happy and excited to leave to another city or to another country when it’s too hard to say good-bye for you? Or on a Friday night you make several phone calls to your friends to go out for a drink but no one is available because all of them have plans with their family? Sure you do, and so do the wild goose daddies.
Wild goose daddy is not a very common term here in the United States but when you look at the opposite side of the world the story becomes very different. Then, who are they and why are these people called by this name?
A dad who gives financial supports to his wife and children who live in a foreign country for their children’s education while he stays in Korea is known as a wild goose daddy. This term is generated to indicate a social phenomenon happening in South Korea specifically which is merging to be a serious social problem at the same time. The reason why they have this name is because their devotion and love toward their family resemble those of geese.
51-year-old Joo-Suk Suh is a typical goose daddy living in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. He was separated from his wife and two daughters when they left to Boston five years ago and now he is living with his old mother.
“I never wanted it but I had to do it for my children” Mr. Suh said as he recalls the day his children told him they are sick of Korean education system and they want to go to America and experience new style of education. It was such a shock for him to hear that his children don’t want to study in Korea anymore. He began lecturing about how hard it is to survive in American schools with little English skills but his children were already firmly determined.
After a long fight and a long discussion, Suh decided to send his two daughters to Boston, the city of education. “I had to decide one way or the other for my children’s future and I decided to have faith in my daughters’ passion.”
“I can handle loneliness, I’m doing okay but what really concerns me is my children’s future. I want them to do what they really want to do,” Mr. Suh said. He is a successful realtor in Seoul so he doesn’t have financial worries to support his children in Boston. Like Suh, most goose daddies don’t have money problems. Fathers who have good paid jobs with high social positions can’t give up their positions and remain in South Korea alone. Usually, they send their children when they are in elementary or middle school, which forces their mother to go with them to take care of the children. It’s why this unique phenomenon happens.
Won-Young Lee, 43, another goose daddy spends his free time watching the video that his sons sent from Los Angeles. “I talk to my children on the phone almost every day. We email each other and send photos so I don’t really feel I’m isolated or anything,” said Lee.
At first, he wanted to send only his children to Los Angeles. He hired someone to take care of his sons and help them with English studies in Los Angeles. He literally planned everything perfectly for his children’s education, but few days before children’s departure the helper all of a sudden quit for personal reason.
“I couldn’t just send my children by themselves, they were too little by then” said Lee. His wife finally decided to leave with their children. It was an unexpected plan. His wife Mi-Sun suggested him to give up every plan and just raise their sons in Korea, but he couldn’t turn down his children’s passion.
It had been the biggest dream for his little children to attend school in the United States. Won-Young’s children were only 11 and 13 years old before they came to America. It was too much of pressure and stress for little elementary school kids to study for hours a day. Now, the older son goes to high school in Ventura and he is planning to apply for UC Berkeley next year.
“Supporting my children for years is a hard work, it takes physical and mental strength but I wanted to do this for them. I didn’t want them to go through the same hard process like my wife and me. I think it’s very fortunate that I can support my children without much difficulty,” Mr. Lee said.
When he recalls his school memories, he doesn’t remember anything good about it. According to Mr. Lee, Korean education system has no mercy. He had to take an exam to go to a good middle school and after that, another exam for a prestigious high school, which opened the door to enter a well-known university in Korea. Exams never ended for him.
“Every father wants what’s best for his kids and I’m one of them,” Mr. Lee said he is no different from any other dads, he just decided to go with a little different path for his children’s education. For him, living as a goose daddy isn’t just for his kids’ English studies. It is actually to escape from South Korea’s desolate school systems. However, newly elected Korean president doesn’t seem to understand the real situation here.
Kyong-Sook Lee, president of Sook-Myung women’s university in South Korea who was appointed to lead president-elect Myung-Bak Lee’s transition team said earlier this year that the president has a plan to hire large number of English speaking teachers to adapt new English education systems in Korean schools. Reduction of unnecessary private education costs was one of the promises of president Lee before he got elected. Now, as the president, he tries to reinforce the public education systems in Korea by hiring competent teachers and by investing enormous amount of national budget. Yet, goose daddies say the president doesn’t understand the reality of English studies in Korea.
Eun-Ho Park, 46, is a new goose daddy living in Seoul, Korea. He sent his wife and two sons to Canada this July after Myung-Bak Lee was elected as a president. “The president and the transition team doesn’t know anything about the reality,” said Park impertinently.
Park thinks the reinforcement of public English education will not solve goose daddy problem. “My older son got exhausted to attend three private academic institutions as he was attending school. He suffered from an obsession that he has to be accepted to a prestigious university,” Park said.
Finally, Mr. Park made up his mind to send his children for a better educational environment where there is no pressure of studying. He said providing better English education was just a small part of his decision.
Sung-Mo Lee, 39, is a friend of Eun-Ho Park. At the same time, he is a new goose daddy just like Park. “I’d rather be called as an eagle daddy than a goose daddy. Goose daddy sounds kind of sad,” said Sung-Mo. As the goose daddy phenomenon hit South Korea with strong educational wave, new vocabularies were created to indicate different types of dads. It all started from goose daddies but now, there are three more types of dads.
First, an eagle daddy is someone who has powerful background with top ranked social position. Eagle daddies can visit their family in foreign country any time they want. There is also a Penguin daddy. Penguin daddies are people who are not wealthy enough to educate their kids in a foreign country but they try their best to support their children because it’s what their kids want. Penguin daddies send most of their salaries to their children and suffer financial difficulties in Korea. Although penguin daddies have economic problems they can still maintain their lives. However, there are poor dads who can’t even send their kids to America, to Canada, or to Australia. Their name is a sparrow daddy.
Even if sparrow daddies don’t have the economic power, they know the tears of separation too. Sparrow daddies are separated from their family to support their children who attend private schools in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. They have jobs in other cities hours away from Seoul.
Heung-Ryul Kim, 48, didn’t even know that he belongs to sparrow daddy group. His daughter who is a freshman in E-Hwa women’s university in Seoul told him that there are different kinds of dad in Korea and he is one of sparrow dads. Kim has been supporting his kids from Busan, a city located in southern Korea. Busan is about five hours away from Seoul so he only comes home once in every two weeks to see his family.
“I don’t care what other people say about me. I just do what I can to support my family,” Kim said as he smiled. Kim’s daughter got accepted to UCLA with full scholarship so she will be studying in California from next year. “I’m very happy for my daughter but if she wanted to go to America earlier with her mother, I probably would not let her go. I miss my family a lot even from another city, I can’t even imagine them leaving to another country,” Kim said.
Kim might be categorized as a sparrow daddy in Korea, but he’s love toward his family is not so much different from that of goose daddies.