kangmi: learning korean

I don't know if it's that they're squeamish, they just don't usually talk about those sorts of things. I'm honestly not sure of how common stepchildren are in Korea (i.e., what the divorce rate is like for parents with children, and what the remarriage rate is like in this group), but I've never heard anyone talk about them here. At least not in polite conversation (i.e., small talk).

I think the reason is that it would probably just be too complicated an answer for such a simple question, as you would then have to explain the whole family situation.

Also: word spacing (띄어쓰기) in Korean can be very hard to get the hang of. Here's a tip, though: 명, like other quantifiers, are always spaced separately. Thus: 아이 두 명이 있어요. 사과 다섯 개를 먹었어요.

I agree with Charles.

Also,

If you go out of your way to find a way to make sure it is understood that they are your stepchildren, what a Korean speaker might take from that is that you wish to emphasize that they are not really your children, even if you only meant to say that you nave never given birth yourself. If that, too, is not what you want to let people know, why tell them at all?.... is what the average member of Korean society might think were you to give them that information in casual conversation.

On the other hand, if you just say you have two children and then the conversation continues (a woman, especially, might ask something like "did you have natural birth (자연분만) or Caesarean (제왕절개)?") to the point where you really need to inform the person that they are stepchildren in order for the conversation to make sense, no one is going to think you were trying to hide the fact they are stepchildren. That would also be the case even if they find out much later, since no Korean speaker would expect to get that much information from the start.

I didn't know you had (step)children. If they are not living with/near you, for example are old and out of the house or living with their birthmother and you really wish to have a Korean speaker understand that your daily routine does not involve traditional motherly concerns, you might say that your "husband had two children before we were married," or perhaps if you like also that "they're not living together with you."

To just use the dictionary word for stepchild (의붓자식) would not be good. Note how it's used in idioms.

I am slowly coming to terms with the idea that in Korean, it's best to stick with saying that I have two children and privately accept the resulting cognitive dissonance.

In English, I always say that I have two stepchildren. They have a great mother with whom we have an excellent relationship. Both parents share custody, so they're here a lot. For me to say that they're my children would be presumptuous.

I appreciate the feedback I've received here and elsewhere, including the word spacing bit.

The divorce rate is quite high in Korea, and the father [still] usually gets custody of the kids, in most cases, even in cases where the husband is a wife-beater [a very good – female – friend of mine is a case in point]. Patriarchal society, family rites to the ancestors, yada yada. So when they remarry, Missus #2 [or 3, or 4, etc] is expected to raise the children like her own. So you generally don't mention that kids #3 and #4 are your own, and #1 and #2 not, as that would be unseemly, too.

Remember that Protestant missionary who got his head hacked off in Iraq, 김선일 was it? His step-mom passed for his mom for quite a while, including during the temper-tantrum-and-throwing-the-꽃다발 sent by 위대한 수령 노Meister. Only after some prodding [count on so-called "journalists" in .kr to dig trash] did people realize that the Missus was #2 or whatnot, and *not* the kid's mom.

And so disinterested was Kim Seon Il's stepmother that she repeatedly quoted inaccurate facts about him to the press, like his major at university and such, which is how they ended up figuring her out.

As a Korean myself, I've never heard someone talk about the issues like them in public. And I think we are too self-concious about what others think about us. we are readily prone to avoiding the situation that we have to explain the whole situation of "why I HAVE TO adopt children?." I don't know why but it seems like asking those questions is asking for good-for-nothing trouble.
Have you even seen any parents holding the hands of thier children who are physically challenged either at birth or afterwards by accidents? It is rarely seen here in Korea. Too much self-conciousness. I guess.

I can accept that certain things aren't talked about among Koreans. I might not agree with it, but I can deal with it.

So I've stopped obsessing about this particular issue.