South Korea has declared its extremely low birth rate a “national emergency” and spent billions of dollars encouraging citizens to get married and have children, but one YouTuber has found joy and success in promoting the opposite ideal.
At her home in rural South Korea, Sin Aromi practices yoga, sleeps as long as she wants and encourages her more than 200,000 YouTube followers not to feel afraid, embarrassed or guilty about being alone.
“Not getting married is my greatest achievement,” Sean, 37, told AFP, adding that she had never considered being a “good” wife or mother as her ultimate goal in life.
“They say it’s a ‘disaster'” that women in South Korea are not having children, he said, referring to official concern over a growing demographic crisis in the country, which has one of the lowest birth rates in the world and a rapidly aging population.
“But when I think about the potential disadvantages of not having children, I don’t see anything,” she said.
Sean writes about the joy he finds in living alone, breaking away from society’s expectations, and his book “I Can’t Help But Live Well on My Own” has become a surprise hit.
The book topped major bestseller lists in South Korea for a period of time, and received an enthusiastic response not only from other single women in their 30s, but also from the older generation, including widowed or divorced women.
He enthusiastically discusses in the book that “I have the freedom to be as lazy as I want” and am not criticized for it.
He wrote, “Some people get married because they don’t like being alone, while others don’t like meeting anyone because they enjoy lying around.”
Experts say many young Koreans are avoiding marriage and raising children at least partly for economic reasons, and because of stagnant growth, skyrocketing home prices in the capital, Seoul, and intense competition for well-paying jobs.
Others say broader cultural issues are also involved. The country remains socially conservative, single parenthood is frowned upon, gay marriage is not recognized, and married women often leave the workforce. Data shows they spend 3.5 times more hours a day on household chores and childcare than male spouses.
“Traditionally defined gender role expectations within the family and tensions between the sexes are definitely related to the current low birth rate,” Hyeung Woo, a sociology professor at Portland State University, told AFP.
For Sean, abandoning the traditional South Korean appearances of success—a Seoul apartment, a high-paying job, a loving spouse—has allowed him to find real happiness.
“I’ve never worked for a big conglomerate, I haven’t lived in the city, and I’ve never been married,” she told AFP.
Sean told AFP that his life in Seoul was miserable, with exhausting travel and a stressful, abusive workplace.
After living abroad for several years, working a variety of jobs from housekeeper in a hotel to packing meat in a chicken factory and posting videos about her life online, she returned to South Korea and settled in a rural town.
She renovated her late grandfather’s old family home and her YouTube channel became popular, eventually garnering more than 200,000 subscribers for her posts, which covered everything from living alone to travel, fitness, and yoga.
She said that a single YouTube video now earns her five times more per month than she would have made as a salaried worker in Seoul, and that she can “live a more autonomous life, which is very satisfying.”
Her social media posts about her blissfully single life have sparked backlash online, with critics claiming that Seann is actually single or calling her “selfish” for not getting married.
“Married people often post pictures of their kids and share happy photos of their married life, and no one really criticizes it,” Sean said.
“But when I said I was happy, they strongly denied it. They thought, ‘This can’t be possible’.”
Sean said she has been in several satisfying relationships, but her autonomy and adventurous lifestyle are her top priorities over starting a family.
He said the immense success of his book proves that you can “be the best at something even while living a life different from the mainstream.”
He said most couples who have children do so because it will make them happy, not out of concern for the future of humanity, and those who live alone have also made choices for happiness, which should be respected.
Sean told AFP he was proud of his contribution to the world.
He said that while others were having children, “I gave birth to two YouTube channels and a book.”
CDL/CEB/DHW/CWL
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