Honoring Parents in a Season of Separation: A Tale of Two Koreas

A statue of a mother near a busy subway station in South Korea

As Mother’s Day approaches in many parts of the world, and South Korea prepares to celebrate Parents’ Day on May 8, the month of May is saturated with images of flowers, family gatherings and messages of gratitude. In South Korea, Parents’ Day has been a national holiday since 1973, meant to honor elders and promote filial piety, with children often presenting carnations and gifts to their parents. Yet just across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the definition of "parent" is under constant pressure. For North Korean families, the calendar and the state’s priorities look very different.

The Ideological Parent: When the State Intervenes

In North Korea, the Kim family is officially treated as the only “parent” that truly matters. The state presents the leader as the father of the entire nation, claiming that under socialist ideals he provides for every citizen, leaving no space for ordinary mothers and fathers to be recognized as the primary caregivers in public life. As one analysis explains, this ideological framing helps explain why North Korea never created a Parents’ Day. 

Even though both Koreas share the same ancestral heritage, shaped by Confucian traditions that strongly emphasize filial piety and honoring one’s parents, the North has redirected those filial instincts toward the Kim family rather than biological parents.

In 2012, just months into Kim Jong-un’s rule, the regime introduced an official Mother’s Day to be observed on November 16th. This date was chosen to commemorate a 1961 speech by Kim Il-sung on “The duty of mothers in the education of children,” turning what might be a family-centered day into another ritual of loyalty to the revolution and its leaders. State media have praised mothers for raising “revolutionary” children and upholding the socialist state, as well as framing motherhood as a tool of political education rather than primarily a personal family bond. Instead of private celebrations, this day is often marked by mandatory workplace performances and rituals of loyalty to the state.

A Season of Longing and Unseen Sacrifice

This May, as families around the world post public expressions of thanks, a heavy reality unfolds for thousands of North Korean mothers and fathers. Recent reports indicate that more than 14,000 North Korean soldiers are currently fighting for Russia against Ukraine, forming part of a wider foreign contingent on the front lines. 

For many North Korean parents, this means sons are sent to a distant, brutal war zone with little to no reliable information reaching home. When a soldier is lost, parents may never receive an honest notification of how or where their child died, leaving them unable to openly mourn. (Read more about two North Korean prisoners of war.) In Pyongyang, the state praises extreme acts of "loyalty," yet for the parents left behind, the loss is deeply personal and quiet.

The Resilience of the Family Bond

The contrast is stark: while much of the world associates this season with family brunches and handwritten cards, countless North Korean parents are enduring separation and loss. Their personal grief is often subordinated to political ambitions, and their roles as protectors of their children are undermined by a state that demands ultimate priority.

However, even in the face of such systemic pressure, the bond between a parent and child remains one of the most resilient forces on earth. At Crossing Borders, we see this firsthand. We see mothers who have risked everything to find safety for their children, and children who carry the hope of their parents into a new life of freedom.

Looking Toward a Future of Reunion

While the current landscape for North Korean families is marked by separation, we believe that no earthly boundary can permanently erase the God-given dignity of the family. We hold onto the hope that our Father of the fatherless sees every hidden tear shed by a mother in the North.

As we celebrate the parents in our lives this month, let us also remember those whose love is currently tested by distance and silence.

Staff Notes: A North Korean Refugee Mother's Heart

The following post was written by Crossing Borders volunteer staff: Ever since the birth of our first biological child Lila, my “mother’s heart” has been unusually sensitive to the difficult situations faced by mothers who have had to give up their children. Our second child Chloe was adopted from South Korea at the age of 14 months. She is now almost four years old and we cannot imagine our family without her. But at the same time I know that somewhere in Korea there is a mother who is wondering where her daughter is, how she looks, what she’s thinking and whether she’s safe and happy in her new life.  When I look at Lila, I can’t imagine how it must feel to give up the child you have carried in your womb for nine months and given birth to, and not know what is going to happen to her. And yet I know because of their life circumstances, whether it is poverty, abuse, or lack of family support, many mothers know that they are making a choice for their children to have a better life than they believed they could provide.

Thinking about the North Korean refugee mothers we assist through Crossing Borders, I often wonder if they have contemplated the same thoughts and worries. Though their lives may be vastly different than those of unwed teenagers or single mothers in South Korea, their stories are also the stories of heartbreak, of loss, and of families torn apart by factors beyond their control. What could possibly have gone through refugee mothers' minds as they made the perilous decision to cross the Tumen River, often leaving behind their youngest children in the hope of finding work or food in China, and hoping that they would soon be able to return? How must their hearts have sunk as they saw those hopes unravel when they were captured by sex traffickers and sold like property to men whose language they did not understand, trading one life of starvation and oppression in North Korea for one of fear and despair in China? And how did they feel when they bore new children and began cobbling together another life, only to be forced to run away for their safety and their children’s safety when they could no longer endure the abuse of their new “husbands”?

Though as varied and complicated as each individual experience may be, as a mother my guess is that one thing remains in common for them. These North Korean refugee mothers haven’t forgotten. They haven’t forgotten the daughter or the son they left behind. Although consciously they may no longer think of them daily, in their mother’s heart I am sure there is an emptiness that remains. And even if they are so numb that they cannot remember, I know that God remembers each orphan and abandoned child left in North Korea or China, and He loves them and cares for them as His own.

As some of the North Korean orphans in our Second Wave shelters recently studied during their devotions, the Word of God says,

“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me” (Psalm 27:10).

Below, in their own words, are some of the responses expressed by the children after studying this Scripture:

My parents gave me a life. But God who created me is my true parent. My parents have forsaken me.  But Jehovah God receives me eternally. I will truly pray to Him and praise Him. I want to be His joy.

My parents forsake me but God did not forsake me.  He sent me to Pastor to raise a faithful person. I give thanks to God. I will praise Him and go to heaven.

Please help us as we continue to pray over not only our orphans, but the North Korean refugee mothers who are not with them.