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petaling16-blog · 8 months ago

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WTPR parenting headcanons (Hee-joo and Sa-eon)

So, as all (or at least most) of us are probably all emotionally devastated by Episode 10, I am putting together some headcanons about what I think Hee-joo and Sa-eon are like as parents. I had been sort of mulling some of these over for a while already, but before this weeks episodes I had been thinking of saving them until the series finished. But here we are now

This is imagining a happy ending for them, all the problems resolved....somehow. The details of how everything is solved really isn't important here, what's important is the fluff. Nonetheless, I will out this all under a keep reading since some spoilers may crop up. So, enjoy!!

I'm gonna be hella specific, and say they're going to have four children. I'd imagine they'd have more than one anyway, but I am also imagining their household as having a good kind of chaos. Noisy, lively, clearly a very warm and lived in household. But also just a bit silly. So, four children.

Because I like naming characters, I decided to give the specific kids of this headcanon list names. I don't know too much about Korean names except what I have gleaned through k-dramas, Korean crime novels, some other books, and various name websites and threads (the specific site I used to find these names is https://korean-name.com/en/ ). After considering the different names I've seen, I decided to do it where the boys have a shared syllable and the girls have a different shared syllable. So: Eldest son: Hae-young The twins: Hae-min (boy) and Ye-rin (girl) Youngest girl: Ye-seol

They also have a dog, as per that daydream scene. I don't know what the dog would be named, but the kids would name it and it would be such a bonkers name both parents are embarrased to yell it across the park when the dog inevitably bounds off to chase birds.

Though at this point, Hee-joo is speaking everywhere, she still teaches all four children sign language, and takes them to the Sign Language Center. They all love it there, and the workers at that center also all adore the children. The twins both volunteer there to help their university applications (they are both very ambitious and end up with the most 'prestiguous' life paths, but more of that later) But regardless, all four drop back into the sign language center to help out at various points during their adolescence and adulthood. And they do use sign language with each other quite a lot anyway. Despite Hee-joo speaking everywhere, she will still sometimes answer things in sign language anyway, out of instinct.

Just like Hee-joo and Sa-eon are a very cuddly couple, they are also very cuddly parents. Any opportunity to hug their kids (as long as they're comfy with it), they will take. On weekends, when there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, they will all camp out either in the parents' bed or one of the kids beds and have a 'cuddle in' (like a lie-in, but with cuddles and not technically being asleep). Hae-young will particularly inherit this tendency towards cuddliness, and ends up the most soft-natured of the four siblings overall. Also, all their formal family pictures have them with their arms around each other, leaning in, all genuine smiles. Nothing stiff about these pictures.

Sa-eon reads SO MANY parenting books when they're expecting Hae-young, and then finds special ones about twins when they're expecting the twins, and he uses them a LOT. Like, he will have pocket versions of the books (or maybe like, photocopied pages with highlighted sections) tucked away in his pocket and will actually whip them out and flip through them in the middle of like, a toddler tantrum or whatever, to work out how to deal with whatever part of parenting has got him flummoxed.

Hee-joo also carefully reads the parenting manuals, but is a bit more normal about it.

However, speaking of tantrums, Sa-eon ends up having some creative ways of dealing with them. He does have less patience overall, being the stricter parent, but he does his best to not resort to shouting or whatever. Some of his strategies are: 1)confusing the kid when he whips out a book to work out how to handle them. 2)picking them up and spinning them around, before putting them down again. Over time, this evolves into being called 'the washing machine' and occasionally, the kids will walk up to him like "daddy I'm [sad/angry/annoyed] can you put me in the washing machine?" so he pickes them up and spins them around to 'wash away the [bad feeling]' to make them giggle. Ye-seol asks for this the most. 3)Sometimes he'll just pick them up, walk a litle distance away, and put them down. If the twins are having a tantrum together, then picking up one of them and doing this usually works. 4)sitting down next to them and talking through their tantrum like he's in some kind of work meeting with them. Again, a strategy that works by confusing the kids at first. Then, as they become old enough to be able to talk about their feelings a little more (tho obvs still young enough to tantrum), they end up being able to have actual conversations, and this is what helps them calm down. Which also actually ends up helping their emotional intelligence in the long run. When they're older and past the tantrum stage, Hae-young and Hae-min continue the trend of having long heart-to-hearts with their dad as an extension of this (the daughters also talk to their parents, its just that the boys do it as a particlar Thing if that makes sense).

Hee-joo likes to walk to places with her kids, or just take them on nice walks to nowhere in particular. She absolutely does not like driving them, and so it is either Sa-eon or someone else in their close circle who drives the kids to things when necessary.

I also like to imagine they're a pretty outdoorsy family in general. They walk, they go to the park regularly, they walk the dog, they sometimes go camping etc etc. When the kids are a bit older, Sa-eon will try taking them on hikes. Only Ye-seol likes going on the really long hikes.

Hee-joo always tells her kids she loves them, whether in speech or in sign language. Though Sa-eon makes most of their school lunches, she packs them and leaves them cute little notes in their lunches. She also sings them lullabies most nights, especially when she has been worried about them. Though, when the kids are older, that's more she sings the lullabies in the general vicinity at bedtime rather than like, going into their rooms to rock them. Unless, of course, for some reason or another they do ask. She will make them lullaby recordings to take with them to overnights or (when they're old enough) to uni or whatever. Hae-young listens to his the most, quite openly, while Ye-seol also listens to hers the most, but secretly. The others don't listen to theirs just as much, but they keep their recordings carefully and do dig them out from time to time

Hee-joo cries on each kids' first days of school (not just first day of school overall, but also first day of middle school, high school, uni etc), and takes SO MANY pictures. She is the same with their graduations. Sa-eon puts on a stoic face, but is just as soppy once they've sent their kids through the school gates.

Hee-joo is the one who teaches the kids how to ride bikes and use skipping ropes and how to do the activities they do in sports days. Sa-eon tries, but he is so competitively hopeless about it, she has to take over. When they are little, the two girls LOVE going to the park to play games with Hee-joo.

When it comes to school stuff, on the surface Sa-eon seems harsh. It can seem he is nagging them a lot about studying, and that he's got high standards. However, when it comes down to it, he's not demanding perfection from them, but simply that they are trying. He won't dismiss a kid as stupid just because they don't 'get' something and woe betide anyone who tries to tell him his kids are stupid or not good enough. He will pull out all the stops to help them, and if he knows they tried hard, even if they get bad grades he won't be angry at them. (He definitely also regularly tells them that underestimating themselves is a bad habit)

Both parents trie to go to as many of the kids school events as they possibly can. Sa-eon collects their certificates, and displays them in his office. Not just the typical academic ones , but any achievement. Hae-young's certificates for 'being a caring classmate in elementary school have just as much importances as Ye-rin's prestigious maths comeptition cerficiates for the same age, for example.

Sometimes, if one of the kids is getting bogged down with studying quietly in their bedroom, he has them out in the kitchen while he is cooking, so he can be on hand to help. Indeed, in elementary school, all the kids do the majority of their homework in the kitchen under his supervision. Ye-seol is the one who, as she gets older, prefers studying in the kitchen the most.

Hee-joo has the same general 'try your best' mentality but she's more relaxed about it, and just fusses over them in general. She will absolutely tell them off for squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong part of the tube though.

Though all the kids know if they need help, their parents will always be there, they are not spoiled. Though they have priveliges associated with money, they are raised to know not to take it for granted and to appreciate it. They are expected to find their own path in life and be able to provide for themselves rather than solely relying on money/connections. It doesn't have to be a 'typical' path that standard parents might expect, as long as it doesn't break laws or harm anybody, but they do have to try to build their lives as adults. Sa-eon is very insistent about this in particular

Their birthday parties will never be ostenatious, over-the-top affairs for this very reason. However, both parents will find a way of making each child's birthday special, personalised to what the kid likes. With the twins, they will make sure each twin is honoured individually somehow, even if the actually birthday party itself is a shared one

Sa-eon teaches all the kids to cook. Of them all, Hae-min is the best at cooking, and Ye-rin the worst. But when they are old enough, they have a rotating schedule where, every so often, the kids do the cooking.

In-ah is absolutely the fun aunt. She regularly babysits so that Hee-joo and Sa-eon can have date nights or whatever, and she likes to take them to fun places and indulge them with treats. Ye-seol's fashion sense is eventually influenced by In-ah. She also regularly gloats to the kids that she's the reason their parents got married...though she at least waits until they're closer to adulthood to tell them more of the story. Alternative babysitters are Sang-woo and Yu-ri.

Now, a bit more about the kids themselves. Hae-young, as the eldest, is definitely a bit of a caretaker. But because he's also so soft-hearted and cuddly, that becomes a big part of his life. He is that one person that EVERYONE in his school knows, even in other year groups, and he always looks out for the new and younger kids. He is also the one who keeps trying to sneak in animals into the house to look after them. He eventually decides to go into childcare, and becomes an assistant manager for a successful pre-school. He makes friends wherever he goes, even if he only goes there once.

Hae-min inherits his dad's precision and brisk manner, and can be a little tactiurn. He does brilliantly in his academics, and goes on to a top medical school to become a neurosurgeon at a top hospital. He cooks a lot in his freetime as an adult, and when he visits his siblings or parents he is always bringing food.

Ye-rin has her mother's fiery side. She can and will start an argument at a drop of a hat, but also believes in justice/fairness. Her parents often have to be called into school because she's tried to beat up or intimidate a bully. She is also the top scorer in almost all subjects (only ever sometimes being beaten by her twin) all throughout her school life. She either goes into politics like her dad or becomes a high-powered lawyer.

Ye-seol is a bit of a daydreamer, and has wide ranging interests, being both the sporty type and the super girly-girl type. She ends up getting an ordinary office-type job, but engages in a wide range of hobbies. She also saves up to travel every so often, and goes to a wide range of countries. Sometimes accquaintances try to imply that she isn't as 'special' as her older siblings because she comes across as the most 'average' of them, but that gets shut down very quickly.

#when the phone rings #this is so beautiful I want to cry #and the finale confirms they'll have multiple kids so ;)

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