MBN ‘Puzzle Trip’

Television personality Kim Na-young presented a mature approach to education that embraces diverse family forms as they are, and she also confessed an aching longing for her mother who died when she was a child, bringing viewers to tears.

On the December 11 broadcast of MBN ‘Puzzle Trip’, Kim Na-young invited Katie, a 24-year-old overseas adoptee, to her home and served a warm dinner.

That day, Kim Na-young introduced Katie to her two sons, Shin-woo and I-jun, instilling in them a warm view of ‘family’. She explained to the children, “Katie has two mothers and two fathers,” and then said, “Mom (Kim Na-young) also has two mothers, right? Having two mothers and two fathers feels like great good fortune,” framing diverse family forms, such as remarried and adoptive families, with the positive word ‘good fortune’.

She continued, “My mother passed away early when I was little, so I have a stepmother,” candidly sharing her own story, and added, “I wanted to teach the children that having two mothers and two fathers is not wrong, it is ‘different’,” creating a warm moment.

MBN ‘Puzzle Trip’

Kim Na-young divorced her former husband in 2019, one year after the birth of her second son. Afterward, she remarried this October following four years of dating MyQ, a singer and painter. Although she had stood as a sturdy shelter for her children, raising them alone for more than five years after the divorce, she too carried the wound of losing her mother early. She brought out the painful memory of having witnessed her mother’s last moments just one week before starting elementary school, at only seven years old.

She recalled, “My mother had long had a weak heart. The last thing I remember is her frozen in place just as she was wiping the floor in the room,” and, “I ran to a neighborhood adult and called an ambulance, but my mother left like that,” shedding tears. She said that, as a child, it was hard to accept the farewell and she even resented her mother, adding, “People around me, worried I would be hurt, did not tell me clearly and only said she had gone far away.”

Kim Na-young confessed that after becoming a parent herself, she feels her mother’s absence all the more. She said, “When I see my children growing up well, I miss my mother the most. I think how wonderful it would have been if Mom had been able to see it,” and, “As I give my children the love I wanted to receive from my mother, I feel I am being healed as well.”

Lastly, she delivered a sincere message to her mother in heaven: “You gave birth to me beautifully and in good health, and during the time we had together I was loved enough, yet I hated and resented you; I am sorry,” leaving those who watched with heavy hearts.