'Parasite Moms' Vs. 'Meat Shields': A Novel Prompts an Online Spat

34-year-old Kim Ji-young sits outside a café with her baby daughter in a stroller beside her. Out of the blue, she overhears young men talking about her: “I wish I could drink coffee with my husband’s money too. Must be so easy to live like a Mom-chung.” “I gave up on my life, my career my dreams to raise my child, and now they call me a ‘parasite mom,’” Kim fumes later, telling her husband about the incident. This is a scene from a novel, Kim Jiyoung, b. 1982. Published last October, the work