My Korean Husband Attended Our Baby Shower

Baby celebrations in Korea are a bit different from in the United States where I’m from. Koreans don’t usually have baby showers so I thought it was important to invite my Korean husband to my baby shower and let him enjoy this cultural celebration.

It was a great way for him to see how we celebrate the impending birth in the States with silly baby games, gifts to help us prepare and friends that love us. Of course, we would do other celebrations the way Koreans do later, but this was an introduction for him on how we prepare for a baby in the US.

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Do Koreans have baby showers?

Koreans don’t usually prepare for a baby in the same ways as we might and I’ve heard that comes from the number of babies that didn’t make it through the birth or didn’t make it to their first 100 days in the past. Still today, it’s common that only close family will even see a newborn in the first hundred days as mothers and infants will stay inside for that time period.

Actually, there’s even a tradition of hanging rope above the front door after a child is born so that neighbors, friends, and everyone else know there’s a new baby inside and they shouldn’t disturb. This tradition is called Geumjul (금줄). To perform the ritual, you twist twine to the left and push white pieces of paper and charcoal in through the holes along the rope. These items will ward of evil spirits.

The rope should hang above the doorway for three weeks. While this particular cultural tradition isn’t often enjoyed any longer, people still do abide by the three week rule and no one will come by to dote on you or your baby except for immediate family.

In Korea, there is a 100 days celebration after the child is born called a dol. These days more children survive, but some things still remain, like not having a baby shower or help from your friends in the preparation process. The dol is then when you invite everyone you want to introduce your baby to.

There are pictures, baby Hanboks, and even a game called doljabi to see what their future might hold. This is probably what would be considered the most similar event to a baby shower. But, it’s after the birth of the baby.

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How we prepared to have a baby in Korea

Currently, in our group of Korean friends from my husband’s relationships there are four other couples that are pregnant. We are very close with two of the couples and all three of our households are within 10 minutes of each other. Our pregnancies are all just weeks apart.

This has been great as I didn’t really know where to start with some things and having some other people going through the same processes has been extremely helpful.

A month or so ago the other couples wanted to check out a baby outlet store and we tagged along to see what was in the store. One of the couples was stocking up on everything whereas I was checking my list and making notes on prices and availability. They asked why we weren’t buying much of anything. I did get a few things because they were just so cute, but other than that we were just looking.

We explained that we’d be having a baby shower and I didn’t want to get too much of the smaller things before that in case my friends did. My husband had to explain what a shower was based on what I’d told him about them previously and after they heard about it they thought it was amazing and thought Koreans should be doing that too. Preparing for a baby can be expensive and having friends and family that help you out is awesome. 

I had explained that a shower is a way for your friends and family to get involved in the pregnancy. We celebrate the impending birth of a child with games and a showering of gifts. I went on to say that the games are babycentric so tasting baby food and guessing the flavor or drawing a baby without seeing it or the like would be done. Though he understood the concept, I know he still wasn’t quite sure of what to expect.

The shower was thrown at our house and my friends did a fantastic job of getting my husband involved as you can see. My friends came over to set up in the morning while my husband and I went out for breakfast. When we returned there were decorations galore and friends and food everywhere.

There were also some very special t-shirts one of my friends had made for us. My husband sat down and saw that his said DILF on it, but he didn’t know what it meant. My friends asked him to guess what it meant and he came up with “Daddy Is Lucky Forever”.

How cute is that? Once he saw my shirt though, he knew what the MILF and DILF shirts meant and he said I definitely could not wear mine outside of the house. I am okay with that.

We tasted baby food and I won with the most correct flavor choices. We measured my belly and my husbands as my friends were thoughtful enough to buy him a belly suit to wear to make him even more apart of the celebrations. After the games came the shower of gifts.

My husband, not having known what was on the list and who is often much more comical and celebratory when opening gifts anyway was given the gifts while I opened the cards. It was all great fun… for both of us.

My husband hadn’t really had any expectations but he was pretty happy that this was one event that we didn’t have to prepare everything for. We could just show up and enjoy the time with our friends. I always love being able to share something from my culture with him and getting pregnant has meant a lot of discussions on cultural expectations not only after giving birth but also during the pregnancy.

This was one thing that I was excited to have and share with him so that he could get a taste of how friends and family in the west treat having a baby. Was I happy with my baby shower in Korea? Yes! Was it easy? Well they don’t do registries, but we made it work. 

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