Jiyoung is born in Seoul in 1982. She has an older sister and will eventually have a younger brother. They live in a small house with her mother, father, and paternal grandmother.

Jiyoung’s earliest memory is of her mother, Oh Misook, giving her sips of her brother’s baby formula. Jiyoung’s grandmother Koh Boonsoon scolds and hits her if she catches her sneaking formula. Jiyoung and her sister understand the implication of their grandmother’s disapproval: They are stealing from her grandson. Jiyoung’s brother always receives preferential treatment. She doesn’t find this strange because it has always been this way.

Jiyoung’s father was the third of four brothers. His mother worked many jobs to provide for her family; his father never worked. Jiyoung’s father is the only one of his brothers to care for his mother in her old age. Koh Boonsoon concludes that at least four sons are required to ensure a mother’s late-in-life security.

Koh Boonsoon stressed the importance of having boys to her daughter-in-law. When Oh Misook’s first two children were girls, Koh Boonsoon assured her that the next would be a boy.

When Oh Misook was pregnant with her third child, she was despondent upon learning that it was a girl. South Korea’s government at the time enforced a population control policy called “family planning” that increased the desirability of male babies.