Whenever he comes home from work, Mr. Choi Yong-gyu is greeted with a big smile and a hug from his daughter, Eun-woo. Since returning home from kindergarten, Eun-woo spends all afternoon waiting for her dad to come home. She is looking forward to something more fun and exciting than having dinner with her dad.

Playing with her dad is what she’s been looking forward to all day long. Her dad is the best friend the six-year-old girl has. They play house with her dolls, roll around on the bed, and pretend to go fishing. Eun-woo thinks she has the best dad in the whole wide world.

My name is Choi Eun-woo and I’m six years old. I like playing with my toys. I play with them on my bed, and I sometimes pretend to fish and cook barbecue. Play with me, Dad! I love you, Dad!

Korean fathers have traditionally been somewhat aloof and silent – leaving for work early in the morning and coming home late at night, having dinner in silence and falling asleep while watching TV or reading the newspaper, or sleeping all day long on weekends. But Korean fathers are changing, morphing into friend-like dads, or becoming a so-called frienddy, a combination of “friend” and “daddy.” These frenddies are characterized by their overt expressions of love for their children.

Such new types of fathers are often seen in the movies or on TV shows. KBS TV show “Seoyeong, My Daughter,” the hottest KBS drama that ended recently, showed how a distant and strict father transformed into an understanding and sacrificing one. This family-themed show gained huge ratings with a candid look at how one family opens up and learns to communicate. The movie “Miracle in Cell No.7” is also based on fatherly love. More than 12 million people went to see the film, making it the third highest-grossing Korean movie.

Yong-gu has the intelligence of a six-year-old, and a seven-year-old daughter named Ye-seung. Although developmentally arrested, Yong-gu is emotionally mature and loves his daughter to death. But he is framed for murder and comes to cell No. 7, where his cellmates smuggle in Ye-seung, a gift for Yong-gu. Moviegoers laughed and cried as the criminals secretly brought in Ye-seung and reunited Yong-gu with his beloved daughter. The movie showed what father’s love was all about and spotlighted all the fathers in the world who love their children wholeheartedly.

Mr. Kim Dong-kwon who lives in Seoul is a power blogger who has 50 thousand steady followers. His blog is titled “Ten-minute Games Played with Dad.”

I wasn’t very good at playing with my son at first. I used to work even on weekends. But then one day my child saw me and started crying. He was afraid of me. I was so shocked that I decided to play with him right there and then. And I started the blog, too, and titled it “Ten-minute Games Played with Dad.” That was my declaration that I would play with my children, just like people publicly say that they are on a diet or going to quit smoking. I announced through the blog that I would play with my son for at least ten minutes every day. After that I came home and started making toys and games out of recycled stuff. Over the past two years I made 170 recycled play stuff.

Two months after he created his blog and started playing with his son, Kim received a present from his eight-year-old son, Se-hwan.

He gave me a cookie with a little note attached. I still have that cookie. In the note he thanked me for playing games with him although I was very busy, and wrote that he bought the cookie for himself, but decided to give it to me instead. I cried as I read the cookie note, thinking that I had changed from a monster-like dad to a friend-like dad.

All he did was spend ten minutes a day with his son. But he realized how the young boy desperately wanted to play with his dad.

They make toys together, talking over their ideas, and making rules for the games they created. All this work naturally makes them spend lots of time together, allowing the father to really listen to his son and learn more about him.

Before I began to invest ten minutes a day playing with my son, I didn’t know what he enjoyed or what color clothes he was wearing or what food he liked. But after a while I learned that he loves baseball, bright-colored clothes and shoes with flashing lights. He’s a very sensitive boy, who gets excited even over a single word I say. I also found out that he is very interested in science, especially astronomy.

Not only did the father discover his son’s likes and dislikes, he also found himself in his son. Two years later, how does the now ten-year-old Se-hwan think of his dad?

My dad’s like a friend. He plays with me ten minutes a day, even when he’s really busy. I feel like I’m with my friend. He’s a dad who is like a friend. I really like playing with my dad. I couldn’t even imagine him playing with me before, but now I love every toy he made.

An investment of ten minutes a day turned Mr. Kim into a perfect father. He also got to realize his childhood dream – becoming a toy inventor.



I am a manager, so I have nothing to do with creative work. My childhood dream was to draw things and invent stuff. But it was only a dream. I never tried to learn anything to make that dream come true. But when I began to play with my son, that dream came alive again. I was surprised, too. I got to do something not only for my son, but also for myself. It makes me feel good, too.

Mr. Kim’s wife, who was always exhausted from taking care of Se-hwan by herself, is glad to see the changed relationship between the father and the son. Here’s Kim Ji-min, Mr. Kim’s wife.

I like the positive change. It really helps my son to play with a man. Most of the teachers at school are women and he has only me to play with at home, so he needed some masculine influence. Now that my husband plays the role of male role model, my son has better relationships with both boys and girls. He gets along with everyone. He used to hesitate when I told him to give a kiss to his father, but now he loves getting cuddly with his dad, can’t wait for his dad to come home, and they get along with each other really well. When all three of us are together, everything is nicer and more natural. I also like it that I get to have more time to myself. I used to be his only playmate. When my son plays with his dad, I have time to do other chores or have some quiet time.

Mr. Kwon Oh-jin권오진 is the principal of the Daddy Play School and a play specialist. Ten years ago he resolved to become a better dad and started working together with his neighbors to spend time with their children. In 2009 he created a community called Daddy Play School on a portal site and has attracted some 2,600 members so far. Mothers are not allowed into this community. This is a space strictly for dads.

I think this online community made about one hundred great fathers. All the know-how of being a great father is posted on the board, so all you have to do is follow them. Many fathers have said that the information helped. The real good fathers put their thoughts into action. So they follow what I do and become good fathers, and other people who saw them become good fathers follow their actions and become good dads, and so forth. This is how many good fathers are created. They need to act on their thoughts, their resolve to become good fathers to their children.

This is how Mr. Choi Yong-gyu, father of the six-year-old Eun-woo, became the most popular dad in the community. Here’s Mr. Choi’s wife, Choi Hyo-jin.

Eun-woo’s personality changed a lot. When she used to play with me, she would just read or play house or draw pictures, like most girls do with their moms. But now that she plays with her dad, she’s become more active, not only in her actions, but also in her thoughts. She used to be shy, but now she’s outgoing. She now makes both of us laugh.

Without a doubt Mr. Choi loved his daughter, but just didn’t know how. That’s why the Daddy Play School community was like a godsend to him.

I found out there were many types of dads from this community. I projected myself onto other dads, and realized how I should act with Eun-woo. That’s how I learned how to become a better dad.

Mr. Choi has learned how to become a friend to Eun-woo. Now he is trying hard to become her life mentor. Here’s Mrs. Choi Hyo-jin.

He reads a lot of books on child development, but that’s just the beginning. He is very active with the community work, and plays with Eun-woo when he comes home from work. He stays up until two in the morning looking for places he could go with Eun-woo, compiles a list, and shows it to me. He really tries hard. I laughed at him when he said he would start a blog on childcare. I asked him whether he knew how hard it was. But he still runs it, whereas I gave up on mine. He still studies hard about childcare.

Even workplaces are taking part in the better dad movement by instituting corporate-sponsored programs. Companies believe that sound family life leads to better performance at work. Here’s Mr. Kim Jang-yong of consulting firm Hunet’s lifelong learning program.

My company consults on business training, but when I asked office workers what they wanted to learn, their choice was parenting. In most cases, fathers made money for the family, and mothers were the ones in charge of childcare. So most fathers were relegated to being money-making machines, ignored by the wives and children, and stressed out by their colleagues and bosses. They were lonely and wanted to be recognized and respected at home and work. That’s how we came to establish an online parenting course.

This program teaches fathers how to open their hearts and express their love for their children. After the fathers have put into practice what they learned here, they are now their children’s favorite playmates and best friends.

- My children used to not like me, but now they think I’m the best. They used to just ignore me, but now they go to sleep next to me.
- I peeked into my daughter’s diary and saw that she wrote down what she liked about me. She wrote that her mother would just nag her, but I would listen to her, like a friend. After seeing that, I try to talk more often with my daughter about a variety of things.

Communication is the key to being a frienddy. It is great to see so many Korean fathers are learning to shed their authoritativeness and express their true feelings to their children.