Now this is a reply to my good friend @angelangie. She had written:

i didnt like the way she spoke to WH’s mother……it was honestly very disrespectful…..so what if she isnt the legal wife….just a kept woman? still she is your elder….

she spoke as if she knew everything!

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I agree. The way she spoke to WH’s mom is vastly different from the way YooJung spoke to his mom. Although the mom minced no words in telling YJ that she disapproved of her, YJ was deferential, understanding and appeasing. She even tried aegyo on her — which worked! (But if she were my in-law, I’d limit my meetings with her to family gatherings like Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, and Mother’s Day where there would be tons of witnesses to deter me from committing homicide. hahaha.)

This Wannabe Wife however spoke with zero aegyo. She spoke in a matter-of-fact style. She forgot that she was in a tearoom (not a boardroom) with a potential mother-in-law and that she needed to be more deferential in tone.

WW: Mother, I received a part of the business from my father in order to support WH.
Mom: Is that so? (coldly)
WW: It’s a medical and biological engineering business. It’s the business that Chairman Cha wanted the most of those in Kanghan Group.
Mom: Well, if it has to do with anything medical, then my WH would do wel;
WW: Yes, it’s a business that my father put a lot of effort into. He says that he’ll give it to WH if he marries me.
Mom: Really? (coldly again)
WW: WH needs this kind of weapon in order to be able to fight against Chairman Cha’s brothers, and CEO Cha SeHyun as well as Chief Director Go Kyeong Won.

(up to here, Wannabe Wife was nice to her)

Mom: But what should I do? My WH dislikes both Choego Group and you.
WW: You have to change WH’s mind.
Mom: It wouldn’t matter. My WH is the type who won’t do something until he dies if he doesn’t want to do it.
WW: Do you wish him to live as a person with no father, siblings, background, or roots because of you, Mother?
Mom: What do you mean, no roots? How could you talk like that?
The mother objected to WW saying that she wasn’t a “root” for WH. Here, I understood roots to signify family bonds, connections, heritage, and values. If WH didn’t agree to this marriage/merger/whatever, then he would lose whatever connections he had with the Cha family. (Which was non-existent anyway…lol.)

On one hand, mentioning “roots” is a definite slur to her being an unwed mother. The Wannabe Wife had no business pointing this out to her. But on the other hand, because WooHyun is illegitimate and he did have to suffer society’s stigma and ostracism. Bloodlines matter, in a Confucian culture, not to mention a hierarchical and PATRIARCHAL society. So the Wannabe Wife is only stating the obvious.

But for us viewers, there’s an added layer to this interpretation. We know that WH’s mother had been a … hmm… what’s the nice word for this?… a CASUAL parent. She wasn’t there for him when he needed her.

So yes, I agree the mom had the right to be offended here. She could be offended either because WW was rude to her or because her conscience pricked her.

To continue…

WW: I heard this countless of times as I was growing up. The mother who gave birth to me tried to commit suicide and even decided to emigrate so that I wouldn’t hear things like that (meaning that she had no father, siblings, background, or roots). So they sent me to Father’s house.

(note her demeanor here. Her eyes, especially. She wasn’t looking down.)

Here I think it dawned on the mother that this crazy, hateful, determined, greedy, obsessive, manipulative girl was also a deeply-troubled one. She suffered, too, as an illegitimate child.

So yes, I think WW’s approach was wrong. She could have been subtler when she shared her sad childhood story. Remember, YooJung also shared her sad story about her estrangement with her father. But she did it with a lot more finesse and tact.

Like my Mom used to say…

credit: foursight health