This drama was in watchlist since it first started airing back in 2018. The plot itself was enough for me to know that this drama will be emotionally draining. Fast forward to 2023, after being recommended to watch it by a lot of my kdrama friends, I finally decided to watch it.

The drama was surely draining for me, but not in a bad way. This is an extremely good drama, and maybe would end up in my top 10 dramas if I were to create a list for that.

Coming back to the drama, I loved the fact that this wasn't just a single dimensional saving the kid from her abusive mother (and her partner) plotline. It was a lot more than that. While the title Mother (or Call me Mother) may suggest Kang Soo Jin's decision to become Kim Yoon Bok (Kim Hye Na)'s mother, but the title actually has got a lot more broader significance to it.

Throughout the drama we come across and get to see different kind of mothers:

1. Kang Soo Jin: An Ornithologist (bird researcher) who works in a school part time for a few days while planning to go to Iceland and continue to work on her research. Due to her childhood trauma of being left behind at an orphanage by her biological mother, she has decided to not become a mother.

But when she sees a kid who reminds her of her abusive childhood, she decides to become a mother for the child, and goes to the extent her of kidnapping the kid (with her consent) in order to save her from her abusive mother and her partner. Throughout the drama we see Soo Jin struggling and trying to find the best way in order to get away with Yoon Bok, and also make sure she loves her a mother.

2. Shin Ja Young: She is Hye Na's biological mother. She is almost completely opposite to what Kang Soo Jin is a mother. Her partner broke up with her on the day Hye Na was born and must have struggled a lot making a living as a single mother. Things get worse when she gets dependent on a man, who is not only a child abuser, but sort of a serial child killer as well. While at times you sort of do understand why Shin Ja Young is the way she is, but that doesn't really justify her actions towards Hye Na.

Multiple times the drama shows that Hye Na was never a priority for her. She doesn't care much even when the Police suspect Hye Na to be dead, and doesn't even care if she is alive or not as long as she is away from her.

3. Nam Hong Hee: She is Kang Soo Jin's biological mother. While in the starting episodes we get to see the events of Soo Jin being left behind at the orphanage from her and also from Sister Clara's Point of view, things get clear when you get to know the truth about it once we get to know Nam Hong Hee's side story.

She had to leave Soo Jin at the orphanage since she had killed her abusive partner who had hit both of them, and so was going to confess to the police. She wouldn't want Soo Jin to be left alone with no one around to take care of her, and also didn't want the "murderer's child" tag to be put upon Soo Jin. That was the main reason for her leaving her daughter at the orphanage.

Once she got released from the prison, she finds a place near Soo Jin's residence in order to at least get to see her daughter grow up. While you may hate Nam Hong Hee in the start, but as things get clearer you cannot help but feel sorry for a mother who had to kill her partner who was hitting her child, and as a result had to go to prison. She didn't really have a choice back then, and did what she thought would be best for her child. Maybe she knew this would traumatizing for her child, or even knew she would be hated for that and never get to see her, but at that time, her priority was to ensure Soo Jin would have a place to sleep, get to eat and be safe.

While both Nam Hong Hee and Shin Ja Young are similar in being mothers who abandoned their child, and also had abusive partners. They are a lot different as mothers. One killed her partner to save her child, decided to give up being mother just so her child could be safe, but the other was ready to sacrifice her kid as long as she could live and get away with her partner.

4. Cha Young Shin: I'll be honest. When the drama started, and we didn't really know anything about her, I thought she was a baddie. We see Soo Jin having flashbacks of herself being abused, and we see Cha Young Shin sort of aggressively look for her. But little did I know how great and sweet of a character she was.

It was just so beautiful to know it was Soo Jin who actually helped Young Shin heal herself when she was crying be herself in the orphanage. Soo Jin thinking her to be a new kid decided to help her sleep and calm her down. I just loved how she loved Soo Jin despite her not meeting or talking to for the past 10 years.

Cha Young Shin was such a lively character, she was full of emotions, she knew how to take actions and when to take actions. She didn't even let her other 2 daughters feel that they were adopted and raised them making them believe they were her biological daughters. She was not not only a great mother to all of them, but was a great grandmother to her grandkids as well as Yoon Bok.


You could at times not understand her, especially when it came to some of her actions towards Nam Hong Hee when she comes to know she is Soo Jin's real mom. But she redeems herself by correcting things, and also meeting up with Nam Hong Hee. Sometimes you see her really crave for love from Soo Jin, you her being insecure and scared to whether Soo Jin really sees her as her mom. It was really great to see Soo Jin finally talk to her and confess how much she loves her as her mother.

All the mothers mentioned above are what make the title of this drama as Mother. Throughout the drama we see how action any of those mothers actually affected and still affects the lives of the characters. Just like how Lee Seol Ak's mother's abusive behavior towards him and suicide made him how he was now. He became just like his mother when it came to abuse, or maybe even worse, and that was when how he later started to kill children for very random reasons like they being very noise or even quiet.

Another very interesting take of this drama was on the fact that who a Mother really is. Is she the one who gives birth to a child, or is it the one who actually loves, takes care and nurtures the kid. We saw how Soo Jin, and Cha Young Shin decided to take care of children who were not related to them. As I said, Cha Young Shin even raised her other 2 daughters as if they were her biological daughters and they never got to suspect that. And then we have mothers like Shin Ja Young, or Lee Seol Ak's mother, who are abusive in nature and hardly cared about their kids.

You don't develop motherly love for anyone just because you gave birth to them. You can develop motherly love for children if you decide to take up the role of their mother, and that is what we got to see in Soo Jin and Cha Young Shin's case. Soo Jin's love for Yoon Bok was so genuine, that she even made a detective question himself for going after her and consider giving up in between, and he would have done that if his senior partner would not have made him continue the investigation. Time after time we see people know Soo Jin and Yoon Bok are not related, but after seeing their interaction together, they decide to turn a blind eye and help them.

Yoon Bok/Hye Na as a character also shows us that kids are not always clueless as they show to be. Yoon Bok always knew what was happening to her, but would always defend Shin Ja Young since she would blame herself for Shin Ja Young's hard life. Throughout the drama we see Yoon Bok feel and understand the emotions of other people, know what kind of people they really are by observing them. Also seeing the scenes of her living in child shelter in the later episodes and helping out kids and play with them, makes you really think how her life would have been if she would have a proper mother or parent who would give her love as much as she gives to others. She might be an abused child, but she is a very cheerful kid who is always ready to help others.

Everything about this drama was almost perfect, from the start to the ending when we finally get to see Soo Jin officially adopt Yoon Bok as her daughter. The only thing I think I would have liked to see the drama explore a bit more is towards backstory of Shin Ja Young. I know we get to see her the flashback scene of her partner breaking up with her just when she gave birth to Hye Na, but I hoped we would get to see a bit more of her backstory to sort of understand her character more. Other than that this was a great drama for me.