The Day My Mom Fell in Love with K-Pop

The Divide Between Us

Until that moment, I never thought my mom and I would ever share the same Spotify playlist—let alone fight over the TV remote to watch the same concert replay.

Growing up in a Pakistani household with strong traditions, my mom embodied the idea of discipline and structure. She wore her dupatta over her shoulder like a badge of order and managed our house like a general. While she loved music, it was mostly ghazals and qawwalis, classical tunes from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or the occasional Bollywood classic that played on weekend mornings.

I, on the other hand, had grown up dancing to entirely different beats. I found my escape in K-pop—fast-paced, visually vibrant, and emotionally charged. BTS’s lyrics spoke to my generation’s silent battles. BLACKPINK’s performances made me feel like I could take on the world. My room was littered with posters, albums, and lightsticks—my version of a shrine.

My mom never judged my love for K-pop. But she didn’t understand it either.

“They all look the same,” she’d comment, squinting at a poster of EXO on my wall. “And their hair! Why so colorful?”

We existed in different worlds. I had stopped trying to explain mine. Until one ordinary afternoon—when something extraordinary happened.

It started with a viral video.

I was rewatching the BTS "Tiny Desk Concert" while chopping vegetables for dinner. My mom sat nearby, embroidering a cushion cover for my cousin’s wedding. I didn’t think she was paying attention—until I heard her hum.

She was humming Spring Day.

I turned slowly, almost afraid to startle her out of it. She noticed me staring.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“Nothing,” I grinned. “Just didn’t expect you to hum BTS.”

She looked embarrassed for a second. “That boy,” she said, pointing at the screen. “The one singing now—his voice is… beautiful.”

“That’s Jimin.”

She raised an eyebrow. “He looks like he’s fifteen.”

“He’s thirty.”

That made her laugh, and she asked me to play the video again. We watched it together from the beginning.

That was the first time I saw my mom cry to a K-pop song.

It turns out, Spring Day hit a nerve.

“It reminds me of your uncle,” she said later, sipping chai with a faraway look in her eyes. “After he passed, I used to dream about him. This song... it feels like grief, but also like waiting for someone who’ll never return.”

I was stunned.

That was exactly what the song was about. I told her BTS wrote it after a national tragedy in Korea. She nodded slowly, surprised by the emotional depth behind the flashy image she’d always assumed K-pop was about.

We talked for hours that night. About music. About memory. About things we’d never really shared before.

And that was just the beginning.

Within a week, my mom had a bias.

“Jin is the handsome one, but RM... now he speaks like a poet,” she declared while we were watching a live performance on YouTube. She had learned the lingo too. Bias. Maknae. Comeback. ARMY.

It was hilarious and heartwarming.

We started watching BTS’s Run episodes together, laughing at their antics. She couldn’t get over how they all cooked for each other.

“See? Good boys,” she said. “Unlike you—always ordering food!”

She was kidding. Mostly.

Then came BLACKPINK. And Stray Kids. And Seventeen.

She didn’t care for the louder stuff but loved the ballads. And choreography fascinated her.

“These boys dance better than heroines in our dramas,” she said, half-impressed, half-jealous.

One day, she walked into my room wearing my old Jungkook hoodie. “It’s comfortable,” she said, feigning innocence.

I let her keep it.

Around that time, my mom started opening up more.

About her early days in Pakistan. About being forced to give up singing after marriage because “mothers didn’t do that.” About how, secretly, she would hum songs under her breath while cooking or cleaning.

K-pop brought that back for her. Not just as entertainment—but as a reminder of the girl she once was.

“You think I didn’t dance when I was your age?” she told me one day. “We used to copy Bollywood moves in our courtyard, pretending we were Madhuri Dixit. But I see these idols now and think—wow. They’re doing what we were never allowed to do.”

It struck me then—K-pop wasn’t just a bridge between our generations. It was her way of reclaiming something.

Her joy.

Her rhythm.

Her voice.

Last month, BTS aired a recorded concert for ARMYs worldwide. It wasn’t live, but it felt like it. We made popcorn, wore matching BT21 pajamas, and even painted our nails purple.

When they performed Mikrokosmos, I glanced at her. She was smiling through tears.

“Imagine if your Nani was alive,” she whispered. “She would’ve thought they were angels.”

And I thought—maybe they are.

I used to think K-pop was just mine. My generation’s obsession. Our rebellion. Our language.

But watching my mom fall in love with it showed me something else.

Good art—real art—transcends age, language, borders.

It’s in the shared tears over a song you can’t even translate perfectly.

It’s in the way a beat makes your heart race, no matter how old you are.

It’s in watching your mother—your pillar—rediscover the softness in her own spirit.

We still argue sometimes. Over screen time. Over me not folding my laundry. Over how many albums I’ve bought.

But when Spring Day comes on, the world pauses.

And we hum it—together.