By Ifeoma Udu
Television often lingers on a woman staring at a pregnancy test, her plans suddenly rewritten. Across Nollywood and Korean dramas, pregnancy reshuffles priorities, reshapes ambitions, and tests relationships in ways audiences can’t look away from. These stories explore what women give, what they sacrifice, and how life asks them to renegotiate everything.
Career Interrupted: Positively Yours.
Jang Hee-won is fiercely focused on her career. She’s the youngest manager at a beer production company and dreams of studying in Germany to one day launch her own beer brand. Love and marriage are not on her agenda; her parents’ divorce and her mother’s repeated statement that she regrets having her add emotional complexity.
Then a one-night encounter with a chaebol heir leads to an unexpected pregnancy. Suddenly, Hee-won must confront what she never wanted and rethink what she truly needs.
What she gives: career plan, independence, certainty. What she gains: vulnerability, deeper connection, personal growth. The series shows that ambitions and personal fulfillment can coexist with motherhood but not without negotiation and compromise.
Parenthood by Circumstance: Our Universe.
In Our Universe, childcare arrives through circumstance: an orphaned infant is placed with two adults who barely know each other. Dreams are reshaped rather than destroyed. Emotional intimacy grows out of necessity rather than a neat romantic arc.
What they give: sleep, time, personal space. What they gain: connection, emotional growth, unconventional family.
Set against South Korea’s low birth rates, high parenting costs, and demanding work culture, the show highlights the tension between personal choice and societal expectation. It reassures audiences that parenting and personal growth can align even when structural support is limited.
Sisterhood, Sacrifice, and Collision: Roses and Ivy.
In Roses and Ivy, familial obligations collide with personal desire. Evelyn, the elder sister, is the family’s emotional anchor. Roselyn struggles to meet her mother-in-law’s demand for a child. When she cannot, she asks Evelyn to sleep with her husband to secure a pregnancy.
What Roselyn gives: control over relationships, ethical boundaries, trust. What Evelyn gives: loyalty, emotional labour, unreciprocated love. What they set out to gain: social approval, legitimacy, fulfillment tied to motherhood.
Roselyn’s need for a child isn’t just about love; it’s also about securing her position within her husband’s family, showing a gain that is economic and survival-based. The series Illustrates how societal pressure can warp bonds and turn family and sisterhood into negotiation tables. Sacrifice is framed as necessary, but the emotional cost is high.
Across Screens and Cultures.
From Lagos to Seoul, women adjust first, absorb disruption, and balance personal ambitions with family expectations. Emotional labour is expected, autonomy is negotiable, and relationships are constantly tested. While TV shows often depict fulfilling outcomes, they rarely show the structural support that makes these transitions manageable.
Rethinking the Narrative.
These dramas celebrate growth, connection, and resilience but highlight the stakes women face when ambitions must take a backseat. What if career ambition and caregiving were equally valued? What if motherhood wasn’t the endpoint of growth but one of many life directions? Perhaps storytelling and society should show not just what women give but how much they can gain.
