Purpose: As a cultural descriptive research, this study investigates the joys and sorrows that mothers who have been taking care of a child with mental illness in the Korean culture. Methods: The data were collected from June 2011 to July 2012 targeting a total of 11 mothers who were looking after chldren with mental illness in their own places. Recorded and transcribed data though in-depth interviews were analyzed by Spradley’s classification and analysis method. Results: The joys and sorrows of the mothers focused on the cultural topic, “social sense of isolation’, and the joys and sorrows were confirmed to be ‘fury to reality’, ‘despair of illness’, ‘blame on family’, ‘remorse for the life’ and ‘little pleasure earned by emptying mind’. Conclusion: It is suggestive that the results of this study can be used to understand the joys and sorrows of the mothers with the mental patients; may be used to improve sociocultural understanding of the mothers; and may be applied to nursing practice.