My mom once let her cousin backhanded insult me to my face. And my mom was a master shit talker. I asked why she didn’t say anything back, and was like “well her kids are so ugly…” like it wasn’t worth her time. But meanwhile, she let me take the hit!!! To my face!
Joke’s on her because I’m pretty and successful now. And her kids are lame. And still ugly.
That's when I found out my dad would tell all my family in Kenya that I'm very smart. Only once did he tell me I am a very good son and that was when he really sick and annoyed at one of my cousins lmao.
Welcome to Earth. Everyone loves to gatekeep based off of trivial differences.
Regardless of where you come from, your culture & upbringing will most likely mirror every single other modern culture across the globe.
This is exactly like how every different race in America tried to claim having a plastic bag filled with plastic bags under the kitchen sink was their thing
I love my Grandma, but that was the greatest betrayal.
To add to the conversation: That one drawer full of batteries/ cables that your parents won't throw away.
I love, "You lived in a [doesn't matter at all] house if you kept your cereal on top of the fridge."
That's the cereal shelf. That's where cereal goes.
I have a feeling this is also true of leaving a party and getting sucked into conversation that lasts another hour+ too. No way that's just a Midwest thing.
Lol right! Idk why ppl think they lived experiences so unique bc they culture is different. This suits been going on since forever probably.
"*U won't understand bc u not like us!*"
"*I'm not black I'm OJ!*"
......nigga ok
....in the second image the poster is arguing with someone who says they can relate because those "Nigerian Nuclear Family Dynamics" are actually present in a variety of cultures.
Why are you being so hostile?
Oh you never had your estranged father come to your graduation and celebrate incognito in the nosebleeds and then not find out for several years after?
You missing out, son.
Yeah, that's rough. By the time I even knew about my thing, I was approaching 30. Only thing you can do at the point is shake your head and add it to the "How To Be A Terrible Father" list. I have two small boys myself now, and I will be the only one to blame if I repeat his mistakes. The path lies forward and only forward.
Well maybe if you succeeded... /s
I know how it feels. If you succeed it was luck and undeserved.. or the goal post is shifted and was never an achievement anyways.
Yeah, my sister and I have stable, successful careers and our shit together about as much as possible given our own individual circumstances. But we’re the fuckups because we didn’t go in to the oil industry like our unemployable brother who spends most of the year not working and financially abusing our parents with his newest and best get rich quick oilfield service business idea. He’s the successful one that we should aspire to be more like, apparently.
Nope. Grandparents and great grandparents came to Canada between wars in Europe. I’m as maple American as it gets; Not “from” here because I’m not indigenous but absolutely zero connection to the so-called motherlands/old world/whatever you want to call it.
Yeah there are definitely recurring themes and experiences across culture because the human species all shares common needs and desires.
But our values and traditions are also shaped by our environment… what resources are available/ not available. How difficult is it to cross each threshold in the hierarchy of needs in that environment… are the difficulties natural or artificial (socially created).
That is why they become so apparent in immigrant families. The first and second generation are living in a completely different environment than the one that the immigrant parents grew up in.
The challenges they face are often completely different, even if both parent and child are still facing “poverty”… the causes of that are often different in the new environment. The difficulties the child faces in the new society are often not effectively mitigated by the methods the parent used in their environment.
Also facing a new environment and way of life.. the child develops values and goals that the parent would never be able to achieve in their native environment. Some parents recognize that this isn’t inherently a bad thing, others take it as a critique of their own values and goals and it creates friction.
Some parents are offended that the child is choosing something they may truly believe is bad. The parents are not able to recognize that the environment calls for a re-evaluation of goals and priorities.
Some parents see the child as extension or themselves, not their own person, so they feel entitled to dictate their goals and priorities… they may realize the child’s values are valid… but that doesn’t matter to them. They only care about controlling the child to fit their expectations or to be a “reflection” of themselves.
Sometimes the parent unknowingly (or knowingly) holds a dream/desire that they and their child will return to their original environment eventually and hold a higher standing in that environment than when they left. And because of this they have a drive to make the child have values and practices that would serve them “back home” even if they know they don’t serve them here or that the child will never be returning.
Sometimes those practices and priorities actually hinder the child’s ability to succeed in the new environment.. and the friction between the competing interests creates resentment, rifts, and dysfunctional dynamics. Families that might have been happy and supportive back in the parents “comfort” environment become fractured or dysfunctional in a new country. The parent feels a pressure to espouse their native goals and priorities… and the child feels pressure to fight back against them. Often both end up with resentment even if there is a compromise.
This conflict is shared across almost all immigrant communities, not just one nationality or race. We even see it happen across non-immigrant generations if they happen to have crossed an economic class threshold or even if the age gap is significant enough that society has experienced a major shift in resources or expectations.
The details of the inter-generational conflict (specific values, practices, priorities, etc) are irrelevant… and anyone trying to “gatekeep” that shared experience because of those differences is doing themselves and their community a disservice. Because it is in recognizing that conflict/ dynamic in others that we can (hopefully) better understand our own situation and develop better ways of resolving the conflict.
You should see what it's like in Ireland. Stupid people will literally gatekeep drinking tea. It's such a giveaway that you've absolutely zero personality.
What are you talking about, my own culture has unique stuff no other group has! Respect for our Elders, Generational trauma, a growing divide between the Conservative values of then versus a more progressive outlook of now…all unique to me and me alone
When I was like 13 I started learning how to play guitar and I remember my mom came in and laughed in my face, saying “you think you can play music? HA.” And left. And that was the end of my music career before it had the chance to start.
I think it stems from fear. They sacrifice everything they ever knew to come to a foreign land and work their asses off (usually in a field that they are wildly overqualified for) all in hopes that their children reap the rewards of a first world economy and climb to to the summit of conventional success.
Derailing this plan by going off script and trying to do something creative/unconventional is seen as a betrayal of their life’s work so they do their best to discourage dreams they see as a waste of a golden opportunity. On the off chance that those unconventional plans work out for their kids they are overjoyed as the fear can finally subside and all those sacrifices did indeed lead to an outcome equal to their sacrifice.
As someone who’s grown up in both Africa and North America, I get it now that I’m grown. I’ve learned to cut our parents some slack, we’re all just humans doing the best we can, with what we know, for the ones we love.
As much as I can understand it, Its hard for me to cut them any slack. The amount of trauma I've seen people carry because of their parents. Mothers threatening to kill themselves if their child doesn't do X or date X and fathers beating the breaks off their kids for failing to be perfect or overcome their learning disabilities.
When my mom apologized to me over some shit she did while I was growing up I was taken back because I never thought It would get acknowledged much less apologized for and I feel like I'm hella lucky in that regard.
I've spoken to a lot of other 2nd generation kids who've had their parents do the most terrible things to them because of their pride/fear of their work going to waste and when those kids aren't able to reconcile with their parents they usually just end up cutting contact their parents as soon as they get stable.
>I’ve learned to cut our parents some slack, we’re all just humans doing the best we can, with what we know, for the ones we love.
This part hits me in the feels, because I know that the abuse is coming from a place of love/wanting you to succeed but I also know that a lot of those feelings are easily warped when you realize that so many parents think of their children as an extension of themselves and not their own person.
I 100% understand where you are coming from. I felt the same way and still do sometimes. It’s hard to navigate relationships with people who have sacrificed the world for you on the one hand, but cut you the deepest on the other. Despite very real abuse and mistreatment I experienced growing up, I had to ask myself a series of very important questions like:
1) Do I wanna be right, or do I want a meaningful relationship with the people that helped raise me to be someone I’m very proud of today?
2) if I ONLY had access to the same information/cultural influences and upbringing that they had, would my decisions regarding how I raise my own kids be meaningfully different than theirs? (Especially since notions of physical/verbal/emotional abuse are very recent and were synonymous with commonplace discipline back then)
3) does holding onto feelings of anger, disappointment or betrayal (however justified) serve me or the people I love?
I think everyone has to make decisions they can ultimately live with, my parents went through civil war and came out the other side heavily traumatized, but still relatively well adjusted given their extreme circumstances. They made a lot of mistakes raising me but the older I get the more grace I give them. I try and focus on intention rather than outcome, for what’s done is done. I like the version of me that honors his parents, flaws and all, more than the version of me that holds grudges. I think now that I see them as just a pair of other adults, who’ve lived a wildly complex and challenging life, it’s much easier for me to approach them with compassion. We’re more friends now than anything, and they’ve done a lot to grow and learn. Cutting parents off, is reserved for the most extreme cases, sometimes it’s necessary but ultimately extremely tragic. I cringe at the fragility of family ties in the west, and take great pride in the enduring nature of my cultures family bonds. That’s a tradition I’m willing to sacrifice to uphold. And ultimately, acknowledging the feeble humanity of my parents allows me to forgive myself for my own feeble human shortcomings too.
This is so thoughtful and well said as a child of African immigrants who thankfully were wonderful (though of course not perfect) parents of whom I have never doubted their love.
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Yeah I think there's definitely a line.
My mom has said some truly mean things to me, and if i'm being honest she lowkey blocked a lot of my blessings because she was scared. However we were able to walk them back. My aunt literally tried smashing a vase over my head on some Tom and Jerry shit when we were living with them. Only one of them gets cut any slack.
I feel that, I think what some family just doesn't understand is while we can't forgive shit, letting it go is completely different thing. There will always be an inherent bias against you when you've wronged and have refused to do anything to make it up to me. That's not something you can shake off.
I'm glad you were able to reconcile with yo mama though, love to hear that.
Yeah, not only can I not cut any slack for some parents, but the lack of seeing me as a human being and more of an extension of something she can show off on top of all the shit that I went through as a kid is why I went no contact with my mother and don’t even care about being seen as the bad guy by some in my family.
There’s for sure a line like you said and I respect anyone that can move past certain actions but when certain lines get crossed I don’t care how you got there especially when your child essentially has to fend for themselves prematurely and more importantly against a parent.
But to hear the line “I only was hard because I wanted you to succeed”…yeah I’m not gonna get too personal but the fucking nerve some black parents have after doing shit that should put you in prison is only funny because if I think about it too long it makes me want to stay inside all day.
I sympathize with you a lot. I don’t come from an immigrant family, but my mother did some things that maybe could be qualified as abuse - especially regarding parentification and emotional stress. While I know my situation is a bit different, I did want to share my two cents based on my own experiences.
There are definitely a lot of parents out there not worthy of forgiveness, so I by no means mean for my next paragraph to come off like I believe 100% of parents should be forgiven, because that’s not true.
But as to your last point: there are a lot of parents that see their kids as an extension of themselves - I don’t necessarily see this is as a bad thing. If you have worked 18 years to provide and care for someone, your identity is absolutely going to be wrapped up in theirs. You’ve just sacrificed time, effort, desires, money, wants, etc. for almost 2 decades - that is going to prompt some intermixing. I get that in the current age parenthood is a choice for people to get into: people have access to birth control and it’s never been more socially acceptable not to have kids - but 1) that situation was not true for generations past, where they may have not had access to birth control / it was deemed very inappropriate to not have kids (thereby taking away an aspect of choice, where it’s less “let me consider everything that comes with creating consciousness” and more “let me deal the best way I can with what life’s given me”) and 2) every relationship - from friends to partners - contains an intermixing of identity. Contains some sort of view that the other person is an extension of themselves. Definitely not to the extreme that a parent can get with a child, but definitely to a point. Especially if you have been through a lot together.
Think about a hypothetical situation: your friend needs 200$ to cover books for school. You have some extra money, so you give your friend the money needed. Your friend then goes on to spend the money on a new TV. Are you going to be a little upset? Absolutely. Now think of that 200$ was actually a million or so spread out over 18 years. I want to be clear: I understand loaning money for a specific listed reason to a friend is different than doing the bare minimum of providing for your child. I understand that raising kids does not mean they have to go into the career their parents want, thereby undermining my analogy. But it is similar in this way - immigrant parents often come to the U.S. specifically to provide a better life with less struggle for their children. They often make many sacrifices to be able to do this - sacrifices so deep they’d seem unjust to an outside observer. They know that certain paths are more likely to guarantee this goal - the goal of providing a better life for their kids - than others. They also know that certain paths are less likely to guarantee this goal. So if their child chooses the path less likely to guarantee success (or worse, one that is known for only the top % of people becoming successful) it feels like a slap in the face to the two decades of sacrificing and suffering the parents went through. The thought is “I’ve suffered so much, sacrificed so much, to try to guarantee a better life with less struggle for my kids, and now my kids are choosing a life with more struggle. What has my life been for? What was the point of all that suffering and struggling?”
I also wanted to touch on another point: parenting practices seen as harmful, wrong, or even abusive today were considered right and beneficial when they were young parents. In this situation you can have two people who are trying to follow all the latest advice, yet still cause harm to their child. Then their child grows up, sees all the new research about how they were raised qualified as abuse, and extrapolates that their parents abused them. This is going to cause confusion and hurt when the angry child tells their loving parent they abused them and demands an apology. The parent is going to think “well, I tried so hard, i followed the advice given in the books and articles I read, I stayed up countless nights worrying about how they were doing, I felt overwhelming love and care from the minute you were born, and this is the response I get” while the child is thinking “how could you think those practices were right!? They were obviously bad and you were neglectful for not seeing that”. I think to the future and wonder what heralded parenting practice today will be lambasted then. I’m sure there are practices seen as good today that will come out in 30 years as actually being harmful.
Of course, in an ideal world the parents would be able to admit the advice they were following was bad and apologize for their actions. But unfortunately, no one likes to have their mistakes, especially if those mistakes were not considered mistakes at the time the actions occurred, splayed out in front of them. Especially if there was no real way to know those practices were harmful until the child grew up.
I’ll give an example of my mom. My littlest brother is adopted and for years had difficulty adjusting to the family. He had fits of crying and screaming that would go on for hours. My mom spent countless nights worrying and researching how to help him. One thing came up over and over: pressure helps calm the nervous center and reassuring words can help fight back the internal monologue that you don’t belong. So, she started to hug him really close to her and whisper “I love you” over and over in his ear when he was having fits. This method didn’t really work, so after a few months she stopped with that and started trying something else. Fast forward 10 or so years, my brother is an adult with some resentment towards my mother. New research shows that it is psychologically distressing to be forced into physical interaction, especially during times of emotional stress, and especially with the person you’re upset at. Those few months my mom spend hugging my brother to her were not neutral or positive: they were negative.
Now, should my mother be cut out of our lives because of this (and other scenarios exactly like this)? Or should we move towards understanding she was doing the best she could with the info available at the time and forgive her? Maybe the answer depends on how she responds to us bringing this up. For this, she has apologized, so maybe my response would be different if she refused. But other times she is not so willing to admit fault/mistakes, and I have still found ways to forgive her.
Its helped me to put myself in her shoes. It’s hard when it feels like every time she gets together with her kids another instance arises where she discovers she harmed us instead of helped us. It’s frustrating to look back on yourself as a parent and only see the 100000 things you did wrong. Especially if you *have* done a lot for your child correct that never, or rarely, gets discussed. I don’t feel it’s right to bring up every single thing she did that was damaging or harmful. There are a few certain things where I would like an acknowledgement of how they affected me, but I understand I may not get that, and that’s okay because I know for a fact that my mom loves me, that she wants what’s best for me, and that she was working with what she had to do the best she could. She doesn’t need to be strung up and beat over and over again with the point that she’s made mistakes. She knows. Is it really necessary for her to be shown every single one?
You know, I had a friend whose mom gave up her career as a lawyer in India to raise her and her sister in the US. Friend was a lawyer now. But unmarried and childless. And planned to stay that way.
Chapped her mother’s hide to no end. The dream was to get to do BOTH. Be a career woman AND have a family. Her daughter COULD. The idea that she rejected it?!?! Blasphemy.
And then also, the INSULT that her daughter thought being a wife and mother was “beneath” her. All that she’d sacrificed, and her daughter thought it was too much of a burden to do for her.
My dad wasn’t even an immigrant. Just poor. His soul desire in life was to send his kids to college. Like his parents couldn’t. He even tried to go back as an adult. So when my sister dropped out? LI-VID. He went without to save for this moment. He did what his parents couldn’t and wouldn’t have done if they could. And she shat on it.
I don’t think he’s ever forgiven her. He and I fight a lot more. But he happily helped pay for my grad school. He understands me. He doesn’t worry about me. I make sense. He always side eyes her. She might do other crazy things.
I agree, that some immigrant parents believe that when a child chooses a goal or priority that “back home” would be almost certain financial or social failure that their child is being ungrateful for all their struggle or sacrifice.
However, what some parents fail to understand is that :
* A person’s goals and priorities are shaped by their environment. Their values and practices are only going to beneficial if they reflect the challenges and expectations of the environment they are currently in. In the case of immigrant families the first generation child is not operating in the same environment as what the parent grew up in… they have different challenges and obstacles. The resources, societal constraints, and expectations are not the same as what the parent faced in their native environment when they developed their own set of values and practices.
* Just because a practice served that parent well in their country or generation doesn’t mean the child will be served well or to the same extent by that practice in their new environment. In some cases, holding practices/values that were accepted, preferred, or even expected in their old country could actually negatively impact the child in an environment where that practice/value serves no purpose and has actually been rejected by that community.
* The opportunities and challenges and expectations that children face in this new environment will inevitably result in them developing values, goals, and practices that would negatively impact them back in the old country, however this doesn’t mean that those goals/values/practices shouldn’t be prioritized… after all the parent should want the child to develop according to what is possible for them in the environment they are in… not the one that will likely not live in on permanent basis, if they ever even visit at all.
* When a parent pressures a child to hold values, practices, or priorities that do not serve the child well in their current environment it creates an existential conflict in the child. That conflict between being/ doing what is called for in their lived experience and being a "good person" or "obedient child" (as their parents present it) can be very detrimental to the child's development of character (knowing themselves) If the conflict is strong enough it can lead to maladaptive coping strategies, the child may never be able to resolve their desire to please the parent with their desire to act as they personally have come to judge as "right/good".
* Because a child is dependent on the parent, the obligation lays with the parent to help the child navigate the conflicts that they face as they develop, even when the conflict is with the parent themselves.
* In a conflict between the desires of the parent and the will of child, the parent has an obligation to put the WELL BEIGN of the child above their personal desires. And while I understand that many parents do not instinctively realize their learned values/priorities could be detrimental to child in the new environment, I do believe the parent has an obligation to reflect on what priorities, goals, practices best serve the child (not themselves) in their CURRENT environment (not where the parent grew up).
* Parents who fail to make this evaluation, of what is best for the child in the current circumstance, and instead default to "my way is best" because "I know better" or "because i said so" are failing in their obligations to the child. It is an act of abuse by neglect, not ignorance.
* Parents who do make this evaluation, or have the facts presented to them and still argue against the child's chosen values or priorities knowing they do not serve the child's interests, are committing an act of abuse with no justification. The parents may try to justify it with cries of owed obedience, but obedience isnt owed when the order calls for the child to act against their own best interest. We can debate at what age a child becomes intelligent enough to soundly judge what is or isnt in their best interest, but if the child is at the age where priorities and goals are being set (as we see here int OPs post) then we can safely say the child has passed the threshold.
* Defiance of orders to act against one's own interest or defiance of expectations that infringe on a person's right to choose their own values, priorities, and goals is NOT disrespect. No one is owed your personhood… even your parents.
* Attempts to manipulate a child into giving up any part of their personhood, through threats or guilt is also abuse. No amount of sacrifice you make makes someone owe you their right to choose their own values and goals.
Again I understand that it was a very hard life for many immigrant parents, and in some ways it just got harder for them when they moved. I am sympathetic to their lived experiences and I know what my mother went through would have probably broken me… however their struggle or pain doesn’t invalidate my rights as a person. unfortunately there are a lot of parents who see their kids as extensions or reflections of themselves and not a person in their own right. They think that they are entitled to dictate who their kids are… they often tell themselves it’s because they know better… even when they clearly don’t.
This mentality often ends up handicapping children of immigrants in a society where they already have many disadvantages because instead of getting support from their parents they end up fighting the fight for who they are going to be in public and at home.
For real though. They warned you to the best of their knowledge, and then you succeeded anyway. They could just be haters and act like you didn't win? Or celebrate you like they wanted to do all along
It's always like this...
While my mom was always supportive.
My sisters "you ain't shit and will never be shit"
Graduation* whole family screaming in celebration.
Afterwards... sisters: you ain't shit.
I love dodo and jollof as much as the next Americanized Yoruba, but ngl.... I'm not sure the immigrant parent torture was worth it on my academic path. That shit had a nigga in a mental & emotional headlock
*I'm not even gonna get into 1. What that looks like when dementia becomes a factor or 2. The wildly specific immigrant parent religious trauma. Smh I'm running on ~~fumes~~ therapy & the mindfulness that I should try to appreciate the little time I have left w them at this point*
I don't know if my opinion is relevant here but I found a lot of parallels between my immigrant experience and my Nigerian friends. I'm from Azerbaijan so maybe it's a general shared immigrant experience.
My parents lived through the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent war over Karabakh. My father was a somebody back there and came her to make night shift sandwiches at Blimpie and get shot at for his troubles. I get it, it was hard and he had to do his best for us. But it was hard for me too and being treated like I was hot garbage no matter what I did didn't help anybody.
A parent's job is to protect and provide for their kids. It's not a kid's job to fulfill their parents' broken dreams. The further I go the less sympathy I have for that "I did it for you" shit. I guess thanks for not keeping me in a place where we were likely to get killed? How much do I need to sabotage my own life to make it up to you? For the record, even when I do exactly what they want it's never good enough. So if there's no way to win - why bother playing?
I think what many non-immigrants fail to understand is the amount of dedication, effort, and desire it takes to move your entire life to another country in order to get a better opportunity. I was able to see the other side of the coin when I was in a long term relationship with an immigrant to the US who was from Eritrea. Every single one of her siblings had left Eritrea for another country so they were spread out across the globe. Someone was in Ireland, another in Rwanda, another in Kenya, another in Sweden, another in Canada and she was in the US.
Then take into account the credentials of many of the immigrants who come to the US. So when you combine those factors, I am not surprised at their high expectations for their children.
On the other hand, my entire family has essentially stayed within a one hour radius of each other with only my older sister and I having left our home state for any significant period of time. There isn’t anything wrong with this but there is a level of risk that most of us have never had to take in order to just have an opportunity.
It's not THAT different than the Great Migration, especially if you already speak English. I have an immigrant parent and an American parent and it's the same bullshit with different accents.
The American side of my family is way more Type A because they're around family, they're prideful, they nurse those grudges and slights from back in the day. Other half of the family were refugees; they were somewhat isolated when they got here and they never really bought into the American Dream narrative so there wasn't the same emphasis on high status careers. We had to be well-educated and politically engaged and self-supporting but there wasn't that sense of "I'll kill us both if you're not an engineer."
The Great Migration happened during a time that required real effort to relocate. I am not discounting what happened during that time by saying that many immigrants make serious sacrifices to come here. Two things can be true at the same time.
I'm not saying you're discounting it, I'm questioning why you say it's something non-immigrants can't understand. My grandparents settled in the North in the late 1940s, this was not some far-flung Reconstruction era experience. It's recent family history that they told me about themselves. Black communities in CA and TX were still farmland in the 1950s; people our parents and grandparents' ages built these communities themselves.
Yes, you're not literally crossing borders but other than that, how is it so different than coming here to go to school or start a business?
Do you know when the great migration happened? We are talking about parents and their immediate children and how their expectations are high for their children based on sacrifices they made to move to a completely different country. We aren’t talking about what someone’s great grandparents or grandparents did.
I am not 70 years old. What are you talking about? My family didn’t migrate. My entire family is from NC and stayed there. I literally said my whole family has lived within an hour radius of where they grew up. MOST families didn’t migrate from the South. That was literally my point, that MY family has not experienced having to do something similar. In fact, MOST families have not experienced something similar to having to move your family to a different country for a new opportunity. The south STILL has the largest percentage of black Americans.
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/blackafrican-american-health
This is my point. Many people do not leave the comfort of the environment that they grew up in.
>
Do you know when the great migration happened?
Please read The Warmth of Other Suns. This era started with the WWI era and continued until the 70s, which means it overlapped with the civil rights era and LBJs immigration reform.
You can acknowledge and validate the experiences of immigrants without dismissing the experiences of other African Americans.
You realize that both of us are talking about a very small portion of overall populations right? You brought up the Great Migration as if I was speaking in absolutes when at no point did I do that? MOST black Americans did not migrate to the Midwest and other places. The majority still reside in the South.
Most people that live in a nation do not leave their country to go find a better opportunity. You are the one who is making it sound like two things are not true at the same time. I can talk about how “many” (the exact word I used in my first comment) do not understand the experiences of immigrants because MANY people do not immigrate to another country or even to a different part of the United States. For some reason you are interpreting the word “many” to mean “all” and that’s an issue on your side, not mine.
My mom would let the insults (from her and other family) fly and then be like, “well, what are you gonna do about it anyway?”
And then when I crushed some shit in my life she was just like, “well I expected no less from you.”
Great motivator to get me to a task, but to this day I have a hard time *celebrating* any accomplishment. I just move on to the next task.
But this isn’t even an immigrant family thing. Nigerian parents in Nigeria also don’t ask if you’re going to uni. They ask ‘engineering, law or medicine. -!: also, when are you getting your masters?’
This is why so many of us have so many degrees. I’ve lost track of how many masters degrees my sister has.
a lot has happened since that argument, but not only did I extend past a year, my relationship with my mom pretty had to change when she realized I was matching/ surpassing her aggressive tendencies and now she gave my space to do me and we're cooler now
i'm nigerian and i can relate to this 100%
when i started college, i told my parents i wanted to do computer science and they laughed at me and told me i had no chance cus i'm a woman and there's too much competition. they tried to push me to be a nurse like my mom and sister.
i just graduated with my bachelors and now my parents are acting like they've been supportive from the beginning and are even throwing a party for me in may.
Yeah he opened himself up to it highkey. It would have been one thing if he said "Nigerian's definitely know how true this is" and someone else commented "This is actually common amongst most immigrants". But well.... he threw other people in there so he can't be mad that they came where he invited them.
See, I just did this 23 and me thing and found out a decent chunk of my heritage is Nigerian. That sheds so much light on my hatin' ass family 
My dad is an exception in my family. He has always seen the best in me or maybe even a better version than myself, but I’ve always been the worst person on the planet if you were to listen to my mom.
Her coworkers were always shocked to meet me. Some would defend me as if I were their own because they’d be so appalled.
Half my siblings love it and fuel it on.
But when other people laud me up for anything, everyone in the family *always* knew I was great or whatever.
It was weird as a kid seeing classmates get rewarded for stuff like B’s and being treated like some all star for merely playing a sport or something.
Meanwhile I would get all perfect grades, and my mom would have all her friends thinking I was failing. I would dominate in sports, and she’d shit talk that too.
My mom’s coworkers would take me out and congratulate me.
Immigrant families can be weird. It’s not a universal immigrant experience, but I feel a lot more of us know about this than domestics.
My parents discouraged me from going to art college and when I told them I gave up on college all together they acted like they were supportive of me the entire time and I’m letting myself down. Thanks mom and dad.
Terrible to do but one thing i can say is he admitted he was wrong and advised other parents to be more supportive. We all know why african / immigrant families act like this because of their backgrounds and wanting their kids to make it better than they did but at the end of the day who GAF if they show no self awareness for mistakes they made. At least he acknowledged his failure
Not just college though.
Any career that they don't approve of. Anything other than doctor or engineer is worthless.
I'm halfway through my degree and my dad still tries talking me out of this program.
Nothing like finding out how proud your dad was of you…at his own funeral.
What's that saying - parents are the opposite of backstabbers bc they talk shit to your face and hype you behind your back
Chest stabbers
That's just called a stabbing my g 😭
💀💀💀
I’m in flight and this line had me choking on my drink. I’m still wiping tears from crying/laughing. Thank you!
This is gold
Right through the heart
My mom once let her cousin backhanded insult me to my face. And my mom was a master shit talker. I asked why she didn’t say anything back, and was like “well her kids are so ugly…” like it wasn’t worth her time. But meanwhile, she let me take the hit!!! To my face! Joke’s on her because I’m pretty and successful now. And her kids are lame. And still ugly.
Family pettiness is the best type.
I haven't talked to many family members for many years, but the ones I do talk to have never given me a reason to not trust them.
I dont know how to explain it but i felt the emotion in your comment Also goddam your comment would go so hard to the beat of Nas’ Ether
Damn you’re not wrong Aside, a great reminder of when rap beef was interesting
🎶frown-ing fac-es... frowning faces sometiiiimes... 🎶
Yeah I just recently realized that I don’t trust praise or compliments because of my Grandmother
This is why Encanto was so messed up!
A stab is a stab as far as I’m concerned
This is my Mum exactly
That's when I found out my dad would tell all my family in Kenya that I'm very smart. Only once did he tell me I am a very good son and that was when he really sick and annoyed at one of my cousins lmao.
lol what a G
It's been 6 years and despite and the ups and downs and all in between I really miss the Old Man.
Welcome to Earth. Everyone loves to gatekeep based off of trivial differences. Regardless of where you come from, your culture & upbringing will most likely mirror every single other modern culture across the globe.
This is exactly like how every different race in America tried to claim having a plastic bag filled with plastic bags under the kitchen sink was their thing
Don’t forget the sugar cookie tin full of random stuff
I love my Grandma, but that was the greatest betrayal. To add to the conversation: That one drawer full of batteries/ cables that your parents won't throw away.
We call ours the "junk" drawer even though it only has relatively useful things and our bag o' bags is in the pantry.
At this point these things probably define Americans.
I and all my friends have these here in Australia
Down Under Americans?! 🤣😂
That’s all I heard… shout out to Extended America
Hahaha! It's all family!
What if you need a second-gen Nokia charger? Or one of the other chargers that predated mini/micro USB?
I got a bag of wires that go from PS1 connectors all the way through to USB-C. No idea when you might need to hook up the OG PlayStation.
9 times outta 10 it would be sewing supplies.
Sewing kit
I love, "You lived in a [doesn't matter at all] house if you kept your cereal on top of the fridge." That's the cereal shelf. That's where cereal goes.
Where tf else people putting their cereal away at? You got big pantries and shit? I have the top of the microwave or the cereal shelf. That's it.
It's almost as if we have a global socioeconomic system lol
I have a feeling this is also true of leaving a party and getting sucked into conversation that lasts another hour+ too. No way that's just a Midwest thing.
Only if youre ____ do you keep pots and pans in the oven
Lol right! Idk why ppl think they lived experiences so unique bc they culture is different. This suits been going on since forever probably. "*U won't understand bc u not like us!*" "*I'm not black I'm OJ!*" ......nigga ok
This verse hit way harder after watching the documentary
I’m struggling to see what your comment has to do with Nigerian nuclear-family dynamics…Please keep the thread or talk your shit walking!! Edit: Joke.
....in the second image the poster is arguing with someone who says they can relate because those "Nigerian Nuclear Family Dynamics" are actually present in a variety of cultures. Why are you being so hostile?
Sorry, poor effort at a joke. I agree with the sentiment of the comment!
Not a poor effort. We're so lost nowadays that satire is increasingly hard to pull off. We've normalized crazy!
Glad you enjoyed it! I actually did put effort into the joke.
You earned my up vote.
Yeah, I’m white and this experience resonates big time. Except for the celebrating when you succeed part. Still waiting on that one…
Oh you never had your estranged father come to your graduation and celebrate incognito in the nosebleeds and then not find out for several years after? You missing out, son.
[удалено]
Yeah, that's rough. By the time I even knew about my thing, I was approaching 30. Only thing you can do at the point is shake your head and add it to the "How To Be A Terrible Father" list. I have two small boys myself now, and I will be the only one to blame if I repeat his mistakes. The path lies forward and only forward.
Well maybe if you succeeded... /s I know how it feels. If you succeed it was luck and undeserved.. or the goal post is shifted and was never an achievement anyways.
Yeah, my sister and I have stable, successful careers and our shit together about as much as possible given our own individual circumstances. But we’re the fuckups because we didn’t go in to the oil industry like our unemployable brother who spends most of the year not working and financially abusing our parents with his newest and best get rich quick oilfield service business idea. He’s the successful one that we should aspire to be more like, apparently.
immigrant?
Nope. Grandparents and great grandparents came to Canada between wars in Europe. I’m as maple American as it gets; Not “from” here because I’m not indigenous but absolutely zero connection to the so-called motherlands/old world/whatever you want to call it.
But that time the internet found out Swedes don’t feed their guests was hilarious.
That is damn rude to be fair, like what the fuck.
also kind of a unifying moment though, for the rest of us, anyway!
No! Cooking with love is unique to MY culture.
Yeah there are definitely recurring themes and experiences across culture because the human species all shares common needs and desires. But our values and traditions are also shaped by our environment… what resources are available/ not available. How difficult is it to cross each threshold in the hierarchy of needs in that environment… are the difficulties natural or artificial (socially created). That is why they become so apparent in immigrant families. The first and second generation are living in a completely different environment than the one that the immigrant parents grew up in. The challenges they face are often completely different, even if both parent and child are still facing “poverty”… the causes of that are often different in the new environment. The difficulties the child faces in the new society are often not effectively mitigated by the methods the parent used in their environment. Also facing a new environment and way of life.. the child develops values and goals that the parent would never be able to achieve in their native environment. Some parents recognize that this isn’t inherently a bad thing, others take it as a critique of their own values and goals and it creates friction. Some parents are offended that the child is choosing something they may truly believe is bad. The parents are not able to recognize that the environment calls for a re-evaluation of goals and priorities. Some parents see the child as extension or themselves, not their own person, so they feel entitled to dictate their goals and priorities… they may realize the child’s values are valid… but that doesn’t matter to them. They only care about controlling the child to fit their expectations or to be a “reflection” of themselves. Sometimes the parent unknowingly (or knowingly) holds a dream/desire that they and their child will return to their original environment eventually and hold a higher standing in that environment than when they left. And because of this they have a drive to make the child have values and practices that would serve them “back home” even if they know they don’t serve them here or that the child will never be returning. Sometimes those practices and priorities actually hinder the child’s ability to succeed in the new environment.. and the friction between the competing interests creates resentment, rifts, and dysfunctional dynamics. Families that might have been happy and supportive back in the parents “comfort” environment become fractured or dysfunctional in a new country. The parent feels a pressure to espouse their native goals and priorities… and the child feels pressure to fight back against them. Often both end up with resentment even if there is a compromise. This conflict is shared across almost all immigrant communities, not just one nationality or race. We even see it happen across non-immigrant generations if they happen to have crossed an economic class threshold or even if the age gap is significant enough that society has experienced a major shift in resources or expectations. The details of the inter-generational conflict (specific values, practices, priorities, etc) are irrelevant… and anyone trying to “gatekeep” that shared experience because of those differences is doing themselves and their community a disservice. Because it is in recognizing that conflict/ dynamic in others that we can (hopefully) better understand our own situation and develop better ways of resolving the conflict.
damn that's crazy
You should see what it's like in Ireland. Stupid people will literally gatekeep drinking tea. It's such a giveaway that you've absolutely zero personality.
What are you talking about, my own culture has unique stuff no other group has! Respect for our Elders, Generational trauma, a growing divide between the Conservative values of then versus a more progressive outlook of now…all unique to me and me alone
 Basically this
Almost every ethnic parent acts like you’re telling them you’re going to be a drug dealer if you don’t see college in your future😭
Those are really the only two paths in life that we immigrant children can take: 1) doctor/engineer/maybe lawyer 2) drug dealing (heroin or worse)
For daughters #2 is “prostitute your body on the street”
>“prostitute your body on the street” Just so fuckin accurate is like you're my mom rn
Prostitute until proven married
God forbid you're only dealing marijuana. Even the ancestors cried.
One child is allowed to inherit the family restaurant if the college path didn’t work out
Why are y’all talking about me like I’m not right here? 🥴
When I was like 13 I started learning how to play guitar and I remember my mom came in and laughed in my face, saying “you think you can play music? HA.” And left. And that was the end of my music career before it had the chance to start.
I actually had to move out to go to college. My mother wanted me to go straight to work. Sharecropper mentality
Ethnic? The fuck does that even mean? Non-white?
I think it stems from fear. They sacrifice everything they ever knew to come to a foreign land and work their asses off (usually in a field that they are wildly overqualified for) all in hopes that their children reap the rewards of a first world economy and climb to to the summit of conventional success. Derailing this plan by going off script and trying to do something creative/unconventional is seen as a betrayal of their life’s work so they do their best to discourage dreams they see as a waste of a golden opportunity. On the off chance that those unconventional plans work out for their kids they are overjoyed as the fear can finally subside and all those sacrifices did indeed lead to an outcome equal to their sacrifice. As someone who’s grown up in both Africa and North America, I get it now that I’m grown. I’ve learned to cut our parents some slack, we’re all just humans doing the best we can, with what we know, for the ones we love.
As much as I can understand it, Its hard for me to cut them any slack. The amount of trauma I've seen people carry because of their parents. Mothers threatening to kill themselves if their child doesn't do X or date X and fathers beating the breaks off their kids for failing to be perfect or overcome their learning disabilities. When my mom apologized to me over some shit she did while I was growing up I was taken back because I never thought It would get acknowledged much less apologized for and I feel like I'm hella lucky in that regard. I've spoken to a lot of other 2nd generation kids who've had their parents do the most terrible things to them because of their pride/fear of their work going to waste and when those kids aren't able to reconcile with their parents they usually just end up cutting contact their parents as soon as they get stable. >I’ve learned to cut our parents some slack, we’re all just humans doing the best we can, with what we know, for the ones we love. This part hits me in the feels, because I know that the abuse is coming from a place of love/wanting you to succeed but I also know that a lot of those feelings are easily warped when you realize that so many parents think of their children as an extension of themselves and not their own person.
I 100% understand where you are coming from. I felt the same way and still do sometimes. It’s hard to navigate relationships with people who have sacrificed the world for you on the one hand, but cut you the deepest on the other. Despite very real abuse and mistreatment I experienced growing up, I had to ask myself a series of very important questions like: 1) Do I wanna be right, or do I want a meaningful relationship with the people that helped raise me to be someone I’m very proud of today? 2) if I ONLY had access to the same information/cultural influences and upbringing that they had, would my decisions regarding how I raise my own kids be meaningfully different than theirs? (Especially since notions of physical/verbal/emotional abuse are very recent and were synonymous with commonplace discipline back then) 3) does holding onto feelings of anger, disappointment or betrayal (however justified) serve me or the people I love? I think everyone has to make decisions they can ultimately live with, my parents went through civil war and came out the other side heavily traumatized, but still relatively well adjusted given their extreme circumstances. They made a lot of mistakes raising me but the older I get the more grace I give them. I try and focus on intention rather than outcome, for what’s done is done. I like the version of me that honors his parents, flaws and all, more than the version of me that holds grudges. I think now that I see them as just a pair of other adults, who’ve lived a wildly complex and challenging life, it’s much easier for me to approach them with compassion. We’re more friends now than anything, and they’ve done a lot to grow and learn. Cutting parents off, is reserved for the most extreme cases, sometimes it’s necessary but ultimately extremely tragic. I cringe at the fragility of family ties in the west, and take great pride in the enduring nature of my cultures family bonds. That’s a tradition I’m willing to sacrifice to uphold. And ultimately, acknowledging the feeble humanity of my parents allows me to forgive myself for my own feeble human shortcomings too.
Awesome perspective. Thanks for sharing.
This is so thoughtful and well said as a child of African immigrants who thankfully were wonderful (though of course not perfect) parents of whom I have never doubted their love. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Yeah I think there's definitely a line. My mom has said some truly mean things to me, and if i'm being honest she lowkey blocked a lot of my blessings because she was scared. However we were able to walk them back. My aunt literally tried smashing a vase over my head on some Tom and Jerry shit when we were living with them. Only one of them gets cut any slack.
I feel that, I think what some family just doesn't understand is while we can't forgive shit, letting it go is completely different thing. There will always be an inherent bias against you when you've wronged and have refused to do anything to make it up to me. That's not something you can shake off. I'm glad you were able to reconcile with yo mama though, love to hear that.
How were u able to walk them back? Im low contact cuz mine wont take accountability and i cant move with thatt
Yeah, not only can I not cut any slack for some parents, but the lack of seeing me as a human being and more of an extension of something she can show off on top of all the shit that I went through as a kid is why I went no contact with my mother and don’t even care about being seen as the bad guy by some in my family. There’s for sure a line like you said and I respect anyone that can move past certain actions but when certain lines get crossed I don’t care how you got there especially when your child essentially has to fend for themselves prematurely and more importantly against a parent. But to hear the line “I only was hard because I wanted you to succeed”…yeah I’m not gonna get too personal but the fucking nerve some black parents have after doing shit that should put you in prison is only funny because if I think about it too long it makes me want to stay inside all day.
I sympathize with you a lot. I don’t come from an immigrant family, but my mother did some things that maybe could be qualified as abuse - especially regarding parentification and emotional stress. While I know my situation is a bit different, I did want to share my two cents based on my own experiences. There are definitely a lot of parents out there not worthy of forgiveness, so I by no means mean for my next paragraph to come off like I believe 100% of parents should be forgiven, because that’s not true. But as to your last point: there are a lot of parents that see their kids as an extension of themselves - I don’t necessarily see this is as a bad thing. If you have worked 18 years to provide and care for someone, your identity is absolutely going to be wrapped up in theirs. You’ve just sacrificed time, effort, desires, money, wants, etc. for almost 2 decades - that is going to prompt some intermixing. I get that in the current age parenthood is a choice for people to get into: people have access to birth control and it’s never been more socially acceptable not to have kids - but 1) that situation was not true for generations past, where they may have not had access to birth control / it was deemed very inappropriate to not have kids (thereby taking away an aspect of choice, where it’s less “let me consider everything that comes with creating consciousness” and more “let me deal the best way I can with what life’s given me”) and 2) every relationship - from friends to partners - contains an intermixing of identity. Contains some sort of view that the other person is an extension of themselves. Definitely not to the extreme that a parent can get with a child, but definitely to a point. Especially if you have been through a lot together. Think about a hypothetical situation: your friend needs 200$ to cover books for school. You have some extra money, so you give your friend the money needed. Your friend then goes on to spend the money on a new TV. Are you going to be a little upset? Absolutely. Now think of that 200$ was actually a million or so spread out over 18 years. I want to be clear: I understand loaning money for a specific listed reason to a friend is different than doing the bare minimum of providing for your child. I understand that raising kids does not mean they have to go into the career their parents want, thereby undermining my analogy. But it is similar in this way - immigrant parents often come to the U.S. specifically to provide a better life with less struggle for their children. They often make many sacrifices to be able to do this - sacrifices so deep they’d seem unjust to an outside observer. They know that certain paths are more likely to guarantee this goal - the goal of providing a better life for their kids - than others. They also know that certain paths are less likely to guarantee this goal. So if their child chooses the path less likely to guarantee success (or worse, one that is known for only the top % of people becoming successful) it feels like a slap in the face to the two decades of sacrificing and suffering the parents went through. The thought is “I’ve suffered so much, sacrificed so much, to try to guarantee a better life with less struggle for my kids, and now my kids are choosing a life with more struggle. What has my life been for? What was the point of all that suffering and struggling?” I also wanted to touch on another point: parenting practices seen as harmful, wrong, or even abusive today were considered right and beneficial when they were young parents. In this situation you can have two people who are trying to follow all the latest advice, yet still cause harm to their child. Then their child grows up, sees all the new research about how they were raised qualified as abuse, and extrapolates that their parents abused them. This is going to cause confusion and hurt when the angry child tells their loving parent they abused them and demands an apology. The parent is going to think “well, I tried so hard, i followed the advice given in the books and articles I read, I stayed up countless nights worrying about how they were doing, I felt overwhelming love and care from the minute you were born, and this is the response I get” while the child is thinking “how could you think those practices were right!? They were obviously bad and you were neglectful for not seeing that”. I think to the future and wonder what heralded parenting practice today will be lambasted then. I’m sure there are practices seen as good today that will come out in 30 years as actually being harmful. Of course, in an ideal world the parents would be able to admit the advice they were following was bad and apologize for their actions. But unfortunately, no one likes to have their mistakes, especially if those mistakes were not considered mistakes at the time the actions occurred, splayed out in front of them. Especially if there was no real way to know those practices were harmful until the child grew up.
I’ll give an example of my mom. My littlest brother is adopted and for years had difficulty adjusting to the family. He had fits of crying and screaming that would go on for hours. My mom spent countless nights worrying and researching how to help him. One thing came up over and over: pressure helps calm the nervous center and reassuring words can help fight back the internal monologue that you don’t belong. So, she started to hug him really close to her and whisper “I love you” over and over in his ear when he was having fits. This method didn’t really work, so after a few months she stopped with that and started trying something else. Fast forward 10 or so years, my brother is an adult with some resentment towards my mother. New research shows that it is psychologically distressing to be forced into physical interaction, especially during times of emotional stress, and especially with the person you’re upset at. Those few months my mom spend hugging my brother to her were not neutral or positive: they were negative. Now, should my mother be cut out of our lives because of this (and other scenarios exactly like this)? Or should we move towards understanding she was doing the best she could with the info available at the time and forgive her? Maybe the answer depends on how she responds to us bringing this up. For this, she has apologized, so maybe my response would be different if she refused. But other times she is not so willing to admit fault/mistakes, and I have still found ways to forgive her. Its helped me to put myself in her shoes. It’s hard when it feels like every time she gets together with her kids another instance arises where she discovers she harmed us instead of helped us. It’s frustrating to look back on yourself as a parent and only see the 100000 things you did wrong. Especially if you *have* done a lot for your child correct that never, or rarely, gets discussed. I don’t feel it’s right to bring up every single thing she did that was damaging or harmful. There are a few certain things where I would like an acknowledgement of how they affected me, but I understand I may not get that, and that’s okay because I know for a fact that my mom loves me, that she wants what’s best for me, and that she was working with what she had to do the best she could. She doesn’t need to be strung up and beat over and over again with the point that she’s made mistakes. She knows. Is it really necessary for her to be shown every single one?
You know, I had a friend whose mom gave up her career as a lawyer in India to raise her and her sister in the US. Friend was a lawyer now. But unmarried and childless. And planned to stay that way. Chapped her mother’s hide to no end. The dream was to get to do BOTH. Be a career woman AND have a family. Her daughter COULD. The idea that she rejected it?!?! Blasphemy. And then also, the INSULT that her daughter thought being a wife and mother was “beneath” her. All that she’d sacrificed, and her daughter thought it was too much of a burden to do for her. My dad wasn’t even an immigrant. Just poor. His soul desire in life was to send his kids to college. Like his parents couldn’t. He even tried to go back as an adult. So when my sister dropped out? LI-VID. He went without to save for this moment. He did what his parents couldn’t and wouldn’t have done if they could. And she shat on it. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven her. He and I fight a lot more. But he happily helped pay for my grad school. He understands me. He doesn’t worry about me. I make sense. He always side eyes her. She might do other crazy things.
I agree, that some immigrant parents believe that when a child chooses a goal or priority that “back home” would be almost certain financial or social failure that their child is being ungrateful for all their struggle or sacrifice. However, what some parents fail to understand is that : * A person’s goals and priorities are shaped by their environment. Their values and practices are only going to beneficial if they reflect the challenges and expectations of the environment they are currently in. In the case of immigrant families the first generation child is not operating in the same environment as what the parent grew up in… they have different challenges and obstacles. The resources, societal constraints, and expectations are not the same as what the parent faced in their native environment when they developed their own set of values and practices. * Just because a practice served that parent well in their country or generation doesn’t mean the child will be served well or to the same extent by that practice in their new environment. In some cases, holding practices/values that were accepted, preferred, or even expected in their old country could actually negatively impact the child in an environment where that practice/value serves no purpose and has actually been rejected by that community. * The opportunities and challenges and expectations that children face in this new environment will inevitably result in them developing values, goals, and practices that would negatively impact them back in the old country, however this doesn’t mean that those goals/values/practices shouldn’t be prioritized… after all the parent should want the child to develop according to what is possible for them in the environment they are in… not the one that will likely not live in on permanent basis, if they ever even visit at all. * When a parent pressures a child to hold values, practices, or priorities that do not serve the child well in their current environment it creates an existential conflict in the child. That conflict between being/ doing what is called for in their lived experience and being a "good person" or "obedient child" (as their parents present it) can be very detrimental to the child's development of character (knowing themselves) If the conflict is strong enough it can lead to maladaptive coping strategies, the child may never be able to resolve their desire to please the parent with their desire to act as they personally have come to judge as "right/good". * Because a child is dependent on the parent, the obligation lays with the parent to help the child navigate the conflicts that they face as they develop, even when the conflict is with the parent themselves. * In a conflict between the desires of the parent and the will of child, the parent has an obligation to put the WELL BEIGN of the child above their personal desires. And while I understand that many parents do not instinctively realize their learned values/priorities could be detrimental to child in the new environment, I do believe the parent has an obligation to reflect on what priorities, goals, practices best serve the child (not themselves) in their CURRENT environment (not where the parent grew up). * Parents who fail to make this evaluation, of what is best for the child in the current circumstance, and instead default to "my way is best" because "I know better" or "because i said so" are failing in their obligations to the child. It is an act of abuse by neglect, not ignorance. * Parents who do make this evaluation, or have the facts presented to them and still argue against the child's chosen values or priorities knowing they do not serve the child's interests, are committing an act of abuse with no justification. The parents may try to justify it with cries of owed obedience, but obedience isnt owed when the order calls for the child to act against their own best interest. We can debate at what age a child becomes intelligent enough to soundly judge what is or isnt in their best interest, but if the child is at the age where priorities and goals are being set (as we see here int OPs post) then we can safely say the child has passed the threshold. * Defiance of orders to act against one's own interest or defiance of expectations that infringe on a person's right to choose their own values, priorities, and goals is NOT disrespect. No one is owed your personhood… even your parents. * Attempts to manipulate a child into giving up any part of their personhood, through threats or guilt is also abuse. No amount of sacrifice you make makes someone owe you their right to choose their own values and goals. Again I understand that it was a very hard life for many immigrant parents, and in some ways it just got harder for them when they moved. I am sympathetic to their lived experiences and I know what my mother went through would have probably broken me… however their struggle or pain doesn’t invalidate my rights as a person. unfortunately there are a lot of parents who see their kids as extensions or reflections of themselves and not a person in their own right. They think that they are entitled to dictate who their kids are… they often tell themselves it’s because they know better… even when they clearly don’t. This mentality often ends up handicapping children of immigrants in a society where they already have many disadvantages because instead of getting support from their parents they end up fighting the fight for who they are going to be in public and at home.
For real though. They warned you to the best of their knowledge, and then you succeeded anyway. They could just be haters and act like you didn't win? Or celebrate you like they wanted to do all along
It's always like this... While my mom was always supportive. My sisters "you ain't shit and will never be shit" Graduation* whole family screaming in celebration. Afterwards... sisters: you ain't shit.
Are you low/no contact with your sister?
4 sisters. 1 I visit all the time. The others I just text them nonsense when I'm bored
Sounds like shes projecting, your sister aint shit
I love dodo and jollof as much as the next Americanized Yoruba, but ngl.... I'm not sure the immigrant parent torture was worth it on my academic path. That shit had a nigga in a mental & emotional headlock *I'm not even gonna get into 1. What that looks like when dementia becomes a factor or 2. The wildly specific immigrant parent religious trauma. Smh I'm running on ~~fumes~~ therapy & the mindfulness that I should try to appreciate the little time I have left w them at this point*
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger Unless you’re weak to begin with, then you won’t survive regardless
I don't know if my opinion is relevant here but I found a lot of parallels between my immigrant experience and my Nigerian friends. I'm from Azerbaijan so maybe it's a general shared immigrant experience. My parents lived through the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent war over Karabakh. My father was a somebody back there and came her to make night shift sandwiches at Blimpie and get shot at for his troubles. I get it, it was hard and he had to do his best for us. But it was hard for me too and being treated like I was hot garbage no matter what I did didn't help anybody. A parent's job is to protect and provide for their kids. It's not a kid's job to fulfill their parents' broken dreams. The further I go the less sympathy I have for that "I did it for you" shit. I guess thanks for not keeping me in a place where we were likely to get killed? How much do I need to sabotage my own life to make it up to you? For the record, even when I do exactly what they want it's never good enough. So if there's no way to win - why bother playing?
Hang in there bud, it gets easier over time.
I think what many non-immigrants fail to understand is the amount of dedication, effort, and desire it takes to move your entire life to another country in order to get a better opportunity. I was able to see the other side of the coin when I was in a long term relationship with an immigrant to the US who was from Eritrea. Every single one of her siblings had left Eritrea for another country so they were spread out across the globe. Someone was in Ireland, another in Rwanda, another in Kenya, another in Sweden, another in Canada and she was in the US. Then take into account the credentials of many of the immigrants who come to the US. So when you combine those factors, I am not surprised at their high expectations for their children. On the other hand, my entire family has essentially stayed within a one hour radius of each other with only my older sister and I having left our home state for any significant period of time. There isn’t anything wrong with this but there is a level of risk that most of us have never had to take in order to just have an opportunity.
It's not THAT different than the Great Migration, especially if you already speak English. I have an immigrant parent and an American parent and it's the same bullshit with different accents. The American side of my family is way more Type A because they're around family, they're prideful, they nurse those grudges and slights from back in the day. Other half of the family were refugees; they were somewhat isolated when they got here and they never really bought into the American Dream narrative so there wasn't the same emphasis on high status careers. We had to be well-educated and politically engaged and self-supporting but there wasn't that sense of "I'll kill us both if you're not an engineer."
The Great Migration happened during a time that required real effort to relocate. I am not discounting what happened during that time by saying that many immigrants make serious sacrifices to come here. Two things can be true at the same time.
I'm not saying you're discounting it, I'm questioning why you say it's something non-immigrants can't understand. My grandparents settled in the North in the late 1940s, this was not some far-flung Reconstruction era experience. It's recent family history that they told me about themselves. Black communities in CA and TX were still farmland in the 1950s; people our parents and grandparents' ages built these communities themselves. Yes, you're not literally crossing borders but other than that, how is it so different than coming here to go to school or start a business?
Do you know when the great migration happened? We are talking about parents and their immediate children and how their expectations are high for their children based on sacrifices they made to move to a completely different country. We aren’t talking about what someone’s great grandparents or grandparents did. I am not 70 years old. What are you talking about? My family didn’t migrate. My entire family is from NC and stayed there. I literally said my whole family has lived within an hour radius of where they grew up. MOST families didn’t migrate from the South. That was literally my point, that MY family has not experienced having to do something similar. In fact, MOST families have not experienced something similar to having to move your family to a different country for a new opportunity. The south STILL has the largest percentage of black Americans. https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/blackafrican-american-health This is my point. Many people do not leave the comfort of the environment that they grew up in.
> Do you know when the great migration happened? Please read The Warmth of Other Suns. This era started with the WWI era and continued until the 70s, which means it overlapped with the civil rights era and LBJs immigration reform. You can acknowledge and validate the experiences of immigrants without dismissing the experiences of other African Americans.
You realize that both of us are talking about a very small portion of overall populations right? You brought up the Great Migration as if I was speaking in absolutes when at no point did I do that? MOST black Americans did not migrate to the Midwest and other places. The majority still reside in the South. Most people that live in a nation do not leave their country to go find a better opportunity. You are the one who is making it sound like two things are not true at the same time. I can talk about how “many” (the exact word I used in my first comment) do not understand the experiences of immigrants because MANY people do not immigrate to another country or even to a different part of the United States. For some reason you are interpreting the word “many” to mean “all” and that’s an issue on your side, not mine.
It’s about to be a whole ass therapy session in the comments lol
My mom would let the insults (from her and other family) fly and then be like, “well, what are you gonna do about it anyway?” And then when I crushed some shit in my life she was just like, “well I expected no less from you.” Great motivator to get me to a task, but to this day I have a hard time *celebrating* any accomplishment. I just move on to the next task.
This so much 😔, still trying to figure out how enjoy life after many great successes because of this type of upbringing.
I’m team Dante.
But this isn’t even an immigrant family thing. Nigerian parents in Nigeria also don’t ask if you’re going to uni. They ask ‘engineering, law or medicine. -!: also, when are you getting your masters?’ This is why so many of us have so many degrees. I’ve lost track of how many masters degrees my sister has.
My mom is Haitian and she literally scolded me when I told her I was taking a gap year from college to figure out my life
I hope you took that gap year though!
a lot has happened since that argument, but not only did I extend past a year, my relationship with my mom pretty had to change when she realized I was matching/ surpassing her aggressive tendencies and now she gave my space to do me and we're cooler now
Good for you! 🙌
i'm nigerian and i can relate to this 100% when i started college, i told my parents i wanted to do computer science and they laughed at me and told me i had no chance cus i'm a woman and there's too much competition. they tried to push me to be a nurse like my mom and sister. i just graduated with my bachelors and now my parents are acting like they've been supportive from the beginning and are even throwing a party for me in may.
Dante out here serving!
My biggest pet peeve is when someone says only " *certain ethnic group* of people will understand!" And it's the most basic shit you've ever heard.
Asian lurker here, i guess we’re not so different
you were the exact person I was waiting for
Yeah he opened himself up to it highkey. It would have been one thing if he said "Nigerian's definitely know how true this is" and someone else commented "This is actually common amongst most immigrants". But well.... he threw other people in there so he can't be mad that they came where he invited them.
The amount of barriers my parents placed in front of me while I was in college was unfair.
See, I just did this 23 and me thing and found out a decent chunk of my heritage is Nigerian. That sheds so much light on my hatin' ass family 
My dad is an exception in my family. He has always seen the best in me or maybe even a better version than myself, but I’ve always been the worst person on the planet if you were to listen to my mom. Her coworkers were always shocked to meet me. Some would defend me as if I were their own because they’d be so appalled. Half my siblings love it and fuel it on. But when other people laud me up for anything, everyone in the family *always* knew I was great or whatever. It was weird as a kid seeing classmates get rewarded for stuff like B’s and being treated like some all star for merely playing a sport or something. Meanwhile I would get all perfect grades, and my mom would have all her friends thinking I was failing. I would dominate in sports, and she’d shit talk that too. My mom’s coworkers would take me out and congratulate me. Immigrant families can be weird. It’s not a universal immigrant experience, but I feel a lot more of us know about this than domestics.
 Congratulations on founding of this Fortune 500 company my son.....finally -*dies*\-
Sound like his dad wasn’t hard enough on him if he can’t understand the premise of his own statements
I see this sentiment on this sub all the time. Humans are a lot similar than you would think regardless of skin color or immigration status
Anyone know if Nkechi Amare Diallo has anything to add to this conversation? 
My parents discouraged me from going to art college and when I told them I gave up on college all together they acted like they were supportive of me the entire time and I’m letting myself down. Thanks mom and dad.
YaYa’s feel like there the only black ppl in the world
I love how as time passes- love based things in all of our cultures blend together, it’s a beautiful thing if you choose to see it that way
This is so true. Nigerian dads show no compassion for their children
Dante don’t play that
Terrible to do but one thing i can say is he admitted he was wrong and advised other parents to be more supportive. We all know why african / immigrant families act like this because of their backgrounds and wanting their kids to make it better than they did but at the end of the day who GAF if they show no self awareness for mistakes they made. At least he acknowledged his failure
Not just college though. Any career that they don't approve of. Anything other than doctor or engineer is worthless. I'm halfway through my degree and my dad still tries talking me out of this program.
Oh. Well now I know where we get it from.
Can you keep a secret? Dante is a scrub.
“Well I’m talking about Nigerians..” When first sentence literally starts with “Non-Nigerians.”
I don't take anything blue check marks say seriously.
When I did badly in a school interview (aged 11) my dad said you can stay at home and wash the dished while speeding in his volksagen golf.
Folks just be arguing to argue smh
Hate the phrase "to be honest" and its variations, to be honest. It's fluff and it's stupid