I wanted to discuss this with you, HJ, for awhile now. Yes, it has been awhile. This topic has been circulating my head for a good few months.
HJ, do you think integeranational gap is culture-driven? or not?
Wow Lily when I first read this I was stopped in my tracks. Great question and I’m looking forward to your perspective and what it brings up for me.
As I grow up, I started to experience disagreement with my parents and extended families. I have noticed I have different perspectives to my parents. And, I thought the main reason for our disagreements were culture-driven. Let me try to illustrate this to you.
I was raised in a culture that children are “expected” to care for parents as they age. Children are “expected” to financially support their parents as they grow up. Children, particularly the first son and his associated family, are “expected” to live with parents in the same household. Sending older parents to aged care facility was seen as immoral, disrespectful, and disgraceful. Yes. My parents have a perspective of “older parents should be cared at home until it has become medically impossible for them to stay at home.”
When you release expectations, you are free to enjoy things for what they are instead of what you think they should be.
Mindy Hale
Wow (again) this was not my experience. The parents role was to care for their children and encourage them to go out on their own. It does seem different these days with so many adult “children” still living at home or returning home and expecting their parents to help them out.
I could not wait to leave home and all the restrictions to start my life and explore. My parents did help me out when they could yet it was not something I expected.
Yes I so hear you about the “putting older parents into care”. It was not seen as something you did unless the parents needed special care. Even then, there was still a stigma attached to that decision. This is a truly complex situation. I’ve seen many who could wait to put their parents into care and sell the home and divide up any money that came from that. Then there were those who tried to care for their parents at home and truly struggled with the decision of putting them into care, knowing they needed special care, yet feeling like they were not a good “child”.
As I have integrated different cultures, I struggled to break some of these expectations. I saw how my parents were challenged to break-off such tradition/custom yet they still follow these tradition to great extend. Even though they were challenged, they wish they will have similar care for themselves.
I started to question these expectations. Is that really what you want me to do? Is that the best way to take care of you? I have begin to see and taste the crust of these expectations that they have “enforced” on me or my sibilings.
Ingergenerational support is crucial. I feel like generations give up on each other. If you’re Gen Z, you’re like, “Gen X is never gonna get it.” If you’re Gen X, you’re like, “Those Millennials are such idiots.”
Yara Shahidi
Lily, you certainly are in a very difficult place. Thank you for sharing this. I’m so sure so many have been and possibly still are dealing with this dilemma. Could only imagine the pressure on an only child as there was enough pressure on me as the only girl in the family. Even though I have three older brothers, it was expected that when it got to the point of my mother needing extra care, my mother expected more of me than them. Dealing with their expectations and also what I call the “emotional blackmail” that comes with it, is not an easy thing to deal with.
I was discussing such differences to a friend. She had similar background to me. She simply said “that’s our tradition.” I discussed this topic with my cousin. She also said that she was comfortable with the tradition. Okay, this was the point I start feeling that I am the odd one, to some extent I felt alienated. I guess, I was looking for a different answer than accept the tradition as it is. May be my friends were more traditional than I thought.
If we carry intergenerational trauma (and we do), then we also carry intergenerational wisdom. Its in our genes and in our DNA.
Kazu Haga
Living with tradition could not be an easy way to live. Especially when you are living here in Australia when our traditions are so different. Yet in saying that, there are many here that have the same expectations as you are discussing. I don’t feel you are alone is this Lily. I know many struggle with these decisions. It truly comes down to having the difficult discussions with all the family as I feel it’s not yours alone as you have siblings and extended family who need to be involved.
After a long time negotiating with my heart, I have realised it probably wasn’t so much of intergenerational gap. It was more about my choice. I have choosen a potion of tradition from my parents and grandparents to carry on with me and leave the rest behind. Obviously, such choices were different to my parents. Yes, my parents might have preference of tradition they wished that I have carried on yet it was different to what I have chosen.
Now, I am trying my best to find the balance between myself and my parents. Sometime I accept their preference while other times they give in to my preference. Either way, I guess, it is a lifelong learning and negotiating acceptance of the perspectives of each other.
Well done you Lily. Your awareness and insight is so valuable to you and for you to share with others who find themselves in this position. It is a lifelong learning and yes, negotiating acceptance of the perspectives of each other. A harsh statement made to me, when I was struggling with “what to do”, was “whatever you do now, will you be able to live with yourself when your parents are no longer here?”
A good example is my decision of not having a baby after a certain age. I remember when I first told my mum, she was shocked. However, after several discussions, she supported my decision. Well, she couldn’t let go of my marriage yet though. We come to an agreement that I will marry only if I met a person that I can consider sharing the rest of my life. If not, I probably won’t.
Oh yes I can understand her shock and the cultural expectations on you to get married and have a baby. It is so much easier for many who are not from a culture with those expectations to make their own decisions. I can not imagine a life with an arranged marriage and expectation of children. Just look at Charles and Diana for example. I was expected to get married and have children. Something that didn’t sit well with me. I was not “good” at being married or as a mother in the beginning. Being a mother became my life’s mission and passion to give my daughter the best life I could without all the expectations from me, that I had from my parents.
So, is this culture-driven? or intergenerational gap? or part of everyday life?
I think it’s all of that. Our lives are so multicultural here in Australia. Which gives us choice and more complex issues around making those choices.
Whenever there are beginners and experts, old and young, there is some kind of learning going on, some kind of teaching. We are all pupils and we are all teachers.
Gilbert Highet
In Conversation 