Katherine was raised by her Ecuadorian parents to be independent, and feels that asking them for help comes at a cost. And therapist Evelyn Mejia shares ideas for maintaining firm boundaries while speaking our parents' love language.
Featured Expert: Evelyn is a first generation, bilingual and bi-cultural Licensed Marriage Family Therapist. She was born in Guatemala raised in San Francisco's Mission district (currently based in LA). Evelyn specializes in working with bi-cultural and first gen folks providing psychotherapy services as well as immigration evaluations. She works with adults, youth and families focusing on depression, anxiety, trauma, domestic violence, biculturalism, acculturation, parenting, identity issues, relational and immigration issues. In her work, she incorporates a cultural lens with elements from different therapeutic modalities, including attachment-based therapy, psychodynamic therapy, narrative therapy, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Her approach is also informed by theories and practices of decolonizing psychotherapy and healing. Lear more about her private practice, La Mariposita Healing, here.
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi everybody. Today, we welcome Katherine. Katherine's Ecuadorian parents raised her to be very independent, but now that she's an adult, they'd love it if she turned to them for support more than she typically does. For Katherine accepting their help involves a lot of careful calculations. Let's get into it.
Katherine: My name is Katherine and growing up, I called my parents, mami and papi. In fact, they actually preferred it. Anything else, mother, father, ma or pa they deemed disrespectful. So growing up in my family, I feel like, was a very quintessential immigrant experience. We were all getting a hang of the language, but because I was younger, it was easier for me to absorb it and learn faster. They spent their days working and then they come home. So I didn't have a sibling at the time. So I spent a lot of my time with my cousins or alone. They were very much on top of you make your own money. Education is important. You don't get married because you needed to, you get married because you want to. They were very big on like, you are your own person, we're raising you so you don't need someone else.
So it's really interesting to see how they, as I get older, have pushed for me to lean more on them and be more dependent on them. And so I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that I had to figure things out for myself growing up. At some point they were like, well, you can lean on us for more. But then at that point, we had transitioned into adulthood. So it's kind of like, no, not necessarily. I can pretty much handle myself now. They take it really personally. I think the way that they grew up, it was kind of, it's very community driven. And I definitely understand.
Other ways that they kind of encourage me to lean on them more is whenever I talk about an issue that I'm having, or maybe for a certain month, my budget is like super tight for whatever reason, they will be like, come home and let us know if you need like beans or a jug of milk or whatever it is, having a tight budget is kind of like alarms for them. They're like, oh my God, she's run out of money. Things are going bad. Come stay with us for a couple days. Like they really spiral into it. And I'm like, no, it's okay. I'm not starving. And I would never say no if I were really in a tight and difficult situation, but I'm not in that situation. Unfortunately I think there's always a string attached and in that case, it would be like, oh, because you're coming to stay with us like, and you're leaning on us in that situation, we get to dictate the food, right, we get to dictate the food that we're helping you out with.
Katherine: They would never force me to eat something that I'm not comfortable with, but they would kind of, that would be like the unspoken conditional aspect of that help. Side story. I lost my home in hurricane Ida. So everything got flooded and it was pretty crazy. That's a dire situation, right, in which I had to lean on them. But before I did that, I laid down some very hardcore boundaries. And so there's a hesitancy in accepting these things because you have to really manage it like a politician would with like a policy, be explicit about your expectations, about the timeline, the details, your boundaries, and constantly like reinforce and remind them.
It's still hard to accept help. There's a price tag attached to it. And it shouldn't be like that. It should be like, my help is unconditional. Right. I don't expect anything later down the road. And they say they don't, which is the most hilarious part. They're like, I don't expect anything because you're my child and I love you, but there's always something there. And when you point it out to them, they're like, no, no, no, no, you're misinterpreting this. And then they kind of start to gaslight you.
I have a younger sister, she's eight years younger. And the way that they've raised her and are still raising her, because she's just entering adulthood, she just started her first year at university has been different. And I think she's able to be a lot more aggressive about her boundaries and they'll take her seriously. That's the key difference. They don't need to have constant arguments and bickering, they'll just take her word for it. They'll have an adult discussion with her. They'll sit down and then have that conversation. And they're open to listening and it's so different from how I was raised because I was raised, it was like my way or the highway. At first, I was like, this is weird. I didn't grow up with this, this sucks to see this like, that you were capable of behaving like this as a parent, but you just weren't capable of doing that with me at that time.
Lantigua.: As the eldest daughter in an immigrant family, I completely relate to what Katherine said. I also was raised to be very independent, very self-reliant. And I also learned the value of having healthy boundaries with my family. So those two things make communicating needs really, really difficult for folks like Katherine and I, maybe you too. How can first gens manage our relationships with our parents in a way that helps them feel needed and wanted without feeling like we are betraying who we are at our core? To help us figure it out you know what I did, I called in an expert.
Evelyn Mejia: My name is Evelyn Mejia. I'm a marriage, family therapist. I'm also a first generation immigrant myself. I was born in Guatemala, but I came to the US when I was nine. So I was raised in California.
Lantigua: I always start with the same question, which is, what did you hear as you listened to Katherine's story?
Mejia: What did I hear as I listened to her story? A struggle of identity, right, of wanting to be like your own person, but also being very tied to the family, right? Experiencing feelings of guilt, maybe of wanting to break away from some of that, of creating kind of your own route or journey. Right. I think it's a very shared experience when it comes to first gen daughter of immigrants.
Lantigua: So Katherine was really clear that her parents pushed for education, pushed her to be Americanized. Like they encouraged her to really take full advantage of all of the opportunities that they came to the US for while at the same time, she felt like they wanted her to need them. Do you see that in your practice? How does it manifest, this need to be needed?
Mejia: It's something very common that happens in terms of aging parents. Right. I think, and immigrant parents too, I think that there's a lot of identity tied to their work, right, and to their ability to provide for their families. And so for our parents, as they're aging and their identities are also changing, right? There's parts of them that they're losing too. Right. It manifests itself in that way. Like I want to feel needed, I want to feel wanted, I want to feel like I can still do these things for you, which can create a conflict. Right. Because, well, I'm already an adult and I can do these things for myself. But I think building compassion for our aging parents can go a long way to understand kind of their experience and where they're coming from. With Katherine, I think it sounds like her parents are wanting to still feel that sense of purpose, right, of that sense of needing and being useful and being able to do some things for her.
Lantigua: There's a word that I've heard multiple times when I interview first gens about trying to set boundaries and it's ungrateful, mal agradecida, right? Like it comes out of very loving parents, parents who are otherwise very supportive, but who feel like their child is not grateful for what they have been able to do. And that they're demonstrating it by trying to separate, by trying to gain that independence. How can we keep from getting to the point where somebody calls us mal agradecida, you ungrateful child?
Mejia: One of the things that I was thinking about when listening to Katherine I think, it's how do we show love? Right? And it's very, sometimes there's a difference between how we show love and how others want to be shown love or how they receive love. Right. And so understanding, how do your parents show love? We might not be speaking the same love language.
Lantigua: Right.
Mejia: In terms of how we're letting them, or maybe expressing gratitude or letting them know that the sacrifices that they made for us are something that we carry with us and that we are grateful for. Maybe the way that they want to receive love is the same way that they showed it to you, whether it was buying things. Right. A lot of our parents, they show love by buying us stuff. Sometimes it's stuff that we may not need or want. Right. But maybe doing the same for them. Right. Like when you're visiting, right, like bringing them something to kind of in that way speak the same love language that they do.
Lantigua: I'm so glad you said that because I was like, so do I bring the quiz, like the love language quiz? And do we fill out the questionnaire? I don't know how I would do this with my mom, but I definitely know how she expresses love. And she's definitely one of the people who will just buy you stuff that you're like, but I have that already, or I don't need that. And so, yeah so maybe mirroring back to them their love language is a way to go. Okay. So two more questions for you. One is about the need sometimes for there to be healthy conflict, because sometimes you just get to that point where there's an impasse and there's no way out, but through it. Talk to us about not avoiding the conflict, but sort of entering into it in a way that can get you out of it in a healthy and sort of like forward moving way.
Mejia: I think communication, right, is a big one. And talking about as it comes up and expressing, right, our needs, our wants, and I know that I statements can feel very foreign to us, right, like when we use, and what I mean by an I statement is like I feel blank when you blank. Right. It can feel like a very foreign language because we're not used to solving or having conflict in that way, but learning to practice kind of that language so that it's more receptive. Right. Because when we're coming at it from like, you did this, you did that, or you do this, or you always do that, it can feel very combative. Right. And it can put the other person in a state of defensiveness, right, like having to defend themselves. And so getting into the practice of like, I feel mad or I feel unheard when you ignore my request, like getting into that practice of like, what is it that I need to communicate? How can I communicate it more effectively so that we can have healthy conflict? Right.
Lantigua.: My final question to you is any other advice that you might have for Katherines and the Katherines of the world and other first gens who are navigating the push and pull of wanting to be close to our families, wanting to be independent and not alienating either side?
Mejia: I think building compassion for our aging parents. And I think once you start to build that compassion, you can gain understanding. And at the same time build kind of like a separation, right, and being able to view it as something outside of yourself, that you don't always have to take responsibility for it. You can understand it. You can be compassionate for it, and you can be gentle with it, but doesn't necessarily mean that you have to take on the responsibility for somebody else's feelings, right? Again, building kind of this balance between who you are as a person and who you're becoming versus who someone else is, what they're struggling with or what they may be going through.
Lantigua: Evelyn, thank you so much.
Mejia: Thank you, Juleyka for having me.
Lantigua: Okay. Let's see what we learned from Evelyn today.
Speak their love language. Try showing your love for your parents in ways that make it easy for them to receive it. If it's not always what comes most naturally to you, think of it as an experiment.
Use I statements. Doing so, lets you communicate your feelings and your needs while also helping you avoid defensive reactions from your loved ones.
And remember don't hold yourself responsible. You can be compassionate and understanding towards your parents without taking responsibility for their feelings.
Thank you for listening and for sharing us as always. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the shows producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram we're @talktomamipapi. Bye everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “Parents Want Her to Need Them More”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything,
LWC Studios., March 14, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.