Influence and Insight: Exploring my Parent-Daughter Dynamic

There’s a phase to every relationship  

Dating -  Meeting → Affection → Breaking up 

Breakups - Denial → Sadness → Acceptance → Moving on 

In my relationship with my parents, I've traversed through these phases:

Dependence  

As infants, we are utterly reliant, unable to fend for ourselves. Our world revolves around understanding what it means to be human, grasping the very essence of existence. We are completely dependent during this phase.

Admiration 

Adolescence ushers in a time of susceptibility to influence, and my parents held the greatest sway.

It's when cultural foundations are laid, learning the intricacies of Vietnamese language and traditions with my parents.

During this time I learned their stories of survival. They survived war and came here with nothing but a green army bag, and the clothes on their back and the hope that they would have a better future for their children, which was me. 

The weight of their experiences shaped my aspirations for perfection, a desire to make them proud in every way. The pressure to embody the ideal Vietnamese daughter—successful, deferential, flawless—was ingrained during this phase. I needed to prove their sacrifice was with coming here for 

Resentment 

During this time, I’m supposed to live up to all of those expectations. Only to realize that these expectations are unreachable at the state that they want me to be compared to the situation and restraints I was given in life. 

The bar was set impossibly high, with financial struggles adding to the emotional burden. The lack of support during my education and the expectation of perfection created a sense of failure and bitterness.

I had to graduate college but couldn’t really afford it, so I’m constantly struggling to make ends meet. I take on as many student loans as I can in order to barely survive. Signing away anything to get to the next semester.

My parents didn’t support me through school, putting me at a low-end high school only for me to not get ready for college, which was already a struggle.

My parents didn’t support anything but expect perfection.

My parents didn’t help me, but we are expected to help them.

This is a heavy dark phase because not everyone gets past this. It’s taking me a long time to get past this. I secluded myself from my family, so they didn’t see that burden.

At this time is when I realized I’m just a failure.

Understanding - 

With time came a profound realization—my parents are human too, and they aren’t perfect. Understanding dawned that their struggles and limitations were as real as mine.

As a child, I always put their struggles more importantly than mine. I put their pain more than mine, Their life more important than mine. This mindset also resulted in resentment. It allowed me to think that other people’s struggles were more important than mine, giving me more internal struggles, but during this phase, I accepted the fact that there isn’t a comparison to my parents' struggles towards mine or anyone else's, they are all the same. Struggles. No life is perfect, or an Instagramable life, they all become filters, and I think that Vietnamese people are very good at filtering out what they want people to hear, see, do.

In my life, they are the OG influencers. Only showcasing the positives masking their own challenges. 

Bragging about their children, possessions they own, but the thing is, everyone struggles. I guess that’s the part I am right now is the understanding that while I’m okay with talking about my feelings, not everyone is, and I have to accept that. I have to accept and understand that while I’ve chosen to live my life the way they do. Embracing this understanding means meeting them where they are, accepting their way of coping and communicating, even if it differs from mine. Ultimately, it's about recognizing that they did their best within their circumstances.