Love, But Make it Silent

They never said “I love you”… but your plate was always full, your ride was secured, and your phone was definitely being checked.

In this episode, we explore how immigrant parents express love — without always saying the words. From sacrifice and survival to emotional language gaps, Dr. Phebe Brako breaks down why love doesn’t always sound like love across generations.

If you’ve ever had to translate “Have you eaten?” into “I care about you deeply”… this episode will hit home.

Send your questions and topic ideas to consult@phebebrakolmft.com or slide in my DM's on Instagram @drphebebrako

Remember we can only grow our audience with your support. Please share with your community!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

I love you, you love me. We are happy family with a big bowl of foofu and a kiss from me to you. Won't you say you love me too? Welcome back to Between Two Worlds with Dr. Phoebe. Well, you know, we're over here just bridging the gap, right? Immigrant edition. And the podcast where we translate what your parents meant even when they didn't have the vocabulary. I'm your host, Dr. Phoebe Brackel. I'm a therapist, immigrant daughter, and a professional decoder of emotionally constipated love. Today's episode is from the parents' perspective, because sometimes the truth is not they didn't love us. It is they loved us in a language that we didn't really understand. Today's episode is called I Love You. I just don't know how to say it. So growing up, right, a little story time. Growing up, my parents, especially my mom, I would say, I she didn't say things like I love you. Right? I still remember the very first time that I heard my mother say I love you. And it was when I moved away, actually, and went to college. And even though she didn't say I love you, she would say things like, Have you eaten? Did you eat today? Uh, you need to wear a sweater, right? She would also say things like, Call me when you get there. Because at my big age, if I get somewhere and or I'm going somewhere and I I don't tell my mom when I've made it there, trust me, I will be getting a phone call or a text. Did you make it there? Right. And so I even learned, you know, a little sidebar here. I've learned to like actually set up my iPhone to where my mom gets a text when I'm going to the office, you know, have it just set automatically because sometimes I'll be on the phone or I'll be listening to an audiobook or something like that, and I'll forget. And you know what? I don't want to deal with Mama Sissy. I really don't, right? Um, even though she didn't say I love you directly, she would say things like, you know, who is driving? Who are you going with? Right. And I still remember being in college, and one of the very first phone calls that I I had with her. And, you know, I've moved for out of Ghana. I've come to the US. I am fresh in school. We're having this conversation. And I say to her, you know, I get I'll talk to you later, you know, blah, blah, blah. We're going on and on. I know you all can remember some of the have some fond memories or remember those conversations we have with our parents when we first, you know, leave. And my mom said, Okay, I love you. I said, Hold up, wait a minute. Wait, what? Like, did you actually just say that? Like, did did that just come out of you? I remember freezing. I remember just kind of being taken aback, right? Because if I ever said to my mother, you know, you never say that you love me, right? You never say I love you because I would have read about that or experienced that in, you know, these Western movies and things like that. My mom would probably say, Ah, after all I've done for you, you want English words. Like, ma'am, apparently, you know, tuition is the love language for our parents sometimes, right? Because it's I've paid your school fees, I gave you a place to sleep, I took you to America. What else do you want to hear from me? Right. So let's step into our parents' shoes for a minute. And I know that this can be really hard for us when we aren't really having these kinds of conversations with our parents in the first place, right? The first thing for us to really think about is that a lot of our parents were raised without this, without the words, I love you. Right? Many of our immigrant parents grew up in survival mode. Nobody was sitting around and saying, I affirm your emotional experience. I see you, I hear where you're coming from, right? Their parents showed love through sacrifice. Their parents showed love in in taking care of them, right? Because that is how love has been defined for many of us culturally. And it wasn't just like softness where people are, you know, hugging and loving and all that. And we saw a lot of that in our um on TV, right, in our media. So when you ask your parents, your immigrant parents to say something like, I love you, it feels very unnatural, right? Because for them, love is the action, love is the is the the behavior, it's the things, it's the obligations, right? It also feels vulnerable, right? It makes them probably feel exposed. And I'm also going to say this as a parent, because like a lot of times vulnerability is not something that is encouraged in in our generation. Now, I have gotten into the habit of being able to say, I love you a lot to my children, right? But it's also because I've done a lot of work around vulnerability, right? And so when something is not encouraged in your generation to where, you know, you're you're saying these words outwardly and and you're being soft in in different ways, it's very different, right? It's it's not the standard, it's not the status quo, right? And as I was even thinking about this, like I was saying before, love, love was action, and and it wasn't, it's it's not just words. So for our parents, love has looked like working double shifts, um, sending money back home, right? Which in itself can be such a touchy subject because you think about how our parents are struggling so much, living away from home. They're working really hard. You see them struggling with, you know, going to sleep, waking up on time, sometimes working several jobs and things like that, and and they're just sending all this money home. And it's like, wait, like, are you gonna keep any for yourself or are you are you gonna save some for yourself? Right. But that is what love looks like for us and in many cultures too. For our parents, you know, it has also looked like never taking a vacation, right? And and making sure that that money that would have been used for a vacation was was put aside and it was um, it was saved for the college fund or whatever it is for the car. And sometimes it has looked like our parents also skipping their own dreams. One of the things that I've realized is that when we talk to our parents, we learn so much about them and and dreams that we would not have even imagined that they would have. And sometimes you think about it and you're like, wait, like that that was it? Like this is what you wanted to do. And then there's other times that it it will blow your mind where they tell you about a dream that they had, and it's like, wow, I'm so sorry that you weren't able to realize that dream. Now, a minor-ish dream that I remember talking to my own mother about was her wanting a kitchen island. I said, Wait, what? You she said, yeah, I've always wanted a kitchen island. And so when we moved into a house where there was a kitchen island, my my day was made. I was so excited because I got to have that, right? And she didn't get to have that in the house that we were growing up in, right? And for a lot of our parents, too, the there's this mindset, right, that they um they left their entire country for us, right? Like I left my whole country for you. What other proof of love do you need? Because to them, that is love. It's the action. And at the same time, if you're like me, you're probably thinking, well, you know, a hug every now and then would be nice, right? There's two valid languages here, but there's no translator. Another thing, too, is that with our with our parents is that there is this fear of losing authority. Because in in a lot of cultures, we have a hierarchy. And in in some cultures, emotional softness might feel like a loss of respect in some ways. And I know it might sound wild to kind of think about it that way, but if you were to actually talk to your parents or talk to people from like the older generations, you would understand some of this stuff, right? And so if our parents say things like, I'm proud of you, I love you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, like I don't know how many parents say that. But it feels like there's a lowering of a shield. And and for many people who have had to be strong their entire lives, shields are our survival, right? And they the shields have have played a role, an important role. And you think about the journey that parents go through, the journey that they take to get to where they are, and to be able to have the lives that they do, and to be able to be able to give their children those lives too, that shield, it has to stay up for a lot of reasons. So here is the the hard truth, also. Many immigrant parents are, for lack of a better term, emotionally illiterate, right? Not because they don't feel deeply, but because no one ever really taught them how to express their emotions safely. And I know for my culture, like we're not an emotionally like heavy culture. And that's one of the things that I had to get used to when I moved to America, right? We have emotion, but the ways in which we're going to express them and talk about them, very, very, very, very different, right? So, so our parents were not necessarily taught to express some of these things the way that we have gotten used to them, or the way that we see in media, or the ways that, you know, like our needs are changing too generationally, right? And so, you know, you grew up in a culture that says, you know, use your words, name your feelings, communicate directly, and all of those things. And so for you as an immigrant child or a child who's growing up away from their parents' home country, you're asking for verbal affection from people who were taught that love is proven, right? And not, and not spoken. So you can see here that there's two different like languages being spoken, and both of them are valid, right? I'm not saying one is better than the other or that one is more important than the other. The the thing is that that gap that is that exists, that is where resentment starts to grow. And and as a therapist, you know, sometimes when I'm working with couples or when I've worked with couples in the past, I'll talk to them about, you know, different love languages. And I know that that's a very controversial topic in in our, I don't know, therapy field, pop psychology, all that stuff. But I talk to them about how um when it comes to showing love, it it's like asking for potatoes, right? And you might be asking your partner for french fries, but they continue to give you hash browns or mashed potatoes. Are they both potatoes? Absolutely. But it's not the same thing, right? And so before you realize this is resentment that's growing because one person is saying, I keep asking you for for french fries, and you keep giving me hash browns, and then the other person's like, Well, I'm giving you hash browns, there are potatoes too, right? And then there's this like gap, and there's this miscommunication that happens. There, there's this piece of like a lack of understanding, right? At the same time, this is also where repair can happen. And that is part of why we're having this conversation, right? That's part of why we're we're having these kinds of you know, talks about the fact that love is going to look different for all of us. So here is this week's bridge the gap tip. I want to encourage you to expand your definition of I love you. So if you are the child, right, I want you to start noticing how your parents already say it. Sometimes it's through food. One of my favorite moments in the day is when my mom will text me and say, Phoebe, food is ready. I'm like, oh yes, home cooked meal, right? Because a lot of times I'm working and I have forgotten to eat, which is a very, very, very bad habit. Okay, you know, like I'm not perfect. Yes, I'm a therapist, I'm a clinician, and all that stuff, but sometimes I'm a workaholic too, right? So I'll be working, I get really focused, and I'm on it, and I will forget. And then my mom will text me, Won't you come and eat? Oh, it's like music to my ears. Or she'll say, The jalof is ready, the banku is ready. Oh, I love it. Love it, right? And so for me, that is that is one of the ways in which I know that that love is there. Also notice even things like money, right? Your parents are are, I don't know, paying your tuition or they're giving you some, you know, $10 here. Hey, you know, go and buy something for me, and you know that it's $50, but then they gave you $60, and it's like, oh, hey, here's a change, and then oh, keep the change. Or, you know, just put it down for me. It's one of the most like glorious things. Now, I'm not gonna lie. When I when I was younger, I used to go to the market a lot. I started going to the market, I think I was maybe in like fourth, fifth grade, I think. So I'd go to the market and you know, I had to write a list of of groceries that I had to go buy. And I knew very well, right? I went to the market enough to know that, for example, maybe this particular item is like a dollar. I'd put like a dollar fifty, right? And then I would add it up. My mom would say, add it up. And then I would tell her, okay, it's equivalent, right? We used to spend CDs in Ghana, but just for relatability, I'm gonna use dollars. So I would say, oh, okay, the total is $57. And she'd say, okay. And she would give me the $57. And I know very well that it's like $50. So, you know, I'll be pocketing. How am I telling of myself? I would pocket the $7. And I learned that my mother knew, right? But she did not, she wouldn't, she wouldn't ask questions because I thought I was slick, and I learned my mom was slicker. So sometimes, you know, she would end up going with me to the market, and as we're paying for stuff, she would look at me and say, Ah, I thought you said this was $2. The lady just said it's a dollar. What are you talking about, right? And but just the way that she would she would let it slide. We used to call it chubou in Ghana. She would let it slide that I would be taking this trouble from her. She that was love, right? And and and I didn't realize that until later. And when I think about it, I'm not gonna lie, it's one of the things that that makes me sad when I think about those days as a teenager, especially when I thought my mother did not love me. Um, another way in which our parents will express love is through worry. At my big age, when I go out, my mother will text me and say, Hey, it's getting kind of late. Are you coming home soon? And sometimes it feels overbearing because it's like, listen, I'm a grown woman, I'm gonna do what I want to do, but I'm still her child, I'm still her baby, right? And so our parents are going to show that love through worry. They're going to show it also through sacrifice, right? Our parents could be taking vacations, they could be doing all these fun things and whatever. Maybe they don't even know that they can do those things, and we have to teach them that vacations, you know, are a necessity sometimes, taking time off. But they're not taking the time off, they're working so hard, and that is a way in which they're showing that love through through sacrifice. And yes, I know that there's a generation of us who are also thinking, well, I didn't ask you to. And and I I would push back against that. Yes, we didn't ask them to, absolutely, and those are some of the ways in which they know how to give us love. So for this conversation, I invited someone who has shown me love in about a thousand ways, even if I love you, wasn't always the exact frame that was used. My mom is here today to help us unpack this from the parent perspective. Mama, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. All right, it's nice to see you here. And one of the things that I'm curious about, you know, I know grandma, you know, mommy, your your mom is no longer here with us. And so one of the things that I would like to ask you is, did your parents ever say I love you?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Ghanian parents, some my parents or my mom didn't say I love you because she didn't understand that word in um our language, right. She will say oh meddle, yeah. But if uh you do something good, yeah, like you help her in the market, in the house, help her cooking, she will appreciate you instead of saying I love you for helping, she will just say you've done well, yeah. But not I love you. She will appreciate you in a way, you know, at times uh she will just uh shake your hand, shake your hand, yeah, or just tap you, oh you've done well. Right. Yeah.

unknown 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

And in our language of a can, you know, I love you is middle. And even even for me, I one of the things that I I I'm wondering for you is whether you remember, like, is that something that you would say to me as a child? Do you remember saying that to me as a child? Or do you remember you know when or the first time you said that to me?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Oh yes. Okay. I remember the time I gave birth to you at the hospital when the nurse brought you. I just held you and said, Oh, I gave you a kiss on your cheek and I said I love you, my baby girl. And um apart from that, I will show love to you by feeding you. Appreciate what you do to me or for me. You help me. I do care, I sacrifice, I sacrifice for you, sending you to a good school, international school. Yes, I went to a clinic.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

So clinics. Yes, oh yes, of course. It was not cheap. I remember that so well.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't expensive, yeah. But I tried um from uh kindergarten, uh nursery to kindergarten, you know, it was a good school, yeah. That uh you attended, and uh I showed love even when you pass your uh JSS the BC BEC BEC you went to um Ghana, we will call it secondary school. I did my best. I drove from Accra to Cape Coast, which was about how many hours? I can't remember, but it was far, yeah. Maybe about three hours, yeah. Three because of traffic, three or four, yeah. Yeah, I show love. I send you uh food every weekend.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Uh no, no, it wasn't every weekend, it was every weekend. No, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

No, I thought that it was good. I mean, it was it was good. It just wasn't every week. Yes, yes, you would come visit, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

I remember come visit, uh, especially speech days, yes, and uh visiting Saturdays, Saturdays because so for context, I went to a boarding school, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:18

And so with the boarding school, you know, you you had to stay there, you couldn't leave, and so yeah, you would. I remember you would. It was one of the best days of my of my week.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, but I forgot when you were a baby and you are crying, yeah. I will just carry you, and uh I I have there is a song I always sing for you, baby little girl, don't cry. I love you, and you'll be smiling, yeah. Like you understand what I'm saying is good. I show love, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah, that that is that is true, yeah. And I I I think also for for a lot of us, you know, not to cut you off, but a lot for a lot of us, too, what I what we're Realizing is that for our parents, the I love you may not have been in the words, but it came through the actions, yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

But now I'm a grand grandma grandma. I've been helping you, showing love to you and uh the kids, yeah. Their kids have been helping, so I always love you. I always love you, and I'm proud of you. Yeah, love you.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

And and I remember, you know, I when you I I I love that you said that you told me that, you know, as a baby. Of course, I don't have any memories of that. Although I, you know, I've heard the stories of of my birth and how you almost had me in the toilet. Now we will talk about that in the book, okay? We will talk about that in the book. But I remember the a moment I the that I remember was the first time I heard you say I love you, right? And even in that, you I think I heard you say love you. And I think that's what you still you still say because I think when you add the I, there's a level of vulnerability that I think sometimes it might be a little uncomfortable to say that. Is that is that right? When you say the I. Yeah. Is it uncomfortable? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I thought so. Well, I and I think that it's also not something that we say very readily in our our in our culture, right? Saying I love you from parent to child or child to parent. It's not very common. I mean, yes, there are families who do that, right? But I remember the very first time my my memory in terms of hearing those words was when I came to Salem. When I came to Salem College in the US after I'd left, and it was just me and you saw me off at the airport. And I remember, you know, one of the moments that stands out to me when you said I love you was uh you called. You called me one time in my room. And I think it was maybe the first phone call that we had after I got my phone in my room. Yeah. And before I hung up, you said, Okay, I love you. I love you. Yeah, I remember. I remember just freezing in that moment, like, hold up, wait a minute. Did I just hear that? My mom could just say that I love you. And as a teenager, you don't realize some of these things because you think that love has to look a certain way, and then you get older and you realize love is more than just words. Yeah. Right? Because some people can say I love you, but then they might not necessarily mean or understand or like have the actions to back those words. And so I think what I've learned from a lot of immigrant parents and and African parents is that love is an action. It's in when you're asking me, have you eaten?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Right. And and that's one of the things that I love about my mom, right? That I will always appreciate not only the fact that like you cook so well, but a lot of times I work so much and I will be upstairs working and I will forget to eat, right? I forget to eat. I will come and ask you, have you eaten? I want to eat to eat, you know, and you say, Hey, I will to eat. And and I will is a term of endearment for for us, for for both of us, where it's I think as I'm getting older too, we've started calling each other that because it's like a like a woman-to-woman kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Right. And so you will come and ask, you know, have you eaten?

SPEAKER_02 25:14

And I'm like, Oh no, I actually haven't.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

And say, come and eat. Right, right. And and and that is one of the ways in which I know that you love me, right? And I see that even with you as a grandma now, seeing how you interact with with the boys, right? Seeing how you're you're patient with them. And sometimes in our generation, right, the millennial parents, we talk about how we see our parents becoming a different version of themselves when they become grandparents. Because there's a certain level of gentleness that you have with with the grandchildren that that maybe you didn't have with me. But as I've gotten older, I've understood why. Right. Just getting the context of what it was like to be a woman like yourself, a working woman with three children that you were raising because, you know, dad was gone all the time. And now, you know, being the mother that I am, right, as a divorced mom and having to do a lot of these things also on my own, but also having your help, right? And and seeing how you just you just love on the boys and how much they love you and they get to see you. I I wonder for them, and maybe that might be something to actually ask them. I wonder for them whether that's something that they they will see the way that I I did, right, as a child. But I've heard you tell them that you love them. I've heard them tell you that they love you. And and it's such a beautiful thing. And I'm glad that we gave each other the chance to grow into this.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah. Yeah. I think we did well. And yeah, and you know, I've had a lot of um experience. Yeah, experience. That's why it's grown now. Because first I didn't experience it, I didn't know, but now I've had a lot of experience. That's why uh I'm close with uh you and the kids, yeah, the boys. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

And we appreciate it a lot.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Okay, we're gonna start now before I cry because I just I just fight.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

So if you're the parent and you're watching or you're listening, I want you to also practice one small phrase this week. I'm not asking for a speech, I'm not asking for a poem, you know, I'm not asking you to do anything like that. Just simple words like, I'm proud of you. Simple, straight up, I'm proud of you. Simple words like, I'm glad you're my child. Now I know that these words are going to be uncomfortable, right? And your children also need to hear these things from you because we're making an assumption that our children know these things about us, or they know these things just because but there is a there's a gap here, and I'm here to help us fill that gap. So simple words like, I am glad you're my child, I am blessed to have you as my child or saying things like I love you. It's going to feel awkward. I know, but say it anyway. Emotional fluency is a learned skill, and it's never too late. These are things that we're going to have to learn to do. I learned to start saying I'm sorry to my kids. And it is something that has really changed our relationship. And yes, my children are very young, right? My children are all under 10. And the beautiful thing about that is that I'm modeling it too. So if we want to see certain things from our children, we need to be also brave enough to to show them what that looks like. Right. And so, Auntie, it's never too late. Okay, Uncle, it's never too late. Sometimes it's just I'm proud of you. That's it. That is all we're asking. Because you might be showing it and your children need to hear it from you. Okay. So y'all, your parents may not say, I love you, the way that you see on Instagram or on TikTok, you know, the clock app or on Facebook. But your parents crossed oceans for you. They left the comfort of their homes, they made a lot of sacrifices for you. And you you're crossing emotional oceans for them. That is bridging. That is what we're here for. So next time, we're going to, you know, swing over to the child's side, you know, a little surprise topic for us to talk about here. And I hope that you've enjoyed this this conversation. I hope that you're going to take some things from from it and hopefully do something different too. I know I'm I'm doing things differently, right? Because as a sandwich immigrant, too, guess what? I'm I'm I'm trying to learn how to do some of these things as I'm also expecting them from my parents. And so I'm even learning how to say I love you more to my parents. And yeah, absolutely. It's awkward because I don't really hear that that often, but I'll never forget sometimes when my dad would text me and he would say L-U-V. U. And I'm just like, okay, I say you pops, you're trying, right? Or he would just say L V and you know, I'm thinking to myself, can you just say the words? Just say the words. I love you. No, but listen, it's baby steps, okay? So we'll take we'll take that, okay? Baby steps, all right. So I am Dr. Phoebe, and this is me attempting to bridge the gap between our two generations where we're living between two worlds and where love is multilingual, it's generational, and sometimes it's just wrapped in plastic on the living room couch. So, thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back next time. Remember to hit subscribe, remember to like, to leave a comment, and as you know, there's a chance to also send in comments if you would like to. Find me on Instagram at dr phoebe. You can send me a question, or you know, at some point we would love to hear from you all. So, thanks, and I'll be back next time. See ya.