Immigrant Daughter Q&A Part 2

Who Takes Care of the Daughter?

She’s the translator.

The caretaker.

The peacekeeper.

The responsible one.

The cultural bridge.

But who takes care of her?

In Part 2 of this powerful Immigrant Daughter Q&A, Dr. Phebe Brako explores the invisible labor many immigrant daughters carry and the emotional weight that often goes unseen.

Together, we discuss:

✨ Parentification and caretaking

✨ The pressure to hold families together

✨ Aging parents and guilt

✨ Navigating multiple cultural identities

✨ Why immigrant daughters struggle to rest

✨ Reclaiming joy, boundaries, and self-worth

This episode is equal parts validation, healing, and a love letter to immigrant daughters everywhere.

Because you shouldn’t have to lose yourself while taking care of everyone else.

🎙️ Listen now and send this to the immigrant daughter who is carrying more than she lets on.

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_00 0:00

One of the listeners wrote, as an only child, I constantly feel guilty about my parents aging alone. And I think that this is a conversation that many immigrant families are avoiding because eventually immigrant daughters are going to have to face that impossible question do I move home? Do I stay? Do I find a place for my parents to live? Do how do I care for my parents and my own family? Welcome back. So the last installment of this conversation about immigrant daughters, we talked about guilt, we talked about shame, we talked about a lot of things like that. And today we're going to be talking about responsibility, or as immigrant daughters know it, having 17 jobs that you never applied for, between being the consultant to being Wikipedia, to being the assigned guardian, and having to be the one to go to PTA meetings and school, school meetings that you never signed up for, learning how to parent even before you're an actual parent, and having to also come home and be the cook and be the one to be the disciplinarian when you have younger siblings. We ain't signed up for all of that. You know what I'm saying? And speaking of that, we end up being in that second mother role. Yeah. The second mom. Because as a as a daughter, it's like, oh, this is what you're here for. One listener wrote, Why am I responsible for cooking, cleaning, finances, and everything else while the sons watch TV? Now, let's be honest about this. Many immigrant daughters become unpaid assistant parents. You're not just a daughter. You are a translator. You are a babysitter. Because, you know, who's going to watch the kids? You're a therapist because your mom is going to come talk to you about all of the different ways in which your dad has made her angry. You are a secretary, because, you know, make sure that you put this thing on the calendar or make sure that you do this and that. And you're also the chauffeur. Yeah. You're chauffeuring your younger siblings to different games, different events. You're also the cultural liaison for the family. And somehow people will still ask you, why are you so stressed? Because I'm wearing 50 million hats and nobody's asking me, hey, are you okay? And then there is a part where this podcast has been based on being the cultural bridge. Now, one listener wrote, We are expected to be translators, caretakers, and bridges between cultures. And this one hit me so much because immigrant daughters often become interpreters before we're old enough to understand what we're actually interpreting. And when I say interpretation, I'm not just talking about language. Many of us are helping our parents navigate systems while we are still learning them ourselves. For people like me, you know, our parents are getting older and we're having to navigate what social security looks like. And one of the things that I always find funny about trying to navigate the social security system is the fact that every time I have some questions about that one, I haven't gotten to that stage. So I don't, I don't even know. I don't know about SSI, I don't know about all of these different systems that exist here in America. I'm trying to navigate it myself. And I thought that I had enough time. So I didn't pay attention when some of these things were being talked about in the past when I was, you know, employed and, you know, employers will be talking about different benefits. I was like, oh, I have time. I have at least what 40, 50 years before I have to think about this. And now I'm being forced to think about it because my parents are reaching that age and they keep asking me all these questions, and I'm just staring at them like, I don't know. I don't know about the Medicare system. I don't know about these credits. I don't know about all of these things. And let's be honest, it's a very, very heavy, heavy, heavy role. And many of us are having to carry that role without any support. Because who do we even go to? Some of us don't know where to go to to even get the support or get the resources or who we can we can ask. Now, I did find out that there's different insurance brokers who can help answer some of the questions about Medicare. If you're in the US and Medicare Part D and all the different there's so many different things. And so we're we're navigating that. We're having to be translators for the educational system. You know, depending on when we moved to the US, my I didn't do my K through 12 here in the US. I did my K through 12 in America. Sorry, in America, in the in Ghana. And I there's things that I didn't know about, right? There's these different systems and different resources. And I was lucky because I worked as a military and family life counselor in schools. So I worked with military kids who were in civilian schools in our area. And so that's how I learned a lot about different things when it came to school, the different systems that exist, i.e.Ps, if people, if kids needed occupational therapy, if they needed speech therapy, truancy laws, like all of those different things. But imagine if I didn't have that experience, I wouldn't know anything about that. And then there's people who have younger siblings, and you have to figure out well, what do we do at parent-teacher conferences, including that calendar on your calendar too? And and trying to also understand the medical system. Which doctors do you go to? So we're helping our parents navigate like specialists and all that. And we we don't even know some of these things, right? It's it's not easy. And and speaking of that, let's talk about like aging parents, having to deal with an aging parent or any aging parents as an immigrant daughter. One of the listeners wrote, as an only child, I constantly feel guilty about my parents aging alone. And I think that this is a conversation that many immigrant families are avoiding. Because eventually, immigrant daughters are going to have to face that impossible question of, do I move home? Do I stay? Do I do I find a place for my parents to live? Do how do I care for my parents and my own family? Right? Because you have kids, you're prioritizing your kids, but you also see your parents and you have this obligation also to your parents, and you have this love for your parents, and you want to make sure that your parents are okay. And as immigrant daughters, we can't even think about putting our parents in homes or like these, like the elderly homes or those places for the aging parents, because like that's not what we do in our culture, right? So, so how do you navigate that? How do I honor my parents without losing myself? And these are not easy answers. And if you're an only child, you don't even have any siblings to bounce these ideas off of, right? You might not have anyone to talk to about, hey, my parents are getting to retirement or my parents are in retirement. I don't know whether to encourage them to go back home or whether to have them stay in whatever country you all are living in. So, for example, like in my case, in the US, right? What does that look like to continue to support your parents and also say for your own retirement too? Because that is something that we were raised to do. We were raised to take care of our parents, we were raised to honor our parents and make sure that they're okay. And at the same time, we also have kids. So do I put money into my kids' savings accounts or do I put it into an account for my parents? Right? These are some of the conversations that we were not having. And also on the medical end of things, there's this thing called an advanced directive. Do we even know what that is? If you don't know what an advanced directive is, this is your chance to pause and go and do your Googles and look at what that means. End of care. Do we want, you know, do we do we want to to to keep our parents on life support? Do we want to pull the plug as soon as we have the news? Like, what what are we doing? And let's be honest, a lot of our elders are afraid to have this conversation. So even when we are thinking about it, even when we're thinking about the will and we're thinking about their last wishes and all those things, and we go to them with that, that in itself becomes a bone of contention because the question becomes, oh, why? Are you trying to push me out? Are you wishing me dead? No, I want to know what you want us to do when you're no longer here because we're not, we're not immortal. We're not. At some point, we're going to go. The good Lord is going to say, Uh-huh. Good and faithful servant, it's time for you to come home. And then we don't know what to do. Do you want to be cremated? Do you want to be buried? Do you want to be buried here? Or do you want to be sent back to your home country? Right? These are all things that we we need answers to. And I think that those questions also have our elders maybe considering their own mortality too. And that the fact that it's closer than they think. And so, as an immigrant daughter, especially if you're the oldest daughter, there's all these things that are sitting on your chest, and you you end up having to to navigate it by yourself if you're an only child or if you're the oldest, because the rest of them are looking up to you like, okay, Bixis, what do you, what do we do here? Right. And we are not, we're not having those, those conversations. We're not talking about, would you like to be put on life support? Would you, would you like to, you know, be sent to hospice? Do you, you know, there's all these possibilities. And I also know that it's so overwhelming because for some of us, we're coming from countries where all those options did not necessarily exist. You see what I'm saying? And then speaking of being from different countries, there's also that piece around cultural identity. And and one listener asked, My mother says I'm not Mexican enough, but she brought me here. I mean, we've had an episode about that too, right? And let's sit with that because many immigrant children are being criticized for not being enough of a culture that they didn't get the opportunity to fully experience. They were moved out of their home countries or they they they moved into a different country, very young age, or during their formative years. And so you're hearing the message about, oh, you're too American, you're too Western, you're too independent. But here is the thing, too. You are a product of exactly where you were raised. So if you were raised in North Carolina, all you know is cookout and bojangles. Okay. Like that is that is that is the standard that you have. And if you were raised in the Pacific Northwest, you know, Patagucis might just be the uniform that you're used to wearing with your little flannel and your Ug boots, okay? You are not a failed version of your culture. You're just not. You are a new expression of it. That's just what it is, right? And so as an immigrant daughter, you're also holding that bicultural experience between your home culture and where you were raised, and how do you greet your elders when you walk into a room? You know, how'd you greet your elders? I recently had like a this awkward interaction where I met an elder in the community and and I stretched out my hand to to shake her hand, and she just like reached in for a hug, and all I could say was, oh, you know, because that it was such a such an American thing to just kind of like think that we were on an official basis, sort of thing. So I had to be formal. And at the same time, she's like, no, you're family to me now. Come here, let me hold you, you know? And so there is that it's it sounds so trivial, but there's all these different expressions that happen within our social interactions, and then you realize, wait, hold on, which one am I supposed to be doing today? Like, am I supposed to be wearing a boo-boo, or do I put on a dress? Or like, do I put on pants? Right? You're you're kind of going between. And at the same time, I know I've been talking about a lot of like not so awesome things, but the reality is that it's not all a struggle, right? When I asked people what they loved about their culture, here's also what they said. They said they love the humor, they love the community, they love the spirituality, they love the food. Because listen, plantain and jollof fries is always going to be lit, okay? They love the identity, the sense of belonging as well. And honestly, that sounds so, so, so beautiful because I think about the community that we have, I think about the things that we're all able to connect over. I think about being able to, for example, wear like my dresses from home and and and still feel connected to my culture and in one way or another. And it's so beautiful. It's one of the things that I hold on to. I mean, fashion is one of the ways in which I will always express myself and being able to wear clothes from home is one of the things that I I've always cherished. Now, in the past, it wasn't this, it wasn't that when I think when I was in college, when I first came to America, I felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb. And people want to like touch my clothes and want to touch me and be like, oh, this looks so nice. You look so cute. Where'd you get that? And I'm just like, stop touching me. Like, so for a while, I just I tried to blend in. And I wouldn't wear clothes from from back home for for a while because I didn't want to look so different. I didn't want people to notice that I wasn't from here. I was trying to assimilate, right? And at the end of the day, you know, immigrant daughters, we're not trying to abandon our culture, we're trying to keep, you know, the the best parts of it. And I think it also takes a certain level of confidence to be able to show up authentically and show up as who you are as a as a person and holding on to your your culture. And I've always looked at some of my personal pieces as conversation starters because if I have my Jinya Me earrings on, you know, I'm going to meet somebody in public and like, oh, I really like your earrings. And it's it's a way for me to explain, well, this is an ad increased symbol, and it means accept God. And, you know, we get we get to have conversations about that. And so it's not all awful, right? I don't want us to just think about all these negative things. I think about how, like, even as immigrant daughters, we are such caretakers. And one of the ways in which I personally show love is through food. And whenever we have our end-of-year party or we have any kind of gathering, my practice, 253 therapy and consult, shout out to us. I one of the things that I always do is making sure that we have some Ghanaian food. And also a shout out to Gourmet Maria, Gourmet by my Maria. She's on Instagram. Go check her out if you are in the PNW Seattle area and you're looking for caterer, but she always hooks us up with some great Ghanaian food and like all these different pieces of like our culture that we get to share. And so we have so many different ways in which we get to show our love and and show our sense of belonging and our and share our culture also with others. So I don't want us to think that being an immigrant daughter is this negative experience. There are some really, really, really, really, really, really tough parts of it. I'm not going to pretend, right? I'm not going to minimize it because a lot of us are dealing with a lot of pressure. We are dealing with all these different ways in which we think we have to show up, and different ways in which we are afraid of failing and disappointing our family members, especially our parents. And we're also working really hard to keep our culture. We're working hard to maintain the different beautiful parts of our culture. I I was very intentional about making sure that my boys had Ghanaian names and we call them by their Ghanaian names. We we talk about about Ghana. We talk about the experience of growing up in Ghana. We talk about we talk about so many different things about Ghana and being back home. And I gotta be honest, I miss home. I really do. I miss Ghana. I miss all these different parts of home. And as an immigrant daughter, there's also these differences that always stand out to me. And one of the the moments where I miss home the most as an immigrant daughter is when it comes to grief, when it comes to losing somebody when I'm when I'm mourning, because the grief process is so, so, so different. And as I I was as I was talking about aging parents earlier, I couldn't help but think about my parents. You know, my parents are in their late 60s, and at some point, I they're not going to be here. And and as an immigrant daughter, I think about the decision of do I do I have America be their final resting place or do I take them back home? I think about what to do around that, and there's this anticipatory grief, is is what we call it. And I'm not gonna lie, there's been times where like I've woken up in the middle of the night crying, just thinking about that, you know? And and it's hard. I'm not gonna lie, it's hard. I have this conversation with a lot of my fellow immigrant daughters, you know, my my friends, my sisters, and and we all share that that connection too. So I I think I I I I guess what I'm trying to say through all of this is that there's some really beautiful parts of our experience as as immigrant daughters. And I I don't want us to only focus on all these perceived negative parts or the difficult parts, I would say, not necessarily negative, but the difficult, the hard parts. So the the biggest lesson, honestly, from these submissions is that immigrant daughters are tired of choosing between themselves and and their families, right? They want they want both. We want to be able to choose ourselves and also choose our families. We want to have that bicultural identity. We want to be able to have connection and also have boundaries. We want to have culture and also want to have freedom. We want family and we want individuality as well. And I don't think that that is asking for for too much, right? And so when you think about even, you know, culture and freedom, what does that, what does that look like? Holding on to different parts of your culture that make sense for you and letting go of some of these like gender roles and and gender expectations of women are supposed to do this, women are supposed to do that, men don't do this, men don't do that. But then at the same time, you know, we have the the honor of partnership and and marriage and relationships. We want to be able to have, you know, the connection with our families. We want to be able to sit and have conversations with our moms and our dads and still be able to say, all right, well, it's six o'clock and I need to go home. Or it's six o'clock and the kids need to, you know, start getting ready for bed. Right. So here is the the bridge the gap tip because you know I have to leave you with a little some sum. Okay. So to every immigrant daughter who is listening, you do not have to earn rest. You do not have to earn rest. Rest is yours all day, every day. You do not have to earn boundaries, you do not have to earn your humanity. Just by existing, you have the right to rest, you have the the right to put your feet up at some point and just stare into space. Not even reading a book or watching something, just like staring into space and just being there because a lot of us don't know how to rest, myself included. I'm still learning how to rest. And sometimes for me, rest looks like just laying down in my bed. I'm not necessarily napping, I'm not sleeping, I'm just laying down, just letting my body do nothing. You don't have to earn your humanity. You you deserve these things already, just by being you, sis, just by existing, you get to show up in the ways that you want to show up. You get to turn things down also. If you don't want to do the big Thanksgiving gathering, you get to do that. If you don't want to cook for Christmas, it's not a must. Maybe this is the year that you you do some catering. Maybe this is the time that you have cleaners come to the house to do the cleaning. Maybe this is the year where you send your laundry to a laundry service. Maybe this is the year that you decide to cut the financial support in into two and put half of that money for yourself into a savings account, or buying a CD, or getting some investments, getting in on the stock market, buying some crypto for yourself, I don't know, whatever it is that you need to do. Maybe this is the year that you decide to take a vacation somewhere that is not your home country. Go to Mallorca, go to Greece, go go go to Mexico. Maybe this is the year that you decide I'm not going to go to Ghana. Oh, I'm not going to go to Nigeria. I'm going to go somewhere else. Because there's so much of the world that we deserve to see. We deserve those nice things for ourselves. So perhaps this is the year that you actually let that conversation or the let the trip. Leave the group chat. Now listen, I'm offering myself. If there's a group chat that you need me to be a part of, just let me know. Okay. Put your sis into the thing, okay? I mean, of course, ask me first. That's one of the things. Yeah. People have been adding people to different group chats on on WhatsApp, for example, and they don't ask for permission. Please, before you add somebody to a group chat, make sure you ask for permission. Like, hey, is it okay for me to ask you to add you to this group chat? Because, like, no. But you know, at the same time, the vacation needs to leave the group chat. So if you have a little vacation that you're trying to plan, listen, my passport stays ready to go. You know what I'm saying? So that like let your girl know. Okay. We're trying to be outside. So if this episode resonated with you, please, I'm begging you to send it to another immigrant daughter. Trust me, she is carrying more than she is talking about because many of us, I won't stop saying this, many of us have learned to suffer in silence and we want to portray this, you know, oh, I'm fine, I'm good. I'm, you know, curated version of ourselves. And sometimes when people say, Oh, well, I didn't want to bother you, I will always say, like, do we really have a friendship? Do we really have a relationship if you haven't inconvenienced me or bothered me in one way, shape, or form? Like, if if you're not, if you're not reaching out for me to stop what I'm doing, to listen to you, if you haven't done that, are we really friends? I'll never forget years ago sitting with with a former friend of mine, and I think I was talking about having a really, really hard time dealing with some of the things that are going on in my life. I dealt with infertility for a while, and I talked about like, you know, sometimes sitting on my bathroom floor crying, and she was like, But how are you sitting on the bathroom floor crying by yourself? And you're not reaching out to friends like me to come sit with you and cry together. And like those words stuck to me, like they stuck to my brain, and I'll never forget that because like I just had that that visual there. So this is also for me to to continue to do my work around community to make sure that I'm also connecting with people that I'm reaching out. So if you're listening and you haven't reached out to me in a while, please reach out, send me a text, hit me up, call me. And if you've also enjoyed today's conversation, remember to subscribe, leave a review. Those reviews are super duper important, super important. Leave a review on your on the podcast platform that you're listening to this on, and you know, leave us some stars. Five stars are always preferred, but you know, if you have like one star, maybe we should have a conversation about that first, okay, before you leave that one star. Okay. So I hope that this was helpful, and I hope that you come back and join me next time as we continue to bridge the gap between immigrant parents and their immigrant daughters and their children, because you know, healing doesn't happen alone, and neither does culture. So until next time, keep talking, keep listening, and keep building good bridge. So, guess what? We are opening up some slots for a sponsorship. If you've been watching or listening to this podcast and you've been enjoying it as much as we have been enjoying recording it, I would love to invite you to consider sponsoring us. You can reach out to me at consult at phoebracklemft.com. That's a consult at phoebbrackle at lmft.com. 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