Challenging Intergenerational, Daughter-Mother Relationships

for Asian American Adult Daughters

• Feeling so much anxiety, anger, guilt feelings regarding your mother?
• Having a hard time balancing your own wellbeing while wanting to improve relationship with her?
• Want to learn how to navigate when there is so much competing cultural expectations and misunderstandings with each other?

It often brings a host of conflicting emotions when we have a history of challenges with our mother or other family elders. As Asian American daughters, there are often gender-role socializations (e.g., being a caretaker, being the mediator, being kind and gentle, being more quiet/silent) in addition to many Asian cultural believes that are often strengths but also present challenges in close relationships (e.g., “endure,” be patient, that it is impolite and unacceptable to talk back or to directly confront differences and have different values). It is also a taboo to acknowledge and talk about conflicts especially about our own mother. This leaves little or no room for healing and relational support. Here are some preliminary tips to navigate such challenging relationships.

Tip 1: Identify your own feelings (they are legitimate!) and focus on your own healing. It’s hard enough to change our own behavior, it is nearly impossible to affect change in another person, especially an elder. With fraught history, our mothers likely have childhood and historical, generational trauma and will continue to have their own triggers, their own emotional needs and turmoil. Yes, we are here today because our ancestors survived! Previous generations have often needed to only focus on survival. We are mostly safe and secure today, not needing to focus on survival on a day-to-day basis. Without having to focus on survival, we are now able to see these hurtful and oppressive systems more clearly. Our parents’ bodies may still be very trained to focus on survival, even if they do not necessarily need to. (It does take a lot of practice to re-train our body out of that survival, fight/flight response and into a more relaxed mode.)

Parents will also mostly continue to see adult children as still their “kids” (until they actually continue to witness you taking charge of your own life and being healthy). Many traditional Asian (particularly East Asian) cultures also do NOT have teachings of listening or taking in feedback from an underling or a child. Therefore, practice not taking in or absorbing their turmoil. They are allow to have their emotions without you automatically taking the responsibility for them or to try to change them. Their emotions are theirs. Practice your own emotion regulation, and non-violent communication skills, instead of trying to change your mother! When you are more healed and emotionally calm, it increases the likelihood of you not reacting as strongly and not feeding into the fire in the relationship, to de-escalate the turmoil. This will also improve your relationship with your mom, when you’re not reacting emotionally. If you’re not quite sure what “non-violent communication” may consistent of or would like some practice, please seek professional guidance.

Tip 2: Notice when you’re avoiding or distracting yourself (watching Netflix marathons or getting lost in social media or endless YouTube videos). Some consider these “disassociating” behaviors. Perhaps you’re learning a lot through those videos? These were likely quite helpful (and may continue to be?) and effective emotional distraction skills growing up and at times as an adult. These are often short-term solutions. At the same time, avoiding and distracting behaviors do not allow you to practice engaging a calming presence in the midst of adversity or turmoil. Learn additional intentional emotion-regulation skills, regularly engaging those relaxation/parasympathetic responses, such as slow, deep breathing (e.g., box-breathing technique or 4-7-8 technique), mindful walking, mindful dish-washing, and/or practicing engaging your polyvagal nerves are all helpful. You can look up these practices on YouTube (and gauge how much you’re getting sucked into other related videos!), and eventually practice these without any guides. The more you practice those intentional relaxation skills, the easier and quicker you’ll get to that regulated, calming state when you are facing adversity. Don’t wait until you’re triggered emotionally to practice these. When we’re already triggered, we are not likely to use new skills. These skills have to be so practiced and ingrained that your body and brain will fall back to them when you’re stressed; we usually fall back to doing what we’re used to doing when we’re stressed.

Tip 3: Acknowledge your own Values. Growing up, we naturally follow our parents’ values. As an adult, our parents may not understand or may not have been exposed to different values. If you notice feelings of guilt come up as you prioritize your own self and healing, recognize the cultural context, socialization and years of training that has been ingrained–that we’re “supposed” to be family- and group-focused, that we’re suppose to sacrifice ourselves, our bodies, our health for others, especially for elders. These may be short-term and may sometimes be appropriate and helpful. However, it is not possible to continually give up our own internal needs; eventually, this will take a toll on our physical bodies.

Ask yourself: Where did I learn my beliefs? Whose voice is that? What are my own values? Take some time to decompress before answering these. (When we’re in a calm state, we make better decisions.) Bring your attention to the lower part of your body, perhaps your stomach area, when you consider different values. Curiously notice how your body reacts. Consider: Are these cultural messages in alignment with me? Sometimes we are faced with conflicting values (e.g., care for own children versus providing services/care for our parents) that forces us to choose. For example, if your kids are sick and your parents need help grocery shopping or fixing their internet. Or, you are exhausted from work and a family member is wanting to spend time with you. At what point is it OK and safe for you to identify and state your limitations, even to yourself and not just to your mother or that family member? Do you feel that you need to get to the point of exhaustion before you are free to state your own needs? Consider: Focusing on your health does not necessarily mean you care less for them. Practice acknowledging their care and desire to be together, that you may also have similar desires, AND (not “but”) also stating your own limitations and needs.

Tip 4: Recognize that you also inherited a lot of intergenerational strengths, after all those generations of war, oppression, sexism, heterosexism, misogynies that went on, and on, and continues today! We are here to step differently for ourselves, for humanity. Step into our strengths and channel them for good! This could also mean that with healing and space for yourself, you eventually are able to practice that endurance and intentional choose time to be present with your mother without feeling the need to change her. Eventually, we get to be intentional to pick which strengths we want to step into and strengthen! What intentions to you want to set for yourself?

If these relationships continue to be challenging even after years of trying to affect change, please do connect with a supportive network and/or mentors. Also consider working with a licensed professional who is culturally-skilled to facilitate your healthy navigation through the cultural nuances of family beliefs and historical practices. You deserve to heal and take steps toward more grounded and conscious choices in these relationships.

Contact Dr. Lin for potential therapy, to learn how to build and grow healthy relationships:

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