Blog #8: Family Matters - The Ever-Changing Family Dynamics

We all have had parents, grandparents, legal guardians, or someone older who influenced our childhood upbringing.

I had a fairly traditional nuclear family—a mom and a dad, two older sisters and a younger brother. My parents immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in the early 80s, first, my dad with his siblings, followed by my mom and my eldest sister, and then the rest of us were born in California.

They have a super cute love story themselves. My parents grew up across the street from one another in the small, rural province of Gerona, Tarlac just three hours north of Manila. It was in their twenties that they took the plunge and transformed their longtime friendship into a committed, loving relationship, now celebrating 35 years together. Both hardworking, devoted to their family, my mom a nurse and my dad a mechanical engineer. They instilled their Catholic faith in all of their children, sending me and my siblings to Catholic school from preschool to high school.

We’re all four years a part (I know, incredible and efficient family planning) so in our teenage years, every four years one of us would start or graduate from a prestigious all-girls or all-boys Catholic high school. We were not rich by any means, my parents made incredible sacrifices for all of us. I still recall several days where my mom would leave for work before our dad would drop us off to be at school around 8 a.m., and we wouldn’t hear her return until the front metal and wooden doors opened after 11 p.m. when my dad came back after picking her up from her second job that day. My mom is that unbelievable work horse who invested her money in her family. Most days, she worked two shifts at separate nursing homes in order for her and my dad to pay for their children’s education, countless bills, and send whatever they had to share with her parents and family in the Philippines. 

She always joked that my dad was our buddy growing up. He was the one who had a similar schedule to ours. Having the flexibility to drop us off at school before leaving for work across town, and then picking us up from daycare or extra-curricular activities. My mom’s probably right. When my sister got married last year I used my co-maid of honor speech to sing the praises of our dad and how my brother-in-law could learn to be an A+ family man like him. I shared bullet points on how to be a phenomenal husband through examples I observed and admired in my younger years. Hey, when you don’t learn how to drive until you’re in college (that’s a whole future blog post) but you spend A LOT of time talking to your driver AKA dad for years, he really wins that male role model title.

One thing I left out, my mom, she’s the epitome of a tiger mom. The stern and fierce Asian mom who pushes her children for academic excellence. Anyone watch that episode of Glee, Asian F, where Mike Chang gets an A- and pisses his parents off to the extreme? Well, in return of my mom’s long work hours, she expected each one of her children to devote serious hours to our studies, be extremely disciplined in school, and she was probably the strictest mom in the 619 area code.

I’ve been reading, “A Place for Us” by Fatima Farheen Mirza, a beautiful story centralized on an Indian-American Muslim family, comprised of a mom, dad, two sisters and one younger brother. The story is specifically set at the eldest daughter’s wedding. Mirza weaves all the complicated familial dynamics of each family member and the series of events that led them to be who they are present day, their tight or strained relationships at this current moment, and the complex emotions all colliding or floating about one another. She expertly travels through their perspectives in those life changing moments and stirs an understanding and compassion for each member while their side of the experience is highlighted.

In the story, I’m relatively reminded of my own parent’s personas. The eldest daughter in the story has this memory where she cries to her Baba (father) and screams about the unfairness of her not being allowed to go to a friend’s party, or never being allowed to sleepover at friend’s house or just being able to be a typical youth, socializing outside of school like her school peers. Granted with their belief system, it is much stricter, although my parents didn’t allow me or approved of me having a boyfriend until I finished school (I’m talking college ya’ll), the female characters have many more restraints with male, female friendships and interactions. But just like the characters in the novel, my siblings and I didn’t attend very many social activities, parties, sleepovers growing up, unless we had parental supervision (meaning my parents were around not just anyone’s).

One of my best friends I had growing up since kindergarten into the same high school, would constantly remind me whenever I vented to her about the latest strict parental lecture, “Lovelie, you’re lucky your parents care.” I would roll my eyes and deep, deep, way deep down I would know she’s right but would still muster all the angsty energy my body could emit. At 27, married, and living on my own for nearly a decade I am reminded of my parent’s overprotective nature as they lecture and advise me about this or that. Even in my late twenties I could still feel the annoyed little girl in my internal self initially huffing and puffing at my parent’s words.

But, just like the eldest sister in Mirza’s book, Hadia, I reflect on my current life. I recently married, starting my own family (no human babies just yet), and imagine what exactly I want out of my own future and family. There’s times in fits of anger and frustration Hadia says she wants to make sure her family is nothing like the one she grew up with. And as much as I may say similar sentiments of my own strict, sheltered upbringing; when I take a step back and breathe through the negativity I’m reminded of the positive impact my parents have had on me. I have a strong sense of self and faith, a love for writing and engaging, this inherent balance of caution and rebellion, a grasp of what true, loving partnership is, and an unconditional family support system.

It is with the combination of the positives I have observed and pulled from my family dynamics, along with my own belief system and experiences I have cultivated that will use to build my own future. Whenever your angsty, young self wants to creep back in your head, let your older self maintain that solid grip on who you are—turn these negative moments into positive learning lessons you can apply to your current life.