In my last blog-post, I wrote about independent thinking for Indian women. Today I want to dive into the topic of self-esteem in Indian families. This is an issue that touches many aspects that I’ll be exploring in greater detail over this series such as guilt and self-blame, friendship with parents, skills gaps and risk aversion.
The problem
In immigrant Indian culture there are a number of factors that act against people developing healthy self-esteem. Some of these factors act against the clear formulation of “self” and some lead to low “esteem”.
Taboo around the concept of the self and the virtue of sacrifice
First and foremost is the taboo around the concept of the self. Eastern cultures are famously more “community-oriented” implying putting the group before the self. Sacrifice is extolled as virtuous. How many of us have grown up with reminders every now and again about the sacrifices made by our grandparents and parents so that we could have a better life?
There’s nothing wrong with a chosen sacrifice per se – if it’s a conscious choice by the sacrificer because it gives them a greater sense of meaning or satisfaction in their life to do something for their child rather than themselves – it’s like parental instinct put on steroids. However, two issues arise often with sacrifice:
1. It may not really be the sacrificer’s true desire but may be because of cultural taboo against putting yourself first
2. It’s often not as selfless as portrayed – because it comes with expectations of what will be done in return. Here are a few expectations I have come across in my conversations with brown friends: I cared for you exceptionally when you were a child, so I expect you to care for me as diligently in my old age. You better not put me in a retirement home. I did so much for you, the least you can do is marry a person that I would prefer etc.
A healthy sense of self-esteem and self-love are needed to know when you are making a sacrifice for the right reason — out of love, and when you are making it for the wrong two reasons above.
How does that healthy self-esteem form? That’s a million-dollar question that Universities should be spending a lot of money on but aren’t. Let me tackle the easier question of what hinders formulation of healthy self-esteem instead. Two main factors loom large in Indian upbringings:
- A lack of conversation around what you want when you are growing up. This hinders the full formulation of a “self”. You need a concept of “self” to have self-esteem and many people are stuck not even having a clear identity of their own – their identities are blurred blobs that encompass children, parents, relatives and cultural norms.
- Reprimanding/ being labelled “selfish” when you do express what you want when it deviates from cultural norms. Being “selfish” is considered one of the worst insults in Indian culture. Over time, this fear of being labelled “selfish” crushes thinking about yourself clearly
Despite this neglect of the self, the self still exists. It just fades further and further away from consciousness. It still experiences dissatisfaction, resentment and anger, which can manifest in a host of ways such as having a bad temper, being easily irritable or physical illnesses (read The Mind Body prescription for a look into how emotional traumas and repression can manifest physically).
My generation may have been luckier in the “formulation of a self” regard: the ugly bright pink carpet in my bedroom in my parent’s house is a testament to my parents honoring my 11 year old intentions against good aesthetic (sighs, I really wish I’d gone with beige). However, when my parents were growing up, there was very little emphasis put by their parents on allowing them to discover what they wanted — from careers to life partners. My father had to hold the line really hard on having a small wedding against his parents’ wishes, for example. And when he did make decisions, they were always accompanied by a detailed pros-cons analysis and regard for what his parents wanted.
It’s hard now for parents who have grown up with very little sense of a “self” and awareness around their true desires, personalities and beliefs to understand our push to be ourselves. We think we should be front and center in our own lives. We take this to be a “self-evident truth” – but they do not. They were never allowed to put themselves front and center, they were told that that was bad. For some parents, “fun” is a foreign concept. Now here we are in the West demanding that we, the children of immigrants, get unconditional support for that gap year of travelling around the world or for the belly piercing or for our ice cream-as-a-service business idea and they think we are being so selfish.
The hostile Immigrant experience erodes esteem
The second set of forces that work on destroying self-esteem are more focused on the esteem part of self-esteem – the respect and love you have for yourselves. When our parents’ generation immigrated to western countries, racism was even worse. One of my Punjabi Sikh friends tells of her father not being able to get a job or a mortgage because of this turban. He had to get rid of his turban eventually to get a job in a factory, but still couldn’t get a mortgage.
My father left India as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and a very well-regarded surgeon at the age of 32, and had to start as a surgical resident (the bottom of the ladder) again when he moved to the UK. Students that he would have been mentoring and coaching in India were now his peers.
So not only did our parents’ generation face hostility from their parents who were stymieing the formation of a self, but the new western environments they found themselves in were also sending them these messages: You are not allowed to be yourself here. You must change your dress, culture, way of speaking to make a living. You’ll still never really be welcome here. You’re not as good as the others here. Quite simply, the theme of the messages all around was: You are inferior.
The massive walls that our parents often have around themselves and wanting to preserve their culture are in part due to the constant attacks they have faced in new environments that were hostile to diversity either subtly or overtly.
The solutions
With years of conditioning like this, there’s obviously no silver bullet. But here’s what I believe we can do to help our parents and our own self-esteem:
Have compassion for your parents. This is very, very hard for most of us so we must practice every day and make a conscious effort. Some of us jumped into the camp of making fun of our parents because that’s what our friends were doing. You’re not exactly harboring a strong identity if you replace what your parents think with what your friends think. The famous Canadian-Punjabi poet Rupi Kaur wrote a beautiful poem called “Broken English” which I’ve pasted at the bottom. I recommend her poetry for my readers.
Encourage your parents self-esteem: Ask them what they want, why they want it. Try to help them get to their true desires. Compliment them, appreciate them. When they run into something negative outside, contextualize it for them, e.g. “They are only holding you back because they’re angry that you can do the job better”.
Have strength to formulate your own self: If your parents try to do some of what their parents did to them, realize what they are doing and stand your ground even if you are unpopular at first. Of course, you might make a mistake. In my experience, regrets about your own choices are far superior to regrets about letting someone else run your life.
Build your own self-esteem: because it’s good for you but also because it can be contagious. When your family and friends see how you treat yourself with love and respect, it can inspire them to do the same.
In the next set of blog-posts I’ll dive deeper into related areas of the Indian immigrant experience: guilt and self-blame, friendship with parents, skill gaps and risk aversion. Please comment with reactions, thoughts and ideas for future blog-posts!
Broken English – by Rupi Kaur
I think about the way my father pulled the family out of poverty
without knowing what a vowel was.
And my mother raised 4 children
without being able to construct a perfect sentence in English
A discombobulated couple that landed in the new world
with hopes that left the bitter taste of rejection in their mouth.
No family no friends, just man and wife,
Two university degrees that meant nothing,
one mother tongue that was broken now,
one swollen belly with a baby inside.
A father worried about jobs and rent
coz no matter what this baby was coming.
And they thought to themselves for a split second
was it worth it to put all of our money
into the dream of a country that is swallowing us whole.
And papa looks at his woman’s eyes
and sees the loneliness living where the iris was.
Wants to give her a home in a country
that looks at her with the word visitor wrapped around their tongue.
On their wedding day she left an entire village to be his wife
and now she left an entire country to be a warrior.
And when the winter came they had nothing,
but the heat of their own bodies to keep the coldness out.
And like 2 brackets they face one another
to hold the dearest parts of them,
their children close.
They turned a suitcase full of clothes
into a life and regular paychecks
to make sure that children of immigrants
wouldn’t hate them for being the children of immigrants
They worked too hard – you can tell by their hands,
their eyes are begging for sleep
but our mouths were begging to be fed
and that is the most artistic thing I have ever seen.
It is poetry to these ears that has never heard
what passion sounds like
and my mouth is full of likes and uhms
when I look at their masterpiece
‘coz there are no words in the English language
that can articulate that kind of beauty.
I can’t compact their existence into 26 letters and call it a description
I tried once but the adjectives needed to describe them don’t even exist
so I ended up with pages and pages full of words
followed with commas and more words and more comas
only to realize that there are some things in the world
so infinite that they can never use a full stop.
So how dare you mock your mother
when she opens her mouth
and broken English spills out.
Her accent is thick like honey,
hold it with your life,
it’s the only thing she has left from home.
Don’t stomp on that richness,
instead hang it up on the walls
of museums next to Dali and Van Gogh
Her life is brilliant and tragic.
Kiss the side of her tender cheek.
She already knows what it sounds like
to have an entire nation laugh when she speaks.
She’s more than our punctuation and language.
We might be able to take pictures and write stories,
but she made an entire world for herself.
How’s that for art
Stiletto Muse 