Our Silent Caretakers.

Essays | Jasmine Jiang | April 13th, 2024.

“I have mommy/daddy issues” is a phrase that has become mainstream and a way to explain our parents as the sole cause of our own problems. While parents can negatively influence our lives, something we don’t realize until it’s too late is that “our parents are people too.” They deal with problems just like us. Amidst navigating our own lives, dismissing the people who hold the most pivotal roles within our lives has become common. From individual to social concerns, it seems as if we have forgotten to extend our understanding to our own parents, the people who often need it the most. 

Psychologist Mark Manson explains that as children, everything is a challenge, requiring constant support and guidance that is provided by our parents. We’ve grown accustomed to viewing them as filling the role of our caregiver, and this perception doesn’t just shed with time. We seem to believe our parents are infallible even on issues as serious as mental health. Pew Research indicates that 76% of parents rank their children's mental health as their top concern, yet the focus on parents’ stress and anxiety is almost nonexistent. Even widely recognized family therapy programs, including those covered by Medicaid, fall short of recognizing adults as individual patients needing the same support.

Even when we try to protect children, we let systemic issues negatively influence our view of parents instead. We fail to realize that helping parents helps children. Even our most trusted systems designed to protect children have only served to punish parents. The American Civil Liberties Union finds that 75 percent of child neglect allegations registered by Child Protection Services were linked to parents in poverty, with these allegations often resulting in the forced separation of families. A family living in poverty is not a just sign of bad parenting; “Parents struggling with limited resources, unable to pay rent or secure stable housing, or working long hours to make ends meet, are judged unfit and neglectful.” But with our lack of regard for our supposed caregivers, we blame parents instead of trying to remedy the systemic issues at fault. Take practices such as “redlining,” whose lasting impacts have deprived many equal opportunity by denying housing to non-whites or the lack of childcare programs that serve only 15 percent of those who are eligible under federal law, ensuring assistance for only the  desperately needy who take “personal responsibility.”

These issues inevitably bleed into our personal relationships as well. When we neglect to make an effort to understand our parents, we risk breeding resentment toward the people who love us the most. Psychologist Bernie Katz says, “I see patients from their twenties, all the way up to their sixties who are still angry about what they didn’t get from their parents. They carry it around.” All emotions call us into action, but resentment motivates us to level the playing field. Take Harvard Professor Chaplin, for example, who had broken ties with her Vietnamese mother during college because of their conflicting decisions on her career. She says, “I wish I had recognized that she didn’t have the language to explain herself in a way I was willing to examine or receive, I would have shown my mom more grace.” No parent is perfect, but neglecting the complexity behind our parents and their actions devalues their love and blinds us from seeking resolutions to our disagreements. The bad sticks with us, but all the good that our parents have poured into our lives merely dissipates. 

And it’s not just our personal problems that linger in perpetuity, but systemic ones as well. By trying to make things better, we only make things worse. Several studies have found that one-third of foster children could be back home right now if their parents simply had adequate housing. Instead, more money is spent on child separation than on providing support to impoverished families and those affected by decades of discrimination. But perhaps the worst part is that we actually have good intentions; we think are helping. According to the National Youth in Transition Database, those who turn 18 in foster care report 50% lower earnings, 20% lower employment rates, and more than half end up in poverty. Parents are helpless, and their children become stuck in the same cycle, and we are left to blame anyone but ourselves and our lack of understanding. 

So with problems of such a large magnitude and such complex origins, what can we do? These questions make people doubt the possibility of change in the first place, but the answer is that first, we must start on a personal level–actually try and get to know the people who are our parents. ​​If we first humanize our parents, we can build a foundation of empathy; then understanding comes easily. Family Counselor Liz Higgins suggests fo us to ask our parents sincere questions about who they are, an interaction that can help us view them as human beings with whom we can connect with. This could even mean just setting aside a ten-minute phone call to catch up or, as Harvard Professor Chaplin suggests, trying to be open to tough conversations, not just debates. In the process, we might have to acknowledge that our parents make mistakes, some of them hurtful to us. We can hold our parents accountable as parents, but then we can learn to forgive them as people. Dr. Fred Luskin puts it best by saying, “The essence of forgiveness is the ability to be resilient when things don’t go your way.” It's saying I accept it in a way that I’m willing to give the next moment a chance. It's coming to an understanding.

Then, we need to advocate for legislation that addresses existing systematic problems and policies that demonstrate understanding by making the parents’ problems seen. You can reach out to existing programs, use your voice on platforms such as social media, or even just tell a peer about them. Federal programs like Head Start have the potential to provide greater access to Early Childhood education by providing financial assistance to low-income families. Policies like CAP have called on lawmakers to expand the number of affordable units and dismantle exclusionary zoning practices. Yet they are often overlooked; this is where our collective voices can play an essential role in changing the trajectory of our future, whether through petitioning or voting to show support for our own well-being and for our parents.