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Friday, February 5, 2016

Why immigration countries should not separate us from our parents

This is a post in progress, as I try to articulate a cause that I sense is crucial. Any help is welcome.

Many of us immigrants in the west come from a culture that thrives on a strong parent-child bond. Once we immigrate we get so many cues asking to give our full attention to the culture we just joined, but no cue about how to emotionally and financially reward the parents that dedicated their life to us, and our success. Individualism is encouraged while our gratitude and hopes for our parents are rejected. As a result we suppress our plans for them, and act on them alone, while missing out on any cultural support for our bond with our parents.

Immigration laws, and some common attitudes seem built on the fear that our aging mothers will bankrupt Canada and the US. Health insurance, private or public, is fee based so why don't US and Canadian govs just name their fee?! Our parents are more than a price tag anyway, they're the people we adored growing up, the ones who dedicated their life to our education, they're the sole reason for our success, and our ability to make money is a result of their investment in us. That's how it tends to be in emigration countries anyway, the burden falls entirely on the parents. Years later, if we end up working abroad, we're advised to "organize our money" in all sorts of accounts, but not even one is titled "reward to the parent that invested their all in you". It's not our parents that jiff immigration countries, it's the other way around! Sure people manage to privately focus on their parents, but imagine if the culture around us was aware of them, imagine the insights we would get if we felt validated in loving our foreign mothers out loud!

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