Why Is It So Hard to Live My Own Life When I Love My Family? Filial Piety Explained
If you grew up in Asian culture, you inherently understand what filial piety is. It is the unspoken responsibilities of the “good child.” The obligations you know you need to fulfill. The guilt you feel, at the thought of being a “bad son” or “bad daughter.” And the fear of disappointing or shaming your family.
The concept of filial piety is found in many Asian cultures. It emphasizes respect for your parents and elders, caring for your family, and fulfilling your responsibilities as a child.
In families with healthy relational dynamics, filial piety can be very beautiful. It is expressed as love and gratitude. And it fosters connection between generations of people.
But what happens if our family does not have healthy relational dynamics?
This article will explain how filial piety can play out in unhealthy family dynamics. We begin by understanding how filial piety can be impacted by immigration. Then we will discuss how filial piety can be weaponized by bad actors in the family, and the lasting mental health impact it has on the children.
How Immigration Hardships Impact Filial Piety In Asian Immigrant Families
It is crucial to understand that filial piety is not inherently a bad thing. When the family experiences external pressures that can threaten their survival, the family cohesion brought by filial piety can be useful to help the family band together and survive through hardship.
However, filial piety can also become a tool for control, and at times, be used to enable toxic family behaviours.
All the Asian clients I work with are either immigrants or children of immigrants. Their families have faced various challenges of immigration. Below are common immigration pressures, and the impact it might have on parent-child relationships:
1. Social Isolation
Immigrant families often experience social isolation, as they move away from their existing social support. Language and cultural barriers makes it hard to build new social support in the new country. Even if the family is able to make friends or join local churches, it may not the same as the social support back home, where they have known those people for most of their life.
When there is a lack of social support, it increases the pressure onto the existing support—the husband, wife, and children. Filial piety as a concept becomes the useful/convenient cultural value and structure that these families emphasize on, as part of survival.
Often the case, the children can end up taking on responsibilities that is not age appropriate. They might become a confidant/emotional support of one or both of their parents. Or carry the burden to fulfill the family’s expectations of upward mobility (class, income, education etc.).
2. Financial Pressures
Many immigrant parents come to this land and must work long hours to make money and survive. Children might be expected to take on bigger duties and obligations to help the family out. Filial piety can morph into additional pressure placed on children to take on these duties. This pressure may take the form of guilt and shame that the children might feel when they are not doing what is expected of them.
Immigrant parents may often work long hours and may be engaged in hard manual labour. With less time spent with children and less energy available, it can impact how parents can emotionally engage/connect with their children. Instead, filial piety becomes all about obligation and responsibilities, without fostering connection between family members.
I explore indepth about the lack of emotional connection in Asian immgirant families here: Signs You Grew Up With Emotional Neglect
3. Language Barriers
A lot of times, children carry the responsibility of being the translator for their parents. Imagine a child translating governmental documents, and navigating the tax system at age 10. Or working at the family business on weekends. The parental dependence on their children at such a young age is not a healthy family dynamic for either generation.
4. Culture Shock
Everything the parents thought they knew about life is turned upside down, as they adjust to a new culture where norms, customs, and expectations are completely different. And to top it off, they are also navigating dual patriarchies and gender expectations.
Fathers may no longer be able to fulfill the “breadwinner” role, and might even make less money than the mom. Mothers often work to help make money, but feels unfair that they are still responsible for household duties. Neither parents may be content in their role in the family anymore.
This can lead to family discord. I’ve had many clients who grew up in volatile families, where the parents are constantly bickering. And in worse cases, physical and emotional abuse may be present. Family discord is not a healthy backdrop for filial piety. How do children navigate their role and obligations and expectations, when discord and violence is the family norm? If abuse is already the norm, will the parents use filial piety to justify abuse, or use it to silence dissent?
5. Cultural Differences Between Parent and Child
Asian immigrant children grow up as “inbetween,” taking on both the roots of their family culture and Western culture. As these children get older, they may find it harder to navigate these differences when it comes to family expectations and filial piety.
The differences can come in different forms. It might be that the parents expect their child to pursue certain career paths. Or that the children have to provide financial support for the family. Or how the children must show respect and reverence to the family. Or even how far the children is allowed to move from the family home, the people they date, or their gender expression.
I explore the concept of Asian identity here: FOB vs Banana Labels: Why Asian Identity Is More Complex Than Either Category
6. Racism
Racism has an insidious effect that chips away at you. It can be in the form of micro-aggression that subtly (or not so subtly) tell you you’re lesser than. Or it might be structural, such as a company’s exclusionary hiring practices. Or it might be the legacy of centuries of colonialism that has shaped every single institution that governs every aspect of our lives. That’s some heavy stuff.
On the ground level, your parents experience it through discrimination in hiring and in workplaces. Or being talked-down to, belittled, or outright disrespected. The general discrimination and hostility can lead to social isolation (as discussed previously). And children may grow up learning to internalize the racism that their parents experience.
Racism is often not something Asian immigrant families will discuss or readily acknowledge. This is partly impacted by the Model Minority Myth, which tells Asians to put our heads down, work hard, and adhere to authority. Because it is not discussed or acknowledged, we rarely understand the impacts of racism in the family until we proactively learn and analyze it.
To understand the Model Minority Myth and its impact, you can explore this article: What Is The Model Minority Myth And How It Impacts Our Mental Health
These are just some examples of the pressures that Asian immigrant families might experience. The point is this: immigrant hardships increase the pressures and stress within the family, which can negatively impact family relationships. In the long-term, it can lead to unhealthy family dynamics that is hard to change.
How Intergenerational Trauma Impacts Filial Piety In Asian Families
The generations before us have lived through many traumatic events. They were focused on taking care of basic physical needs. “Feeling their emotions” and emotional attunement is not a luxury they have. And if they never learned to understand their emotions and emotionally connect safely with others, then they won’t be able to provide this for their own children.
Some of these traumatic events might include:
Forced displacement and imperialism: Wars and conflict often led to our parents and grandparents being forcibly displaced (Japanese occupation, Vietnam War, Korean War, Philippine-American War, the list goes on)
State-Sanctioned Violence, such as the Cultural Revolution, Umbrella Movement, and Cambodian Genocide
Capitalism, and the financial exploitation and subjugation by “the West”
Poverty as an outcome of the combination of the above
Unprocessed trauma that impacts the way our parents can relate to us and raise us
A lot of the intergenerational trauma has gone unprocessed and flowed through generation after generation. Our parents has inherited these traumas, and often passed it onto us. This sometimes takes the form of penny-pinching or hoarding (all those plastic containers). And sometimes, it can take the form of being controlling of their children, being highly critical, narcissistic personalities, or emotional neglect.
Whatever form it takes, filial piety expects the children to honour their parents, even if their behaviours are not healthy or adaptive to the present day or current family situation.
How Filial Piety Can Be Weaponized, and Its Impact On The Children
Any cultural value and practice has the potential to be misused and weaponized. Some examples of Western values include, Individualism, Protestant Work Ethic, and the nuclear family ideal. It is important to understand this, because anti-Asian racism and racism in general wants us to believe that our culture is a deficit or “less evolved.”
But that’s not true. There will always be bad actors who will misuse and weaponized cultural values, norms, and practices. And often, these bad actors have their own traumas. It’s not an excuse, but it’s often the case.
Filial piety can also be weaponized within a family. The parent(s) can use filial piety as a justification for their verbal and physical abuse, and use it to exert control and manipulation over their children. Below are different impacts it can have on the children.
1. Feeling Guilt and Shame
Filial piety can be deployed by parents to create guilt and shame. It can be a form of emotional manipulation, using guilt and shame to enforce certain behaviours in the children. If the children do not do what their parents want, they will be labeled as a “bad child'“ (shamed). And an extension of that, the child will “bring shame to the family.” That’s a lot to carry for a child. And when the child grow into an adult, they will continue to feel the shame and guilt because it has become internalized.
2. Difficulty With Relationships: SElf-Sacrifice and Codependence
In some families, the children are expected to place the family’s needs and the parents’ needs over their own. Often, this is part of survival for immigrant families. But this might also be linked to parents being emotionally immature and struggling to emotionally attune to their children and their children’s needs.
As a result, children learn that they must prioritize the needs of others before their own needs. When these children grow into adults, they may develop relational dynamics where they self-sacrifice and/or are codependent.
You can read more about self-sacrificing behaviours here: Why You Self-Sacrifice in Relationships and Why it Feels Like Love
3. Rigidity and Low SEnse Of Self-Worth
For some families, filial piety can play out in a healthy manner, where everyone’s needs are equally important. In this type of family, everyone’s needs are met. And family relationships may generally be healthy.
But in some families, filial piety can be used to justify control/abuse, and a tool to silence dissent. It might be a very clear power structure that is set up within the family, where the parents or one parent is the ultimate authority figure. And whatever the parent says, the children must do.
For some of my clients, their parents are very rigid in their rules, routine, and organization. And the parents would be highly critical or overly instructive towards their children to ensure the children are following all the rules, routine, and organization. Sometimes, the criticism might just be a disguise for verbal abuse. Children who grow up in such environment tend to be overly responsible, and overly rigid/routinized. It’s not always a bad thing, but it can be a challenge when the lack of flexibility impacts quality of life.
For some of these clients, being overly criticized or targeted for verbal abuse can create other lasting impacts. They may struggle with low self-worth, sometimes linking their self-worth to their accomplishments. And they may develop perfectionistic tendencies.
I wrote about Asian perfectionism here: The Pressure To be Perfect And How To Heal
Here is an example why perfectionism is not fulfilling: How Perfectionism and Fear Make You Productive but Not Fulfilled
4. Not Knowing What You Want And Struggling With Your Identity
Children need space to explore, develop their identity and sense of self. In some families, children were never given the chance to explore. The expectation might be to prioritize the needs of the family. Or it might be focused on academics. Or sometimes, children can become the scapegoat and “punching bag” of their parents…targeted and criticized for everything they do or everything that goes wrong. Or be cruelly mocked or shamed because their parents had a bad day, a bad year, a bad life (yikes).
This is not a space where children can feel safe to explore, make mistakes, learn, and grow into their own. This results in children who are disconnected with their sense of self. That’s why some of us struggle to know what we want for ourselves.
Knowing what we want, need, and desire in life requires a lifetime of self-exploration. And to do that, it requires safety. If criticism and abuse is all we know, then we never got the safety needed to explore who we are. Afterall, how can we feel safe to express ourselves when we receive cruel comments every time we try.
It’s not a surprise why some of us may struggle to pin down what makes our life meaningful and joyful.
For some of us, we work hard and achieve a lot. But it never seems to make us happy. We end up just working harder, trying to achieve the next goal, until we are stuck in a burn out cycle. You can read about the psychological mechanism behind burnout here: Why You’re Stuck In The Burnout Cycle
5. Struggling to Manage Your Emotions (Emotional Dysregulation)
The guilt and shame that children feel, when their parents weaponize filial piety against them, will persist into adulthood. You might experience it yourself. When you want to make decisions for yourself, you might feel guilty. Or you might feel ashamed for prioritizing your own happiness.
This can often come with anger. For many, anger just becomes a secondary emotion that they feel most of the time. Beneath the anger might be various feelings: sadness, hopelessness, helplessness, betrayal.
These feelings can be very intense, ever present, and difficult to manage. And few are taught how to manage their emotions. Often times, their parents can be just as dysregulated, if not even more. Never having been taught to regulate our emotions, we end up having to figure it out on our own.
Again, I want to emphasize that all of the issues and family dynamics discussed here can be found in non-Asian families. Our discussion here is to understand these issues within the context of filial piety.
6. Fear Of Being Exposed And Being Secretive
In families where the parents are highly critical, it has the result of the children learning to hide themselves. This is a form of self-protection. The less people know about them, the less things/reasons people will have to criticize them about, the less shame and guilt and panic they will feel.
On top of that, the cultural idea of “save face” means that we are tasked with hiding the “shames of the family.” Maybe your mom gambles. Or your dad cheats on your mom. Or you might feel pressured to hide/tone down your sexual orientation.
A lifetime of criticism and saving face can lead to fear of being exposed and becoming secretive.
The Challenges of Healing Your Trauma
You might identify with some of these challenges that I outlined here. Part of our healing is learning to no longer abandon ourselves and our own needs. Or perhaps, the first step might be to finally figure out what we want.
Healing can be challenging, because we’re changing everything we have been taught. We’re fighting immense guilt and shame. And the scariest part is, we don’t know if our family will accept us, as we change in ways that no longer fits the established family norms and expectations.
Healing intergenerational trauma is challenging enough. And the complication with family makes it additional tough to navigate. I explore this topic here: 5 Hidden Costs of Healing Intergenerational Trauma in Asian Families
If you recognize yourself in some of these patterns, I created a free interactive guide called Why Do I React Like This? to help you understand your emotional reactions and explore what they might be trying to protect you from.
Hi, I’m Harry, a psychotherapist in Toronto. I work with 1.5 and second generation Asian Canadians who are trying to understand patterns around anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, relationships, family, and self-worth.
