Last spring, I sought out a chiropractor. He did a complete scan on me and read the list of stressors in my life. It was no shock that “guilt” was on top of the list. As the oldest Hmong daughter, I had wife, mom, sister, and last but certainly not least, daughter guilt. I’m sure every Hmong son or daughter feels some guilt their parents pile on them, some may be on a daily basis.

You don’t visit as much as they’d like you to, so they remind you of the time they crossed the Mekong River with you as a baby strapped to their backs while soldiers shot at them. You forget to do the dishes, so they remind you of the time they packed all that they had and boarded a plane to a new country, so you wouldn’t have to sleep on a dirt floor hut and have a chance for a better life. You don’t give your parents money to send to relatives back in Laos, but they find out you took a trip with your family, so they remind you of all the times they worked in the hot fields in Laos in order for you to have rice to eat. My mother reminds me constantly of how grateful I should be to be alive and to be where I am today.

I am grateful to my parents for everything they’ve done for me, but as I raise my own child, I realize I have to also not let this guilt manipulate me. Everything my parents did, they did out of love. I shouldn’t feel guilty for it, even if they use it against me at times. They’re just carrying a long tradition of Hmong parenting – guilt your children to get them to do what you want.

In Hmong culture, many parents don’t show affection through affirming words, quality time or physical touch. Growing up I never heard “I love you,” nor did I experience any kind of physical touch, and there was no such thing as quality time. There was always too much work to do to just spend time with each other. The way Hmong people show love is through acts of service and gifts. My parents brought my siblings and I to the United States in the summer of 1986, and I will always be grateful for the courage they had. I have shown my appreciation in different ways, even though it may be in different forms than my parents are used to. The guilt was and will always be present, but I have mostly made peace with it.

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