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Before we start awarning, in thisepisode, we'll be talking about suicide andabuse.
You're listening toLifeKit.
FromNPR.Hey, Andrew Limbong here in For MarylSagarra.
Here's the origin story for today'sLifeKit.
When Arthi Shahani was NPR's technologycorrespondent, she published her firstbook, Here WeAre.
It's a memoir about her and her family's immigrantexperience.
Now, Arthi doesn't come from a family of engineers like the people she reportedon.
Instead, her mom was aseamstress.
Herdad,Namdev, was ashopkeeper.
He had asidekick,though, of being Arthi'sarch-nemesis.
Youknow, the men policing her dating and dancing and skirtlengths.
He was the type of dad who worried more about his daughter's marriage prospects than her careerambitions.
Then, Namdev got arrested for selling calculators to a drugcartel.
He landed in Rikers Island and then was put into deportationproceedings.
In a weirdway, this legal crisis led to the two becomingfriends.
Arthi stopped going to school to help fight her dad'scase.
And when her dad was injail, Arthi would visit and they'd spend 30 minutestogether,one-on-one.
Which is a lot of time for two people who don't usually talk to eachother.
And Namdev openedup, talking about what his life was like when he was Arthi'sage.
Yearslater, shortly before hispassing, Arthi recorded a conversation withNamdev.
So, I was sitting at home in San Francisco and thinking that I wanted to start recording talking to yousometimes.
Because I like the way yousound.
It's a regularsound,man.
It's nota... kindof, it may be a sick personsound.
But not sickperson. I think I mean theaccent.
Like you havea... Typical Indianaccent?
I think it's typicalIndian.
And I don't thinkso.No.
What do you think itis?Well, it'snot.
IndianAmerican,British,French, kind ofpronunciation.
Terrenceout. Namdev had quite alife.
He was born into a civil war during the partition of India and Pakistan when the British left in1947.
Like hisdaughter, he had to sacrifice for hisfamily.
As ateen, he traveled thousands of miles away to become a migrant worker into Beirut and sent moneyhome.
He ended up a countryhopping, picking up six languages along theway.
America was his longest everhome.
And also like hisdaughter, he dated behind his parentsback.
Though he was in his 20s by then and not histeens.
And the reason I'm telling you all of this is because when Arthi went on a book tour for HeerieArt, the question she mostly got weren't about immigration policy or criminaljustice.
Instead itwas, how can I get to know my mom ordad?
Whatever the circumstances that led up toit, the relationship Arthi and her dad eventually developed becameenviable.
Today onLifeKit, Arthi talks with fellow writers and compiles pro tips on how to talk to your parents about theirlives.
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This election season you can expect to hear a lot ofnews.
Some of itmeaningful, much of itnot.
Give the up first podcast 15minutes, sometimes littleless, and we'll help you sort itout.
What's going on around the world and athome?
Threestories, 15minutes, up first everyday.
Listen every morning wherever you get yourpodcasts.
If you retain nothingelse, please justremember, maybe even repeat afterme, take away numberone.
Set a clearintention. Your family history is not a pile ofdirt.
You are not an industrial strengthvacuum.
Don't approach mom or dad like you've got to take in everything everywhere all atonce.
There's likejust, I don't know if it's an Americanidea, but like this whole fulldisclosure, everything'stransparent.
Youknow, just tell thetruth.
This is author MinjinLee, who's best known for the dazzling historicalfiction,Pacinco.
It's a part of me that just feelslike,yeah,yeah, youknow, I want to coast on onthat.
But withrelatives, with people that youlove, please proceed withcaution.
And it's onKorni, but please proceed withlove.
Let's say someone is listening to us andgoes, youknow, I really did want to talk to my stepfather aboutX.
I wouldn't pick up the phone rightaway.
I need you tojust...Please, I begyou, take abeat.
Take abeat, write down yourquestions.
And thenask, do you think it'd be okay if I came by and asked you some questions about thesubject?
And the personsays, yes orno?
So you don't believe in the elements ofsurprise?
No, please do not surpriseanyone, especially people that you love and youhave, youknow, you have a familybond.
That's a very seriousthing.
So dearlisteners, let's say you've set the time and intention totalk.
Are you going to dive into the deep end of the pool rightaway?
No! Here is takeaway numbertwo.
Begentle. This advice is antithetical to what journalists oftendo.
Our industry values the curveball that catches the powerful offguard.
Some call it the gotchaquestion.
But let's bereal, it absolutely can shut folksdown.
A key way to build trust is to beself-aware.
What do I want to know and why and communicate that before divingin?
Men also suggest ease into the hardstuff.
During thepandemic, she decided it was time to sit her parents down to do research for her first nonfictionbook.
When I wassunny, it was outdoors because of COVID and I had my legalpad.
I never record or dovideo.
Never. And I was verygentle.
Like I asked them very simplequestions, very factualquestions.
Like where did youstudy?
How did youfeel? What do you remember about yourparents?
What are their actualnames?
How do you spellit? Like I wanted to know literally because very often if you ask immigrantfamilies, like what is the name of your greatgrandfather?
People won'tknow. They'relike, oh I call them greatgrandfather.
And it's not that they'reignorant.
And they don't even have the records or sometimes they don't have the ability to look up in their ownlanguage.
So you asked thesegentle,basic, factualquestions.
Verybasic, very factualquestions.
I am endlessly fascinated by how little we migrants know about ourfamilies.
Like why did we really come toAmerica?
I told men about the time I finally asked mymom.
I was 38 and frankly approached her with someresentment.
Why would you and dad decide to cross the ocean with three smallchildren, overstay visas and live undocumented and poor in a newcountry?
It wasrisky. I considered it recklessbehavior.
And we suffered growingup.
And mom explained for the first time I had not knownthis, that she was physically abused by her mother-in-law and herbrother-in-law.
When I was born and she attempted to bring me back home from thehospital, my grandmother wouldn't let us into the house because I was agirl.
And so we had to go sleep somewhereelse.
And that night or that week was when my parentsdecided, hey this America thing we've been talkingabout, let's go ahead and doit.
Mom didn't have fun telling me aboutit.
Ithurt. And so youknow.
It'stragic. Imean, and also to repeat your victimization to yourchild, to retell the victimization to yourchild, all that transference of negativity andabuse,right?
And then you have this flight to anothercountry, which is a hostileenvironment.
I've been interviewing so many Korean undocumentedpeople.
It's such a difficultlife.
And also there's hostility within our own communities andshame.
So I imagine her telling you was such an act ofcourage, but it is also a moment ofhealing.
Maybe you felt this foryourself.
It'shealing, but it doesn't feelgood.
Mom and I were both bedridden withnausea.
That story brought us back to the doorstep where my own grandmother rejectedme.
Though it also put another memory into sharprelief.
Back in sixthgrade, my teacher told me I would not be classvaledictorian.
Even though I had the highestgrades, he said I had an attitudeproblem.
I had successfully petitioned to allow girls to play in the student faculty softball game against hiswishes.
I guess lifelong feminism was written into myfate.
Memories that make your parents feelashamed, deep dark secrets they've held fordecades, those can end up being a source of empowerment foryou.
Mingen has had that sort ofexperience.
In my conversations with my familymembers, in knowing their history and theirstruggle, I remember that I'm somebody and that you'resomebody.
And that's a very powerful thing because when people are underestimating you or undervaluingyou, they are profoundly gaslightingyou.
And that is verypainful.
Mint says it was her father's idea to leaveKorea, where he was a marketingexecutive, and try out New YorkCity.
He suffered a huge setbackprofessionally.
He ended up putting on a suit every single morning to work at a newspaperstand.
When I think about people throwing money at mydad, like anickel, or a dime to buy a dailynews, while he's wearing a coat andtie, behind the newspaperstand, Ithink,oh, that's who my fatheris.
He can withstand that level ofhumiliation, because I've been in situations where people do equivalent things to memetaphorically.
And Ithink, youknow, goahead, make myday, because I can takeit.
So it's not for what Iwrite.
It'snot. It's actually to know who I am when the worldsays, I'mnobody.
I think forme, one of the hardest things in any conversation with an elder is when they're reallysad, or when they're reallybroken.
And your instinct is tosay, it'sokay, I'mhere.
Kao Kaliya Yang is a Hmong refugee and memoirist born inThailand, now living inMinnesota.
But you weren'tthere. You were notthere.
Youknow, you don't know what the futureholds.
You don't know the magnitude of thismemory, in comparison to everything else that will come your way or theirway.
And so just to let itflow, that is the hardestthing.
Youknow, whatever feelings thereare, just to be brave in the face ofit, to honor itsplace.
Sometimes bravery means sitting quietly as someone sobsviolently.
This is part of the gentleapproach.
No gotchaquestions, no smothering a teary face withtissues.
When Kao Kaliya began probing the past with hermom,Chu, the intention was to helpher.
It was an act ofservice.
Chu had been drowning in grief fordecades.
Her parents were uprooted from their villages during the VietnamWar.
They fled into a jungle and crossed pathsthere.
They felt aspark. Dad asked mom for herhand.
She saidyes. I think there are a lot of missing pieces of my mother in thatjungle.
A lot of missing pieces of my mother in thatwar.
She wakes up all the time from the stream and the nightmare in thejungle.
She's young and my father is holding her hand and talking heraway.
And she watches her mother standing therelooking, and she runs with myfather.
And she never sees her motheragain, which is of course the story of herlife.
Do you know the biggest decision your mom or dad evermade?
And to take it a stepfurther, do you know how they really felt aboutit?
I ask KaoKaliya, growingup, did you know that the decision to marry your dad was basically the biggest regret of your mother'slife?
Not inThailand, in America Idid.
I was six and a half when wecame.
And inAmerica, away from all of the eyes and the ears of the other parts of thefamily, because in Thailand we all livedtogether.
Youknow, in America my mom wouldsay, out loud in her moments ofdespair, she'dsay, why did I doit?
Why did I marryyou? He never had anything tosay, and that's the beautiful thing about mydad.
He's never questionedit.
He's always believed that she was the best possible option for him in this whole wideworld.
She was the best for him and he was the worst forher.
Yes,yes. And he said to meonce, hesaid, because I think I got frustrated and Isaid,dad, why does mom always saythat?
You feel bad when she saysthat,right?
And hesaid, I imagine a thousand varieties of a life for her beyondme, and each would be happier than the one she shares withme.
Oh, your family has some honestconversations.
That's what hesaid. Kaleigha has written three familymemoirs.
In thefirst, she recounts her grandmother's life as ashaman.
Thenext, herdad, thepoet.
And thisyear, a gorgeous new memoircalled, Where RiversPart.
It's in the voice of hermom, like it's chew-telling her lifestory.
The moment she left hermother, not realizing they would never meetagain.
How she had seven miscarriages and sevenbabies.
Kaleigha says she always knew she wanted to write her mother'sstory.
But I understood that I wasn't ready in thebeginning.
I knew that I needed to know what lovewas, and perhapsmarriage, and perhapsmotherhood, because these are such important realities of my mother'slife.
And so I was holdingback, I was waiting andwaiting, and then the pandemichit, and I felt the tickingclock.
We've all feltit. Take away numberthree, wait for the righttime.
Do you yourself feel ready in yourbones?
Is there a shared experience or right of passage that helps you to empathize with yourparent?
It could be having achild, building abusiness, losing ajob, having your first love dumpyou?
While patience is not Kaleigha's strongsuit, shesays, she played the longgame, because she had a deep knowing that she hadto.
When she finally didit, mystyle, arethee, and this isonly, this is mystyle, because I think I have a gentletouch.
I want to put my hand right there on thewound.
The pain that we feel is only one side of thepain, then thosethere.
If a deeper understanding is what you're lookingfor, then there are noshortcuts.
Emily Kwang could not wait anylonger.
She needed a deeper understanding of why her mother tried to take her ownlife.
It felturgent. Emily decided to ask her mom directly about a decadeago, and Emily recorded that conversation for storycore.
Oh myGod, my heart is beating in my chest as I'm talking aboutit.
These are not conversations peoplehave, but I was having a hard time looking my mom and the eye afterthat, because she almost took herself away fromus, and I didn't understandwhy.
And I also struggled withdepression, and was so afraid that I would become overwhelmed by it at some pointtoo.
Did you feel going into it that your own heightened emotions would get in yourway?
I didn'tthink... Here's what I'llsay.
My heightened emotions were actually getting in the way of us having arelationship, and so it kind of felt like in having a really intentionalconversation, a lot of relationships aren't all thatintentional.
We just say things to eachother.
And myresentment, myanger, myfear, myhurt, mybetrayal, all of that was just muddying up my relationship with mymom.
For like 45minutes, I had to really putmy...
on the backburner, so that she couldbe, and I could hang with her in her recollection of the worst day of herlife.
So it was theopposite. I actually felt like this is one place where my emotions won't takeover, because that's not the pointhere.
I have tosay, I love your soundeffects.
We're talking about something sobrutal, you managed to bring inlike...
cartoonhumor. I'm kind of a cartoon character of aperson.
I'm gettingthat. Emily is the host of NPR's Science PodcastShortwave, and she hosted another podcast I'd stronglyrecommend,inheriting.
Init, she helps Asian-American and Pacific Islander families talk with each other about theirpast.
Her intention when she approached her own mom was to clean understanding about hermom, and also aboutherself.
She told this story about how when she was in the hospital after the suicideattempt, there were lullabiesplaying, because in the wing next door was the obstetrics unit where babies were beingborn.
And so she heard theselullabies, and was so comforted bythem.
Having survived this terriblething, she was reminded of life happening right nextdoor.
And that kind of experience would have done the same for metoo.
I am as earnest as theycome.
I'm looking formetaphor.
I'm looking for science from theuniverse.
I'm looking for reminders that I'm notalone.
So my mom's asap. I'm asap.
And even on the worst day of herlife, she's asap.
So likethat, I waslike,yeah, I am yourdaughter.
When your parentshares, is it oversharing when you were listening like anadult?
Is thatperentification?
Your parents playing the child and leaning on you to be the strong one while before yourtime?
Here's what Emilythinks.
Some people listening might belike,well, she's thekid, but that doesn't really work once you getolder.
I feel like once you getolder, you kind of do need someanswers, because you start living life as an adult and maybe struggling with some of the things your parentsdo.
And I was struggling with depression terribly at thetime.
And I needed somehelp. And that kind of looked like hearing how my mom got through the worst day of herlife.
It frustrates me that some people are kept in the dark about their family's history and their mental healthhistory.
I think it's as wrong as not knowing your physical healthhistory.
It's a fair and cogentpoint.
Though it also opens up a topic we have not discussed explicitlyyet.
Abuse. A lot of people have been harmed by ourparents, physically oremotionally.
Asian Americans are dubbed the model minority in theUS.
But inreality, many of our parents lived throughwar,migration,poverty, and were left brokeninside.
I don't have a single Asian American close friend who wasn't parentified andchildhood.
So Hedge Corcoly is a practicing therapist and founder of Brown Girl Therapy atInstagram.
She's gotten this kind ofquestion.
My relationship with my parent is soabusive.
Should I actually be having these conversations rightnow?
My answer is probablynot,right?
Because it's not going to feel good to you because the dynamic is not in a place where it would even be healing or you would access some of that information that youwant.
This is takeaway numberfour.
Our finaltakeaway. Protectyourself.
Even if you're anadult, you may still be at risk of your parent harming you in ways that just aren't worthit.
For Hedge to talk with herfamily, she needed emotional and physical distancefirst.
It was in my 20s that I said I need to get out of here because it wasn't healthy forme.
My relationship with my dad wasn'tgreat.
My mom understood it was like go if you need togo.
And I moved and I became financiallyindependent.
I was able to accesstherapy.
I had done years ofthat.
I solotraveled. I made newfriends.
I did all of these things that felt really healing to me and allowed me to just understand myself and live my ownlife.
And it was through that that I was able to then revisit a relationship with myparents.
And to repeat a point that every one of our writers hasmade, you don't have to go there with a parent who's harmedyou.
Cal Khalia Yang points out that many successful people have notbothered.
Minjan Lee goes back to the point aboutintention.
I think about this quite a lot because people have hurtme.
And I'm 55 and I've beenhurt.
I've beenbetrayed. And Ithink,well, am I ready to talk to thatperson?
Is that person ready to talk tome?
Like what is the point of theconversation?
Do I wantreconciliation?
Do I wantforgiveness? Do I want to giveforgiveness?
And sometimes Idon't. Do you wantjustice?
Like, and what would justice reflect toyou?
So if you don't know what youwant, if you just want toevent, that's notwise.
Here's a quickrecap.1.
Know yourintention. Do you want to excavate the path to help your parents findpeace?
To remind yourself what you're madeof, to understand your hiddenDNA.
Maybe it's another reasonentirely.
Make your intention clear to you and to them before divingin.
2. Begentle. With your parent andyourself, these conversations can be intenselyphysical, leave younauseous, evenbedridden.
Check in with everyoneinvolved.
Takespace. Like no marathon work assignment right after having one of these hardconversations.
3. Don't rush to have the talk or to resolve difficult feelings that come up at thetalk.
4. Protectyourself. A sense of independence and security in one's life makes it much more possible to listen to anotherperson.
Now, as for this issue ofdevices, you may have caught mentioned Leesaying, don'trecord.
And it'strue, as soon as you hitrecord, peoplechange.
Getstiff, invisible walls goup.
Thatsaid, I know I needed to record my dad at least onetime.
Are youcomfortable?Yes, Iam.
I'm verycomfortable. Why are yousmiling?
I'msmiling. When I look at yourface, I loveit.
My family does not haveheirlooms.
I wanted a piece of dad's voice to give to my son who never got to meetdad, but has the same single dimple on hischeek.
Sometimes intentionsconflict, Isuppose.
If you or someone you know may be in crisis or consideringsuicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and CrisisLifeline.
By dialing 988 or the Crisis Text Line by texting home to741-741.
For more lifekit, check out our otherepisodes.
We've got one on how to tell your own story and another on how to build an adult relationship with yourparents.
You can find those at npr.org slash lifekit.
And if you love lifekit, and wantmore, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kitnewsletter.
Also, we'd love to hear fromyou.
If you have episode ideas or feedback you want toshare, email us atlifekitatnpr.org.
This episode of Life Kit was produced by MargaretSerino.
It was edited by our supervisingeditor, MeganCain.
Our visuals editor is BeckHarlan.
Our digital editor is MalikaGarib.
But Donovan is the executiveproducer.
Our production team also includes AndyTagle, Claire Marie Schneider and SylvieDouglas.
Engineering support comes from RobertRodriguez.
I'm ArthieShahani. Thanks forlistening.
This is myvoice. It can tell you a lot about me and I'm not changing it foranyone.
In NPR's BlackStories, BlackTruths, you'll find a collection of NPR episodes centered on the Blackexperience.
Search NPR BlackStories, BlackTruths, wherever you getpodcasts.
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