Should I stay overnight with my family during the holidays? An eldest child of immigrants perspective

A lot of non-children of immigrants won't understand this, but the question of whether or not to sleep with your family when you visit them can be a super big deal....it's especially relevant now that we are nearing thanksgiving and Christmas season.

As an eldest of immigrants myself (actually im the only child), I grew up with the expectation that I will stay with my parents whenever I visit NYC. If I don't, my parents draw these conclusions:

1) "They are not being respectful/dutiful"- they might interpret the child as distancing themselves from the family or disregarding their responsibility

2) "they must not care about the family anymore"- physical closeness and family unity is so important and not staying overnight might be seen as the child emotionally detaching from the family. Parents might interpret that the child no longer prioritizes the family or prefers individualism over family.

3) "they are so ungrateful for all we've done"- parents might interpret children not staying as ingratitude and a rejection of their hard sacrifices as immigrants

4) "they are becoming too westernized and are forgetting their roots"- parents might think that children are becoming too independent and forgetting about their culture or family values.

5) "they don't value our home or traditions anymore"- staying overnight symbolizes togetherness and honoring the family's way of life. parents might see this not only as a rejection of family but of culture.

6) "there must be something wrong in our relationship"- parents might conclude that children are harboring negative feelings about the family or that there is something wrong.

Question- how do these misguided conclusions lead to conflict?

In my family, my mom projected a lot of her insecurities about me not staying overnight with her onto me and as a result, put a lot of pressure on me to stay with her overnight. Oftentimes it meant that she guilted me or coerced me into staying with her. This caused a lot of strain in our relationship. As a lot of you might know, I am a recovering people pleaser and I really wanted to not give into the pressure of staying overnight but I had such a crisis of faith.... I was in a bind. If I didn't stay with her overnight, I would be guilted and shamed not only by my mom, but by all my aunties. If I did stay with her, I would be caught up in a lot of distressing conversations and potentially in a lot of difficult fights with no where to run in the middle of the night.

How did I eventually resolve this bind?

There was no easy fix to this issue. I knew that this issue revealed more internal healing that I had to do with the younger parts of myself that really longed for the approval of my mom and extended family, but also compromised my comfort and emotional safety at the same time.

Here is my short term solution to how I resolved this issue:

1) I reaffirmed family connections

2) clarified practical reasons

3) acknowledged my cultural values and commitment to staying close to the family, while explaining personal needs

4) offered alternatives with spending time with each other without staying overnight.

Did this help? Yes, but it took a lot of internal work to have this conversation. And I realize that it might not work with everyone. My mother still was very confused and hurt by my decision to not stay over night with her. I still had to do the internal work to not be pulled into her hurt feelings and to give into my guilt.

This is my long term solution to how I resolved this issue:

I realized that I have a deeply ingrained parent pleasing tendency. the goal of my healing was to recognize, understand and unburden the parts that engage in these behaviors so I could relate to my parents in a less co dependent and more authentic way.

Here is my long term healing solution that I embarked on:

1) established a relationship with my Higher Self. As a people pleaser, I became over identified with my people pleaser parts and not with my Self-- the core, calm, compassionate energy of who I am and has the capacity to practice Self leadership and be self healing. Self knows how to relate to parents in an interdependent way. Self knows their own boundaries and knows how to reinforce and maintain boundaries without losing a sense of identity. I did this through mindfulness and self exploration with my therapist. When I connected with my therapist's Higher Self, I was able to connect to my own.

2) Identify the parent pleasing parts- In the healing modality that I use, IFS (internal family systems), there is a belief that some of your behaviors are driven by manager parts (parts that cause you to do something that is in accordance to some kind of internal agenda). My parent pleasing managers believe that pleasing my parents can avoid conflict, rejection and disapproval and they will do everything in their power to help me avoid conflict with my parents.

3) Sit down and get to know my parent pleasing parts- yes, my therapist encourages me to talk to myself. I know this sounds weird but this is what I do in therapy. My therapist invites me to talk to my people pleasing managers. My therapist encourages me to ask my people pleasing parts about their roles, concerns and intentions. Creating an open, compassionate dialogue with these people pleasing parts can be healing because I am understanding why they do what they do for me.

4) Locating and healing vulnerable parts- every manager is protecting a younger more vulnerable part. Beneath the parent pleasing parts is an exile. An exile is a part that is vulnerable, young and wounded. They hold painful stories related to interactions with parents, such as not feeling good enough, fear of disappointing or a general sense of unworthiness. We spend time compassionately dialoguing with the exile, witnessing the pain of the exile and reparenting the exile.

5) unburdening the vulnerable exile- once the exile has been witnessed, we invite the exiles to be unburdened. This means that the exiles are invited to release the painful messages they have been carrying through some element of Fire, Earth, Wind, Water or Air or some other means. The parent pleasing managers don't need to work so hard because the vulnerable parts that they protect are now free and lighter. The people pleasing managers can now be invited to change their roles and do something else that might be helpful and aligned with their true core values.

6) Setting healthy internal and external boundaries with parents- When I finally went through this healing journey with my inner younger vulnerable parts, I was able to be more truthful with my mom about why I don't want to stay overnight. I didn't feel the need to lie, but I also didn't have any expectations that she would take the message well. I was ready to work with her backlash without giving in. I don't feel a need to please at the expense of my own well being.

7) building more internal and external support- I noticed that my relationship to my parents were changing and I needed to build more support with people pleasing parts and getting more external support from my family, friends and therapists to maintain this change and reinforce Self Leadership.

I hope this was helpful.

In gratitude,

Angela Tam