There’s a common joke passed around social media that is along the lines of, “West African Parents be like a.) Doctor b.) Lawyer c.) Engineer d.) Disgrace To Family.”
When shared on social media, most children to West African and/or Caribbean immigrants can feel that pressure all too well. The fact of the matter is that your parents want to see you do well. They want to see you do the things they never could and succeed in ways that most people only ever dream of. Often times, they want you to do well to validate that their hard work was worth it and, most times, it's more than that. They love you and genuinely want the best for you; for no other reason than that you are their child. When it comes to African parents, their aspirations for their child's education is everything. Everyone can identify with the pressure they feel to succeed and make their parents proud, as well as, the panic that ensues after a failure, hiccup, bump in the road etc. As far as their academic expectations and beliefs on what is acceptable behavior inside and outside the home, there is set manual and that will never change. They have all read it, know it like the back of their hand, and will unashamedly remind you of the codes of conduct should you ever forget it.
In the case of my own mother, a few things have always been true. She has always been the disciplinarian, the mother, the father, the defining “yes,” but most of the time the defining “no,” the cheerleader and oftentimes the acerbic coach on the sidelines. For everything that my mother is, she is superwoman.
My mother’s expectations of me have always been uncompromising, and any attempts to explain to her “humans make mistakes” were met with austere glares and lectures longer than methuselah’s lifetime. I guess what has always caused friction between us is the fact that she is critical and I am an indulgent liberal that cares more about the manner of delivery than what is actually being delivered. In the cases of my success, she has always been supportive and involved. In the cases of my failures, she has always been involved, just not in the ways I would’ve liked. I’ve always said that when I am doing well I could count on my mother to make me feel a thousand times better and when I am not, I can always count on her to make me feel a thousand times worse.
For me, this has created a pattern of running away from difficulty or anything that I might lose at. Often times when things don’t work out be it school, or life in general, she is the first person I think about and, immediately, panic ensues. It’s always pushed me to try hard to do my best but it has not allowed me a healthy way to deal with failure, which has transgressed to other parts of my life. I do not deal with failure well, at all. Any signs of trouble at anything I do or try will have me running for the hills and hyperventilating like the world around me is crashing down. That is not to say, of course, that my mother is to blame… but she is. This year, as a first-year college student away from home, I took a lot of the pressure she had once placed on me and did the same thing to myself.
Choosing my major has always been an internal battle that has become external just this past weekend. Do I go into medicine or computer science and make her happy? Do I pursue what I want to do which is liberal arts and chase my dream? Do I chase the dollar in attempts to repay her for everything and give her a comfortable life? Do I chase my passion, which doesn’t promise financial comfort? Every parent wants their child to be happy, but every parent also wants their child to be financially secure.
My mom’s biggest fear is that I will work a 9-5 for a low-income wage like she does. And one of my biggest fears is to wake up every morning hating my profession because I chased the dollar. An even bigger fear for me is that I will never ease the weight she’s carrying on her shoulders. I tell her “Muhn, I want to help people,” and she goes, “You can’t help people if you’re broke, especially yourself.” I tell her Communications is where I’m headed and for the for the time since I began figuring out what to major and she tells me flat out “no.” She tells me that there’s no money in it and I should go for something that has money, save, and then go back to school for what I’m passionate about. I decided finally I’ll just double major in communications and medicine. Everybody wins. But upon further thought, I can’t help but ask myself why the both of us are so scared. Her for me and me for her. Why is it that neither one of us wants to fall down a few times despite its inevitability and scrape our elbows up if necessary and it’s clear?
My mom’s passion is baking and cooking; she put herself through culinary school and got a degree but was never able to find a job in the profession that could feed two children. She bakes as a side hustle to make ends meet alongside her job as a security guard. She wakes up at 9 a.m. every morning and returns home at 8 p.m. She had major surgery on her knee years ago and standing on it all day is painful but when she comes in she bakes for anyone that has ordered anything with her during the day. Then she showers, prays (5 times a day every single day ) and sits down to relax. So, on an average day, my superhero wakes up at 9 a.m. and finishes around 10 p.m. Her passion became a backup plan because she couldn’t find work in it and the job she did find isn't enough to make ends meet. So, that puts it into perspective for me. She is scared for me because she did exactly what it is that I want to do. She chased her passion, as opposed to a profession that would give her easy work and decent income like nursing or medicine.
Upon assessment of what exactly it is that I’m scared of, it's that I will choose a path that will never grant me the opportunity to take her off of her feet. I don’t care what anyone says when your parents bust their asses for you, the very least you can do is attempt to make their lives comfortable. Nothing scares me more than struggling not because I cannot handle it, but because it would break my mother’s heart to see me do so. Falling and getting back up is the easy part, looking into the stands and seeing her wide eyes panicking and frightened is what throws me off of my game. Sometimes in life you are meant to fall repeatedly, you are meant to take the road less traveled and you are meant to learn from every single high and low. Doesn’t that mean you won’t touch the finish line? Doesn’t that mean it will be less meaningful because it simply means that that’s Allah’s formula for the particular equation that is your path?
For someone like me, It isn’t simply “go to school and find a job.” My dreams are much bigger than that. My profession is what I feel my life calling is, which means my professional success and personal success are inextricably linked. My measure and evaluation of my personal success are dependent upon how many lives I touch, how many people I help, and what I leave behind that can be paid forward. This makes my choice in a profession that much more important and confusing. What I want to do is much bigger than myself, but doesn’t over-ride my obligation to make my mother proud because that too is a part of my personal success. I have no doubt that I will make it to wherever I am going in one piece. The question is how do I get the anxious and tired woman in the passenger seat beside me to stop trying to grip the steering wheel? how do I get her to relax no matter how many potholes we drive into? How do I get her to understand and trust me? I want to get to where we are going just as much as she does.
