I don’t hang out with friends often. I am not very close to my parents. I don’t celebrate holidays with my family. Every time I hear my friends talk about all the fun activities they get to do, I feel left out. My friends didn’t make me feel left out. My mom did. I am left out of activities kids and teenagers get to experience, because my mom does not adapt to the U.S. lifestyle while keeping her foreign morals.

   My family immigrated to the United States from Vietnam about 23 years ago. They came to the United States in hopes of raising their family, giving me and my sister the best life imaginable. My parents divorced due to financial problems when I was young, leaving me with my mother. Even as a single mother, she promised to fulfill these goals. I respect her goals, but as I grew older, I realized that these goals aren’t being met. My mom raises me and my sister similar to the way she grew up in Vietnam, which causes a huge issue. Vietnam and the United States are completely different. Getting piercings and tattoos is very common in the United States, but would be frowned upon in Vietnam. The same issue goes for partying with friends. Asian parents need to understand the distinction between life in the U.S. and their native country, something my mom fails to understand at times.

  My mom is very insistent on keeping her Vietnamese traditions and morals. Of these morals, she never fails to express the importance of school. School should be your only and most important priority, because education and knowledge hold the key to a good future. Friends and dating aren’t of relevance until you have established a comfortable living situation on your own.

   When I ask my mom if I can hang out with my friends, she never says no, but always lectures me on how hanging out with friends is a waste of time. She gives me the same, endless lecture on how school should be my primary focus while giving me a look of shame. I felt like I was committing a crime even though it was far from a crime. Now I rarely ask my mom to hang out with friends to avoid that guilt I shouldn’t be feeling.

   I agree that school is very important especially as I get close to my college years, but I should be able to build a social life like other kids. I experience my childhood and teenage years only once in life. I want to be able to enjoy hanging out with friends and going out just to get my mind off of school sometimes. I barely get to hang out with friends, and every time I do, it just causes trouble. I don’t want my mom to be disappointed every time I hang out with my friends. I wish she would embrace me making the most of my teenage years.

   The extreme emphasis on school has also had an impact on my mental health. I started to feel burnt out, overwhelmed, and stressed last year mainly because of my classes and I didn’t know how to handle it. When I would bring it up to my mom, she always played off the issue. She expressed that my mental health issues would just go away and that I needed to push through my problems. She told me that she experiences stress too and it wasn’t that serious. I wanted to confide in her about issues I experience and receive support like other children do, not have my issues downplayed. Mental health affects everyone differently and can be very severe. Everyone has stress and needs a healthy support system, which is something I wish I had within my mom. 

   My mom is very strict with who I am friends with. In Vietnam, she was raised to believe that two people of the opposite sex hanging out together is a sign of dating and dating at a young age leads to bad circumstances. Many of my friends are allowed to hang out with friends regardless of sex. I wish my mom would trust that I am telling her the truth when I’m out with friends. Limiting the friends I am allowed to hang out with just because they are of the opposite sex is throwing away opportunities for me to build a social life. I get frustrated and upset when I’m not able to go to group hangouts with my friends just because of a false myth.

   Life is too short to have all these strict rules placed on me. I don’t have any resentment towards my mom in any way, but I wish she would budge a little. I don’t want her to lose all of her Vietnamese morals and traditions. My only wish is that she would take into consideration my happiness when making decisions for me instead of doing what she thinks is right. I don’t wanna feel isolated from the world my friends get to experience. There is a way my mom could raise me accordingly in the U.S. while keeping her Vietnamese culture and traditions. Many of my friends who have immigrant parents are able to have experiences I can’t, because of my mom. I am slowly watching my teenage years slip from my hands.