Mutual Awe of Immigrants and Offspring

As much as my parents love me to death and are proud of me at the core, I also know that they are profoundly disappointed on some level. In their imagination, by this age, I should have been a medical doctor, and married to an equally accomplished medical doctor, with two kids, two cars, and a large home in the suburbs. Instead, I am running a very modest business, maintaining an iffy single status, driving a car they got me seven years ago, and renting a small one-bedroom apartment in a city that is most notorious for its high rate of homicide. My parents express their understanding and acceptance of my choices to the same extent that I do of their mores -- which is to say, not all that much.

While we don't often express it, I think there is some level of mutual respect and even awe over the vastly different circumstances in which we have had to carve out our livelihoods. While there have always been the renegades, my parents were raised in a context where they very much took for granted that they would be completing their degrees, getting arranged marriages, and then going "abroad" if their luck so materialized. The stars aligned, and they made their lives here in the Bay Area -- but not without struggle. They really had to work their asses off and rough if up in their early days, as they did not have financial backing or inheritances of any sort in American dollars, and they wanted to send money back home on top of establishing a home and family for themselves. Not to mention that they were now living in a place that was completely unfamiliar to them, without having had exposure to the US through the Internet or TV. Despite it all, they never my sister or me feel any shortage of American childhood recreational or culinary joys. We didn't necessarily have all the frills that my nth-generation American peers in my upper-middle-class schools had -- but it was nothing short of happy and comfortable.

Now, one could argue, I am basically riding off of my parents' hard work in building a secure family life so that I can lead a very selfish one. I mean, even the idea of having a pet appalls me, let alone a husband or child; I hate the thought of having to make special advance arrangements if I just want to go out for a night and get a fucking drink or whatever. Why would anyone want to take on such a burden? I also can't identify with the quest to be a homeowner, let alone one in the suburbs; "investments" in general bore me, and I would much rather spend the little skrilla I have on ephemeral joys. My parents largely construe these preferences as being "American" -- but I say their understanding of what is "Indian" is frozen into a specific demographic of people who left India for the west in the 1970s, and India has since multiplied and evolved in a million different ways. Moreover, what they want for me is precisely the "American Dream"! Regardless, I do understand why they would see it as fundamentally disgusting to live in this bubble where I want no accountability toward anyone.

Luckily, my parents' circle of friends is peppered with examples of other Desi immigrant offspring who have defied the mold. Many of the Desi kids I grew up with are now non-profit workers, therapists, writers, perpetual students, actors, and several varieties of artist-slackers -- and probably the majority my age are unmarried, or divorced. While their parents on some level take this as a failure in having effectively imparted their values, I think they are also highly intrigued by the options we have today, and the fact that we are not as buckled down, socially, culturally, or economically. I am curious to see what new horrors the next generation shall bring to ours.