Living in the In-Between
The Quiet Cost of Being an Immigrant Child
There’s a niche struggle that I feel all immigrant children can relate to.
Whenever I am faced with a choice, my brain doesn’t automatically just question what it is I want, but it defaults to questioning how this will impact my parents and as a result other people in our community (people I couldn’t care less about). There’s a strange dichotomy that takes place in trying to be your own person and live a life that feels completely authentic to you, while also trying to live up to your parents’ expectations, knowing they sacrificed so much for you, even though you never asked them to.
It’s a kind of invisible tension, one that pulls at you from both sides: the desire to honour their journey and the ache to finally live yours.
There’s a level of dulling down your own trauma because you know it is nothing compared to the trauma that your parents went through to get to where you are now. In the little blurred lines of being grateful that you get to live your life in a way that so many women in your family didn’t have the privilege of living and the weight of the debt you feel you owe, comes this strange ‘analysis paralysis’ of trying to prove that their sacrifices were worth it. But that constant need to prove your worth always comes at a cost. For me, the cost has been a loss of identity, a looming guilt around choosing myself, and the persistent feeling that I’m somehow a burden.
This guilt shows up in moments like when I get to travel for fun, knowing that my parents are hard at work. It shows up when I’m enjoying new restaurants but my mum is at home cooking even when she probably doesn’t feel like it. I feel it when I buy something new without a second thought but my mum spends her money selflessly on everyone but herself. It shows up in many moments throughout the day, in many deliberations from career choices to relationships etc.
Being an immigrant child often means living a double life — code-switching not just in language, but in identity. You become a bridge between two worlds: the one your parents came from, and the one you're trying to make sense of. You grow up quickly, becoming the third parent of your siblings, the translator and the cultural buffer.
It can feel isolating to constantly carry stories and struggles that your friends will never fully understand. There’s a pressure to succeed that isn’t just about ambition, but about redemption. You’re not just chasing your own dreams; you’re carrying the deferred dreams of an entire generation on your back.
You learn to be grateful for what you have but also hyperaware that none of it came free. Every opportunity feels like something you have to earn again and again, to justify the cost it took to get here. Joy can feel fleeting. Rest feels indulgent. And the fear of failing, not just yourself, but your family’s entire legacy sits heavy, even in your quietest moments.
There’s also a deep loneliness in never feeling fully understood — not by the culture you live in, nor the one you come from. You’re often too much or too little of one or the other. You’re constantly negotiating your existence: how to belong without betraying, how to grow without abandoning, how to soften without unraveling.
And despite all the weight and the worry and the grief you don't always know how to name, you learn to carry it all quietly, often with a smile, because that’s what strength looks like in the immigrant household. But just because you carry it well doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.
Learning to untangle love from obligation is a work in progress. Healing, for me, can sometimes be dramatic moments where I am triggered by something far too easily, other times it has been quiet, slow, and often uncomfortable. It looks like reminding myself that I’m allowed to want things just because I want them. That I’m not selfish for dreaming a little differently than my parents did. That their pain and my joy can coexist.
It means going to therapy and fighting the instinct to downplay my feelings. It means having hard, messy conversations with my family (even when I’d rather shut down) not to demand understanding, but to stop hiding who I am. Sometimes, it’s even just allowing myself a full breath without guilt attached to it.
I used to think I had to prove I was worth their sacrifice. Now, I’m starting to believe that simply living fully, might be the only real way to honour it.