My mother and father didn’t talk about feelings. Fact was- their parents didn’t talk about their own feelings. Generations, if not dynasties, of silence and internalization. Maybe because emotions are complicated, easily misunderstood, scary and can be enmeshing. 

They would take the stance of “you’re fine, everything is fine”, “move on, get over it” or “there’s no reason to cry and be upset”. Pretty invalidating, which left me very confused about the feelings I had, how to label and process them. 

I used to think silence meant absence- not caring, not deemed important enough. But I’ve come to understand her quiet as her own kind of language. 

Love Without Language

My mother and father never said “I love you”, they still don’t. Not to each other and rarely to us, their kids. Their grandkids though? They would say I love you every hour, on the hour. Even though we didn’t hear the words “I love you”, the rice was always fresh and warm, the roof protected us, the clothing clean. Her love came dressed in action, in survival, in small, consistent offerings that stitched my childhood together.

For years, I couldn’t name what I missed. I knew I was physically safe. Well fed. Protected. But still, something felt missing, incomplete. As an empath, I needed words and actions to meet up — not as proof of love, but safety in consistency. An acknowledgment of feeling and acceptance  that went beyond provisions. I think the big reason is that parenting to them is just providing for us physically. I don’t think providing emotionally was even on their radar. 

Parenting through inherited Silence 

It wasn’t until I became a mother that I noticed the emotional muscle I flexed over and over was in hyperdrive. My son would cry, and I’d tense up entering in a state of flight or fight. I’d soothe him but fear whispered that I wasn’t doing enough, not enough, doing something wrong. Maybe the problem wasn’t him, maybe it was me. At least that’s what my inner voice told me. 

Breaking Cycles Gently

I’m not trying to judge my mother because of her immigrant parenting style. My father was born into the beginning of the Vietnam war while my mother was born towards the tail end of the war. Epigenetics would have probably dictated that I would be born into stress as well or at least have precursors for it. 

She immigrated over to the US post Vietnam War in the early 1990’s, when she was 22 years old. She came to a country where she did not have friends and did not know the language or customs. She moved away from California to Pennsylvania when she married my father. Talk about your world getting flipped and then flipped again. 

Even though she didn’t speak English, she spoke the language of endurance and survival. She was walking parenthood through the lens of generational trauma parenting. She did what she needed to do to survive and raise 2 under 2 in an environment where she did not have her “village” both literally and figuratively. I want to raise my son in a way that honors that, but also adds a new dialect: the language of vulnerability and resilience.

So I ask him questions she never asked me. I say “I love you” like it’s punctuation, ensuring that his inner voice will also say “I love you” instead of doubt. I let silence mean safety and slowing  down, giving time for breath, not fear.

Parenting as Translation

I don’t believe in perfect parenting, there’s no such thing as perfect. But I believe in conscious parenting and doing the best you can with the tools you have. The thing about tools is, you can always acquire new tools and add to your tool box. I believe in translating the love we receive into the love we give — even if that means editing it along the way and making it uniquely ours. That to me is legacy. That to me is breaking generational trauma what I want to carry forward into the future. 

I’m parenting as a bridge — between generations, cultures, traumas, and hopes.

My mother’s silence wasn’t a failure. It was a strategy. Now I choose to speak, because I can thanks to the path she paved for me.

The Heart of It

I’m learning to parent as a translator — fluent in both resilience and tenderness. My mother’s silence echoes in my parenting, not as a deficit, but as a reminder of the unspoken love I now speak aloud everyday to my son. First generation emotional healing through gentle parenting is not light and smooth sailing. It is constantly reframing the brain through neuroplasticity with intention. Life is too short to stay silent and to endure hardship alone. It is time to be vocal, loud and expressive especially when there are groups of people who want to silence us and take away our power. It’s time to find our village because motherhood is not meant to be a journey traveled alone.