Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors

Hi folks!

A few items to update as it's been awhile.

First off, Piyali and I have been madly editting chosen submissions. It is super exciting to read and hear so many other women going through similar things. Please forgive us for the wait as we do take a good deal of time with each submission and some of them can be heart-wrenching.

Secondly, we've bagged a pretty awesome woman to help us write a submission. We're really honored she's agreed to write for us and we can't wait to tell you more.

Thirdly, we've MOVED! I'm now in the process of setting up our wordpress site. www.goodgirlsmarrydoctors.wordpress.com. I've been meaning to change sites for awhile but we've recently had a bit of motivation.

Fourthly! Amy Chua's article in the Wall Street Journal "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior"  has created a sensational controversy over the Asian parenting model. Way da go Amy! Way da pack a sucker punch to all the American parents. More about this on our wordpress website.

The pace has recently picked up, so please check out our wordpress site for more details!

Josephine

Hi Folks!

Just to let you know, we've been going through thorough edits of some of the pieces that were submitted to Piyali and myself. It's been a bit of a process so it's taking some time.

In the mean time, I had a friend send me this wonderful piece to read! TED is a great online resource for some of the world's leading speakers. TED Fellow Sanjukta Basu is from India and has created waves by blogging about her personal life.  Her blog has been very personal and has been breaking conventions of what Indian women usually talk about! 

As she mentions in TED Fellow interview;

Blogging is the biggest chance event that has happened in my life. About five years ago I read that there was something new called “blogging” in the online world. So I just opened my blog and I simply started writing about my personal life.

I was at a point in my life where all my friends had settled down and gotten married — I was feeling very lonely. I had a lot to say and nobody to listen. I started writing whatever I wanted to say about my life. It contained a lot of personal information in terms of my relationships, heartbreak stories and things like that. It was the kind of personal information that few people would normally share. Particularly in the Indian culture, women are extremely controlled about what they’ll talk about regarding their personal life in public.

I didn’t think it would get a lot of attention but it did. As people read my blog, I realized that there was a lot about my writing skills and my own life that I was really proud of. I rediscovered myself. Instead of being embarrassed about sharing my personal life in public, I actually got empowered by being so open. I thought that if I’m being honest and this is the truth, then why should I be embarrassed about the truth? In fact, my blog is called, “This is My Truth.”

This in some sense is what I hope for all readers for this blog to write about. I hope everyone writes about their Truth.  

To open up a little bit more about my life. I haven't really opened up about my life as I'm still not sure about it's implications on my real life at home. Despite being a big advocate on this issue, I'm still trying to reconcile my feelings with my love and protectiveness of my own family. 

Here's hoping that we all find the courage to blog about our Truths. 

Josephine

Ok ok.. I get that I have to learn to get my material from elsewhere.... but I think it works.

As I mentioned, I've been doing a little bit of travelling as of late and have serendipitously encountering people with similar issues of parental expectations. Catching up on some Hugo's posts today, I was struck by the familiarity of this question by one of his students.

Hugo, my question is this, how do we deal with the pressure of knowing our parents sacrifice so much so that we can succeed?

My parents have always given me everything I ask for and expect nothing in return except that I excel in my academics so that I can be successful, live a good life and help them out when they get old. What frustrates me is that this seems like such a simple request that I should be able to fulfill it with ease. Yet, because the notion seems so simple, there is more pressure and if I can’t do something as simple as studying and getting good grades, I am a failure. Having an education is simply not enough. I have to be at the top of my class. Sometimes I wonder if that’s part of my parents’ paradigm or mine because I am always striving to be the best. I guess I fear letting my parents down if I settle for average and as a result, I let myself down. I just want to be happy but I can’t be unless my parents are. I love my parents immensely and am forever grateful for everything they’ve sacrificed for me, I would just like to prove that to them and give them something in return.

Sound familiar?

I hear this speech often enough to know it has some themes. Theme 1: Parental Sacrifice. Theme 2: Insurmountable expectations. Theme 3: My happiness is tied to my parents because I love my parents immensely. These themes are not solely focused on intergenerational cross cultural values conflicts; they are themes that are repeated for various anxieties. As there is a lot to unpack here and each theme may be controversial in themselves, we’ll go through each of them individually. Next week I’ll post about Theme 2 and the following on theme 3.

Theme 1: Our parents made the ultimate sacrifice for their children.

Two problems I have with this statement; first problem is about the boundaries between the intergenerational family plan and children’s autonomy over their life.

I'm well aware that many sacrifices that these parents have made could include immigrating to a new country, encountering a racist culture, not having their education recognized within society and thus having to take a lower class job. These are incredibly difficult situations to be in. It is unfortunate that we live in a society that forces people into these difficult choices. It is important to respect, honor and be grateful for these choices. To make sure these life gambles work, the effort must be intergenerational. It’s important to have a family plan.

However there needs to be boundaries set between the intergenerational family plan and children’s autonomy over their life. While parents may have made sacrifices for their happiness, it needs to be understood that children need to make decisions for their own happiness as well.

The second problem in believing in the parental ultimate sacrifice is it means that any sacrifice their son or daughter makes will never compete with the original sacrifice. It becomes a competition of who has sacrificed more which leads to a lose lose situation. The situational setup of the ultimate sacrifice is used as a blackmail tool to encourage certain behaviours.

This is a key argument to the culture versus feminism debate. Cultures do not promote emotional blackmail but healthy family coexistence. It is possible to be true to one’s cultural background without having the weight of the parental sacrifice.

Stay tuned for Theme 2!

I've been doing quite a bit of travelling recently and have done some reflections about the blog. We're changing the blog's focus for a little while, trying to push for the anthology.

While having done some travels lately, its been serendipitous that I've been meeting people who have also gone through intergenerational cultural values conflict. Regardless of what race, or gender, or religion. It's something that alot of people go through. I'm really saddened by how many families encounter this situation in their life and not know what to do with it.

I met a friend a few months back where she felt the funding for her masters programme was held hostage by her family for the sake of her behaviour. She didn't realize the burden of the stress she was feeling until she found some savings and lived in her own apartment. Another male friend has been put under alot of pressure as he chose a profession that wasn't under his father's approval.

"Shame" by Jasvinder Sanghera has written a sequel "Daughters of Shame". Both books do an excellent job of showing the intricacies and difficulties families go through in these values conflicts.

Just to let you know.

Cheers!

Josephine 

Hi Ladies,

So, I'm not usually the one who posts on the blog, but I just wanted to take a minute to say this to all of you:

If you are so much as *contemplating* writing a submission for either our book or our blog, GET IN TOUCH!!!

We are so open to ideas, thoughts, meanderings... we might even be able to help you take some of your thoughts and turn them into a submission!

And never forget that we have probably been through what you are experiencing in terms of getting these tough thougts out on paper... and we understand the need to maybe use a pseudonym or just write an anonymous entry. That's completely ok!

Just don't hestitate to always be in touch and keep those juices flowing!

lots of happy writing,

Piyali

My partner-in-publishing, Josephine, has been writing to you all for some time now about our project called “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors” (http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/03/are_you_a_good). She has told you how it was born, what it is meant to be, and all the reasons why we think something like this is so necessary. So now it’s my turn to swoop in and give you a real-life example of what this project will really entail.

As you know, the project is in two parts. The anthology is meant to showcase stories of South or East Asian women who have grown up in North America, and the issues they have had dealing with diasporic parents. Our blog and website however, are open to any woman who would like to share a story about how parental expectations can sometimes be tricky.

Josephine and I have spent a lot of time making sure that this doesn’t just degenerate into parent-bashing. In fact, it is because we love and respect our parents so much that disagreeing with them can sometimes be so painful. So here, I would like to share a small story about my mother and myself. It is one that I believe is a tiny insight into the kind of thing we are trying to get at with our project:

My mother and I are currently in the midst of planning my wedding. This is an activity that is frustrating at the best of times. But when it’s a four day, 500-person affair (as most Indian weddings in the States tend to be), things get all the more sticky.

At first, I was terribly excited to pick centerpieces and daydream about my wedding sari. But as the guestlist has been growing, elopement has seemed like a better option.

I should mention that my fiancé (the world’s most wonderful and patient man) though he is Indian, is not of my specific background and this had originally been a problem for my parents. (Look for that full story in our forthcoming anthology!) He’s from a family where big weddings are somewhat frowned upon; a community of academics who would rather free themselves from the chore of having to invite every uncle and aunty to the wedding feast. So his family is having a tough time understanding why my end of the guestlist is literally more than 400 people, and why it is so necessary for us to have so many events. And lucky for me, I have become the gofer between my mother and my future mother-in-law.

Well folks, it turns out that there is something more complicated than having to just deal with your own parents, and that is having to negotiate your relationship with your partner’s parents in addition! In this case, I have two sets of Mamas, each with their own definitions of how I should be a Good Girl. Each is equally demure and yet demanding; calm and yet commanding. Each has a set of saris and jewelry they want me to wear, each has notions about who should and should not be invited, and each has specifications for what they want the ceremony to look like.

So who do I listen to? Who do I “choose”? Up until now, there was only one Mama, with whom I either agreed or disagreed. But lately, every small aesthetic choice I make about the wedding seems to have resounding consequences about which “side”; I’ve chosen to be on. Every message I try to relay has many return messages.

I should say that I have magnificent relationships with both my mother and my future mother-in-law. My mother is my confidante and best friend, my mother-in-law has become a mentor and source of total comfort and love. So I know they’re not purposefully putting pressure on me. Then why is it that every time I even think about the wedding, I feel faint and completely overwhelmed? What is it about parental (and specifically maternal) expectations of events like weddings that make parents drive their children to the brink of insanity? What are the ways in which women like myself can gain some control and agency over our own lives?

Our book seeks to examine these issues, and we invite you to do so with us! Let us know about your relationship/wedding dilemmas (or how you feel about mine!) in the comments.

Happy Feministing!

Originally posted on the F-word and here on March 24th 2010. The story incited many comments at the F-word and I think gave people a better understanding of the dichotomous values we talk about on this site. Laura commented about the choice the main character is faced with; a) she hides the choices she makes in her life as she is school somewhere far from home b)she comes clean with her parents and faces the consequences of her choices.

I think it's important to understand that often the consequences can be disastrous and it is unfair to judge every person based on their circumstances. Often times, 'coming out' to your parents can mean ostracization from our family, or cultural life, disownment, or perhaps a loss of financial and emotional support. How comfortable are any of us in telling a young women to stand up for her choices at the cost of her family? 

It's an unfortunate choice to face. The story does a good job balancing the viewpoints.

MAMA SAYS GOOD GIRLS MARRY DOCTORS
Retaining Control, Negotiating Roles: Diasporic Women and their Parents

Part 3 of 4. 
Tampon Talks
By Shalini Gogia

It was 5:30 am. I was jet lagged and roaming in the dark. Should I use this time to unpack my suitcase, which was lazily resting against the back of the living room couch? I went into the kitchen and made myself a cold smoked cheddar sandwich and then sat cross legged in front of the suitcase, staring at it as I took a big bite.

The flight home had been long with a quick plane change at Amsterdam. I had dashed out and purchased some colorful wooden tulips at Schiphol airport. I rotated my shoulders, they were sore. The last two days of the spring semester, right up to the point till I had boarded the plane, had been extremely strenuous. I felt my arms. I had built some muscle between packing my stuff and moving all the boxes into the basement. I smiled, remembering how I had wet my underwear while lifting the carton loaded with books. Was it common for women to ejaculate during heavy lifting? I made a mental note to check that up on the internet. 

I heard the mynahs (starling) chirp. Morning must be approaching. Looking up at the window, I saw pink streaks emerge across the vacant sky. I took one last bite, dusted the crumbs of my hands and opened up the suitcase. Out came the clothes—new and dirty, the shoes—heels, sneakers, ballet flats, boots, yes boots that had been very useful to fight off the eight inches of snow that covered Knox’s campus in Galesburg. A bag loaded with chocolates and cheeses made its appearance and I went to dump it in the refrigerator.

I came back to find my half awake mother staring confusedly at the remaining contents in my suitcase. “Hi ma”, I cheerfully exhaled but she didn’t respond. She was too busy squinting. ”Can you get me my glasses Shalu?” she asked. Sure I said, as I went towards her bedroom, wondering what could have caught her attention so intensely. I only had undergarments left to unpack. By the time I found her spectacles, she didn’t need them. She was sitting on the floor holding an opened box of tampons she had plucked out from amongst the thongs and pushup bras strewn about. 

Oh that! I said to myself as I bit my upper lip.

“Are you having sex?” she whispered suddenly.

“No” I lied instantly.

“Because only married women use tampons. Young girls should not. It is very shameful if we sent you to America and instead of studying you are having sex.”

“Just relax mom, Ayesha asked me to carry them for her sister, who is married.” I lied again. She smiled hesitatingly, obviously relieved and turned to me and asked, “Are you still a good girl?” I blurted out a yes too fast.

She patted me on the back as she continued to whisper, “Please don’t have sex with anyone until you are married”, and then she leaned over even closer and added, “And even if you do, don’t make the mistake of telling anyone. Not even your best friend, not even Ayesha, because one day she will use it against you.”

I just nodded so as not to encourage this topic of conversation, but really, why was premarital sex such a crime to my mother? “Your grades are good and soon you will get your degree. You have a good education and good health and soon you will get a good job and find a good husband. But if you want to find a really good husband, then you must have a good reputation in society.”

I was getting increasingly amused by her obsession with “everything good” that I decided to be a bit of a saucy tart. “What does a good reputation mean ma?” Happy that she could impart wisdom to me, she stroked my hair and said, “It means that people in society—your neighbors, your relatives and your friends—all can expect you to behave with good manners and make good choices. That is how a person’s reputation gets formed.”

“If you sleep around” she said as she inspected one tampon closely, “you will find you have many boyfriends but none of them will want to marry you. Is that what you want?” Taking a deep breath she concluded her sermon, “All your father and I want for you is a good husband from a good family.”

She got up to go to the kitchen and make her morning cup of tea. “Would you say dad came from a good family?” I asked cheekily. She was silent as she put the water on the boil, tossing some ginger and cardamom into the pot. She needed a few minutes to form a politically correct answer.

“Well your grandfather, Gogia Pasha, was a famous magician.”

“But you also said he was an alcoholic, and that two of dad’s brothers were mentally unwell, so how is that good?”

“Your father is a good person” she shot back defensively, “the character of the boy you marry should be good. That is what is most important.”

“What about your family mom? Would you say you came from a good family?”

“Of course! We are Brahmins and everyone in my family has a masters degree.”

“But didn’t your father beat your mother and didn’t she leave him and separate? You said that your whole life you were ashamed that your parents were divorced and that you grew up with very little money…”

My mother’s face turned red and her nostril’s flared. I tried to reason, “All I am trying to understand is what makes one family good and another not when all families have their sunshine moments and their dark secrets…”

She had lost interest in this conversation (or any conversation that challenged social norms). My dad woke up and walked towards us. She smiled at him and quickly chucked the tampons into the suitcase and shut it, probably to save me from embarrassment.

“Good morning Shalu” dad said as he hugged me. “Welcome back! Did you find the driver easily at the airport?” I nodded smiling. Our maid woke up and made me and dad some green tea. “So how was school” he asked as we both sat with our legs stretched out in the tropical sun.

“It was good”, I winked. “I really enjoyed my art appreciation class…”

“Art? Why are you studying art” my mother interrupted, “that isn’t a good subject! What happened to economics?”

“Geeta let her finish talking”, my dad gently chided my mother, “so tell me beta, what other classes did you take this semester?”

“French, macroeconomics, political geography and marketing…”

“Sounds good” dad said and then got lost reading the several morning papers that were on his tray. 

“Did you hear about the Chandok’s daughter” my mom asked out loud.

“No, what happened to her” dad responded without looking up from the paper.

“She just graduated and got engaged to this boy whom she had met in college. The Chandok’s thought he was from a really good family but two days ago Kimaya walked in on him kissing some English blond girl in his hotel room, and now they have called off the engagement.”

“All boys are like that Geeta, they want to have a fling with a blond girl before they settle down…”

“But Kimaya was a good girl; she didn’t deserve this after she got engaged to him…”

Blond girl versus good girl, hmm—my parent’s theories were very amusing. “Mom, why do you say Kimaya was a good girl?”

“She always wished all her mother’s friends at parties. She didn’t avoid them like you do.” I would have said something to defend myself but I didn’t want to break her train of thought. “She always dressed up very nicely and I think she graduated at the top of her class. This boy was her first boyfriend.” My mother sipped her tea as she looked at me, very satisfied with her answer.

I didn’t want to ruin her good impression of Kimaya or ruin this good day by telling her that Kimaya had an abortion last semester. Rumor has it that she had gotten pregnant by an African-American football player at her university. She had only started dating this loser Amar on the rebound as he had helped tutor her through Calculus last semester, which she was badly failing.

And as for me, yes I was having sex and using tampons. I was playing around with many subject choices and was finding economics hard and boring. I didn’t avoid my mother’s friends; I only excused myself when they started to ask prying questions. I was perhaps, not making a very good impression, but I was having a good time.

As I leaned forward to grab a copy of the Times of India, I quickly pulled down my t-shirt. I didn’t want any of my parents seeing my butterfly tattoo right above my butt crack. My mother would only have two words to say.

Not good. 
________________________________________

Are you a good girl? You know what we mean: you listen to your parents, there’s no gossip about you in the “community.” Or are you a bad girl? Were you caught smoking in high school? Did you marry that white boy against your parents’ wishes? This is part three of a four part series about “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors”. Stay tune for the last of the 4 part series next week. If you’d like to tell your own story, check us out atGoodgirlsmarrydoctors.webs.com or email Josephine atgoodgirlsmarrydoctors@gmail.com

Original post was published on the F-word on March 20th 2010.

MAMA SAYS GOOD GIRLS MARRY DOCTORS

Retaining Control, Negotiating Roles: Diasporic Women and their Parents

Part 2 of 4. Are you a bad girl?

Are you a good girl? You know what we mean: you listen to your parents, there’s no gossip about you in the “community.” Or are you a bad girl? Were you caught smoking in high school? Did you marry that white boy against your parents’ wishes? This is part one of a four part series about “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors”.

Post #2; Clarifying what we’re NOT saying.
Now that we’ve clarified what this blog is about, let’s clarify what this blog is NOT about. We are NOT about rebelling against culture, religion, parents or heritage. I think this surprises many people. Often people fear that as different immigrant cultures move to multicultural societies that the culture would be diluted. This results in a large fear that the clash of values between women and their families emphasizes this dilution and the disappearance of our heritage.

The two values which clash are both equally important and valuable but people may be forced to choose one over the other. These situations frequently come up in immigrant cultures as families often need to renegotiate their values in a new setting. For example, the Chinese culture have certain favourite types of food which may be seen as strange or unappetizing from outsiders and as a result they may be harder to find these types of food or may not be accessible. The clashing of these two values also can come up in a more intense situation when daughters are at important parts of their lives such as career choices and partner choices.

On one side represents the value of heritage. Cultures are deemed having the right to practice their religion and cultural heritage. Often in diaspora cultures, practicing these cultural heritages are an important symbol of keeping the community together and remembering a set of values which may be unique. Frequently as diaspora cultures may feel under attack from the host cultures, these values are more important than ever to keep alive, for fear of them being swept away and diluted.

On the other hand, sometimes the responsibilities for these cultural values are largely held on women and they may influence her decisions for a career, and future partners. Though understanding that these responsibilities are also held by men, there are differences between men and women in this respect.

The clashing of these values is a regular occurrence in every young person’s life, only it can be emphasized within immigrant cultures. There is no right path or decision. The problem is that EVERYONE has an opinion about it. For example, France is contemplating banning the Niqab. The Islamic culture has an opinion of women wearing the traditional dress but it is opposed by the French government as it makes people feel uncomfortable.

What’s your opinion? On one hand, young women of coloured are considered spoiled brats for wanting things that may not be culturally appropriate, on the other can we really justify a culture which oppresses women from being an active part in moulding their own values?

Stay tune next week for Part 3 where we go through one woman’s story.

It’s not cultural betrayal to insist that women’s individual happiness matters. It’s not cultural betrayal to offer support to young women from traditional backgrounds assistance in discerning what of modern feminism they want for their lives — and what they don’t. It’s not ethnocentric to encourage slightly older women who have had some success in mapping a route “out” to mentor younger women who are unsure of the way. If I can quote myself from one of the posts below:

… if feminists can agree on one thing, it’s this: the collective sacrifices of your parents, ancestors, and culture do not trump your own personal right to be happy.

I've heard this story before. Have you? 

We as parents have sacrificed our life for you by immigrating over to Canada/US so you can have a better life. 

However, it's not to say we aren't appreciative of the sacrifices that our parents have given us. I am really big on being thankful for our parents because that is a cultural practice that we find highly valuable where I"m from. But there needs to be a separation between the emotional responsibilities of these sacrifices between the parents and their children. 

On the other hand, perhaps the segregation of responsibility is a western concept. But where is the line drawn between living your life for your parents and living it for yourself?

Josephine

Original post on the F-word on March 10th 2010. 

MAMA SAYS GOOD GIRLS MARRY DOCTORS

Retaining Control, Negotiating Roles: Diasporic Women and their Parents

Part 1 of 4. Are you a good girl?

Are you a good girl? You know what we mean: you listen to your parents, there’s no gossip about you in the “community.” Or are you a bad girl? Were you caught smoking in high school? Did you marry that white boy against your parents’ wishes? This is part one of a four part series about “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors”. This first post is about what the project’s all about, the second post is about what the project is NOT about. The third and fourth post will be stories that have been submitted whom we’ve gathered permission to publish.

“Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors” is for all girls from immigrant families who deal with good girl/bad girl issues often around topics such as careers and sexuality. These girls often run into clashes of values between what being a good girl entails (such as listening to the family, picking a career the parents approve, or finding a partner that is suitable for family).

Where this is a life journey that most women encounter, it can sometimes have upsetting consequences within immigrant families. The main reason is that often the good girl attitude is about holding cultural values for fear of them being diluted in UK’s culture. As such, it may be more important for families to have good girls or women who stay true to their cultural values for the sake of passing on the heritage from one generation to another.

However these situations can often be violent. The number of women who want to make choices with respect to their career, sexuality or choice of spouses are often NOT representative of what cultural values reflect as a good girl. There are many instances where young women are coerced financially, physically or emotionally in order to subscribe to the cultural good girl paradigm. This clashing of values can be extremely traumatizing for the good girls and their respective families. Some women have faced being ostracized by their family, suffered a loss of family financial support for their education and careers, or forced to be disowned in their community gatherings.

What is often mistaken is that this is a false dichotomy. There are multiple ways of being a cultural good girl, though it may not be recognized by our families. Currently feminism is redefining women and their roles in their cultural heritage. The idea is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater as there are multiple paths for women to express and strengthen their cultural heritage while be a key player in the UK. What results are women forging new roads and a new type of feminism. Young diasporic women are forging new feminist grounds and redefining how feminist tools are useful.

This new type of feminism is exciting to watch. I hope you’ll join me in spreading the word of this project. Stay tune next week for Part 2: Are you a bad girl?

Josephine is part of a two person team duo launching “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors” along with Piyali. You are welcome to submit a story about your own good girl story. Check us out at Goodgirlsmarrydoctors.webs.com.