CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Q&A: My Parents Are Politicians

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

In this episode, Whitney answers two caller questions. Caller 1 is dealing with cultural pressures to care for her gaining parents. Caller 2 has parents who are politicians with beliefs that differ from her own. You can join the Family Cyclebreakers Club at Calling Home here. To learn more about Whitney and her work, visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca slash yamex. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the calling home podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Goodman.

Today we have another Q&A episode. I am so excited for you to hear these two callers and the feedback that I give them. The first caller is an only child who is dealing with aging parents in a large immigrant family. And we talk about culture, expectations, how to care for aging parents and boundaries that can be set, and we also talk about going no contact and estrangement in those situations. The second caller is a daughter of politicians who have different political beliefs than her. And we talk about different political beliefs in a family.

I offer some feedback on how I think both people can reach across the aisle, reach across the family to have these difficult conversations and try to find some common ground. I also talk about how in some families this may not be possible and what to look at out for before you have these types of conversations. Let's go ahead and get to that first caller. Hi, Whitney. My name is Kim. I am calling as an only child.

I really enjoy your podcast. It's really helped me grow in many ways and self-reflect and really process through a lot of my tough familial relationship. I'm calling because I am currently faced with having to either accept my parents where they are and the way that they treat me or kind of going no contact. I am having a really hard time. As I'm an immigrant daughter, I'm an only child. My mom comes from a huge family. She's the oldest of nine and my dad is the oldest of eight on his side, both immigrant parents from their individual countries. And so I'm just having a really hard time because a lot of my

life, they've prioritized their siblings or parents over me. A lot of my personal information or business they tend to use as an extension of themselves to either brag about my accomplishments and how they are just such great parents or my shortcomings they use to like basically gossip or talk mess about me. And so I just don't really feel like a strong trust or bond with them. But now in my adulthood, they expect me to care for them and to provide for them and financially, emotionally, mentally, and even sometimes be a mediator in their marriage. And so I'm having a really hard time, A, providing all of these things, I'm still trying, but now I'm faced with the fact that they're all so ungrateful and disrespectful towards me

and still really prioritize their living parents and my aunts and uncles, their siblings. And so I just don't really know how to move forward. My counselor has suggested me accepting where they are and how I cling to a lot of hope that I have of them changing. And so I continuously am in the cycle of getting heartbroken over and over again as you're trying really hard to be this perfect daughter. But in reality, I just feel like they never really gave me my space or place as their child or protected me in a lot of family relationships. And so I still feel really abandoned and I don't really know what to do moving forward.

So I would appreciate any input on forensified children now because I feel like looking back, I am very parentified. And so a lot of things going on. And so I figured I'd call and, yeah, just submit my inquiry. I appreciate your time and attention. Thank you. Thank you so much for calling in. Let's break down a couple of things that are coming up with this caller, right? So the first one is being an only child.

with aging parents who are expecting something from you. And not really having siblings or other people to not only split up this work with, but just to talk about it with, then to have these types of discussions, problem solved. This can be an isolating part of not just being an only child. Because I think this happens to people with siblings as well, especially if you have a sibling who is not helpful

who is also sick or who doesn't have the capability lives far away. It's not just only children that can experience this, but this is a dynamic of feeling very isolated and alone as you start to deal with these problems within your family as your parents are aging and expecting more of you. The second piece here is, of course, this culture piece, right? There are clearly certain expectations within this family and a way that things are supposed to be, right? And I'm putting air quotes around that. And I think without knowing this caller's parents or without knowing any of you who are listening to this, who might relate, that this is probably a messaging that you heard through your whole life, right, and that you watched play out in front of you, that you sacrifice

yourself to care for your parents when they're aging at any cost to yourself because that's what you do. And that's what you watched the people in your family do. Maybe it was the women, you know, that did this. And you saw a lot of resentment grow and maybe feelings of being taken advantage of, but that was just the way that things were supposed to be done in the family. So that being said, I think when you have an immigrant households and you have a second generation or the younger generation that's saying, hey, I don't really think that I want to do things this way, you have to expect that there's going to be pushback from the family at large because this is deeply ingrained in the family and it might be working for everybody else. It's certainly working to

keep that belief in that system alive when your parents become elderly and they need someone to care for them because in this moment the system is benefiting them. And in a lot of ways, I think people believe that, well, I did this for my parent. And so now I am entitled to it for my own child without having that conversation with their child and what they did for their parent really has nothing to do with their child. But there's this other piece that, of course, taking care of our families, being there for one another, helping generations as they age, there are a lot of good parts to that, right? It keeps us connected to our heritage and to our family. It often feels good to help others. You're carrying on a tradition within your family. You're giving back to people

that you love. No one is arguing for this kind of world where our family members shouldn't expect anything from one another. I think what gets tricky here and what I believe this caller is speaking to is the idea of reciprocity and of having relationships where both people get to feel respected and like they benefit. And I think in a lot of cultures, there is a belief that children are really there to repay their parents in adulthood in a lot of ways. And so it can be really tricky to break down some of those messages of like, hey, but you know, I know that I do want to give back to you and I want to be there for you and I want to help you.

But I also would like you to treat me with respect in adulthood and maybe not share my personal information or gossip about me or treat me. me disrespectfully while I'm doing that. And so I find that in families where this idea of generations helping one another being passed down and gets passed down in a successful way that is healthy and good, it's because there is this reciprocal nature when it comes to respect and boundaries and acknowledging that everyone is living their own life with their own challenges and they can only give as much as they can. And when there is that foundation there, it is a lot easier for the adult child in this situation to say, I want to help

my parents because I love them and I want to do something good for them. Now, for this caller, it sounds like I agree with this message that you're telling me from your therapist about accepting your parents and what they can give. And I also want to encourage you to accept what you can give. And that might be less than what is expected of you. And so that means getting really, really comfortable with the idea that you might be disappointing your family. You might not be willing to sacrifice as much of yourself for others at this grade

of a cost at this point in your life. And a lot of people do this, right? People move away from their aging parents because they can't care for them. or they have a job somewhere else, and they kind of get let off the hook. And this is what I see a lot with siblings, is that there can be different expectations for different people. So sometimes it can be helpful to think about anybody else in your family that has maybe taken a different path, done something different.

How did they show up in a way that didn't totally infringe on who they are? And so before we even get to cut off, no contact, estrangement, I like to walk that path. And I don't know if this caller has done that. And if you have, then you might be much further along in the process than I'm saying. But for those of you that are feeling this way, I think it's important to think about what boundaries can I set and what can I control to make this a little bit better for me. So if I know that this person, my parent, is sharing all of my personal information with family members, I need to stop telling them things. I need to stop giving them information that I don't feel comfortable being spread

because they have shown me repeatedly that they do not have the ability to contain themselves and to not share that information. So that's something that I really want to work on. And, you know, them being kind to you, being compassionate, being understanding, like these are things that are very difficult to create in other people. And so you have to think about what boundaries can I set to keep myself safe. And also, what am I good at? You know, I have a workbook on the website, on the Calling Home website called Caring for the caregiver. It's on the course's page of the website. And I talk about this in there of like, and I talk about this in my help for the helper course, which is also on the course section of the website.

that you have to really get comfortable with what you can offer and what you can offer well. So if you are a family member that is able to provide financial support more than you can provide emotional support, that might be what you're good at and what you can do. If you're able to provide logistical support, you can schedule appointments, you can drive people places. You should do that then. If you are not good at providing emotional support to these people or when you do that, it always turns into an argument. You end up getting your boundaries violated. You're upset

and it strains the relationship. That's not the right kind of support for you to be offering in this situation. And same with financial support, logistical support. If that's not working for you guys, you have to change the way that you're offering support. And it is okay to say, these are the ways that I can help you. I love you. I want to be there for you. These are the ways that I am able to help you because of my capacity right now. And our capacity to help our family members is always changing. Let's say you have a family member who does not work, has financial freedom, and has a lot of time. They do not have young children. They might be able to help you a lot more, simply because of their access, right? Not because they necessarily love you more

and want to do more for you, but because they have the ability. Versus a daughter who is working, has three young children and a spouse and is trying to build themselves up, you know, in their early 30s. That person probably doesn't have a lot of time. And the way that they choose to help has to fit in with the other parts of their life that are non-negotiables, that require their attention, like their children or their job or whatever else, their own health. We have to not look at these things just as like, if I don't fully sacrifice myself and drive myself into the ground, it means I don't love this person. It's actually not sustainable and not healthy. So can you think about if I don't want to cut my parents off, if I don't want to be

become estranged from them, if I want to try to help them as they age, what does that look like for me? They're not going to change. Let's imagine in this world, nothing becomes different about them. They keep sharing your personal information. They keep making weird comments. They don't listen to different rules that you set with them. What is it going to look like? And that might mean that you can send them, you know, $100 a month and you can't talk to them. That might mean you can do nothing for them. But I want you to get really clear on for anyone. that's in this situation, what can I handle? What am I the best at doing with my skill set, my personality, my resources? What can I willingly and feasibly do in my life? And what does that

look like if my parent never changes? And then you can start to get a clearer picture on how to move forward. And for some of you, that might mean like, I can't do anything for them because they're abusing me when I try to help them because I just don't have the resources. I'm dealing with my own health struggles, whatever it is. But I do think that there are a lot of options here. And before you get to the most extreme option, it's important to get all the facts on the table and make a decision that makes sense because it's hard to go back from some of those extreme decisions. And I don't say this to discourage anyone who truly needs to set this limit with their parents and needs to cut them off because sometimes you have a parent who has cancer, who is

dying, who needs you, who has been physically and or emotionally abusive and is still doing that and no one would expect you to care for someone in that position that's doing that to you, your spouse, your children, whatever. So please, please don't mishear me on that. But for those of you that are saying, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel in line with my values. This doesn't feel like the line that I want to draw yet. I want you to know that you have options. And I want to make one more point about culture, that I am a firm believer that culture should empower you. It should be a positive force in your life. It should be something that is happy and uniting and powerful and that makes you feel closer to the people.

that you are related to, to the people that you come from, it should be your history. And sometimes our history in our culture has things that we have learned are no longer good. You know, a lot of people used to have a lot of things that we would consider quote unquote cultural that we now know are abusive, harmful, and wrong. So don't be afraid to look at your culture and say, who is this benefiting and who is this hurting? And if it's only benefiting one person in your family or the most powerful person in your family and it's hurting everyone else or it's hurting the most fragile members of your family, like children, women, et cetera, then it's worth questioning. You know, and you get to decide what of your culture you'd like to maintain and what really

isn't serving you anymore. And that doesn't mean that you're abandoning your culture or abandoning your family. People will try to tell you that. It doesn't mean that. You can still love your culture, love your family, love where you came from, and grow and change. I mean, this is the ultimate sign of a healthy human being, right? Is someone that can look at something from the past and be like, ah, I don't know about that. Maybe I only want to take this little piece and leave the rest behind. I hope that that was helpful. Let's go ahead and get to the next caller. Hi, I saw your Instagram story about relationships with family members because of politics, and I just wanted to share some stories and some mixed emotions. I've been feeling from my

experience. I am in my late 20s, and my parents have both been politicians since I was very young, four or five and I grew up in a really conservative household and it wasn't until I got older and into college and started having more of my own experiences and ideas that I differed for my parents and politics and the rest of my family for that matter for the most part but it wasn't until like 2016 or so when things started to get really radical and really tough that my relationships with my family became even more strained and during COVID and during COVID I had some challenges where I just went really low contact with my family and then my mom decided to have a bill that was anti-trans and it was just really, really challenging for me and so I went almost entirely

no contact with my family. Up until a few years ago, things started to get better. My family got out of politics and I was able to like kind of restore those relationships a little bit and it was still lost of trust but things were able to get better and right now I'm just really struggling after this election even though I already knew how they felt just the weight of the majority of family or the majority of the country like voting against I don't even know how to put into words like voting for just such a horrible person and knowing that my family was on that side I just I'm just so disgusted that I just don't even know how I can see past it, and I don't know what the point is.

Like, where is the line for when is it okay? And it's so hard to, I feel like I've grieved my family and my relationship with my family over and over again because of radical politics. And I'm just, I'm really tired of living in a world where my rights in my husband, I live in a white family and my husband's a black guy. And, like, our rights and what our loved experiences are like

are just not taken seriously by my family and politics just can't be overlooked anymore. Thank you so much for calling in and sharing this story. I think that there are many people out there that can relate to you and that are having similar experiences. The one really big thing here that feels different about this story from the others that I've heard is having family that is directly involved in politics, you know, not just their vote, but they are out there being the ones to create some of these things, to try to pass legislation, to introduce bills. I imagine that that could make it feel much more personal and much more close to home. And so I think that you're justified in feeling like this is something that has really

become such a center of my family because it's their work. It's obviously something that they think is important to put forward. It's more central to their values. It's hard to argue that like, oh, you just voted on one issue or something, especially when it's something that is, seems to be very important to you. I said this in my episode about politics that I did last week. If you haven't listen to that yet. It's called my family and I disagree politically. Should I cut them off? And I also have a video about this on my YouTube channel at Whitney Goodman, LMFT. So I think that if people are going to maintain relationships when there is this big of a value discrepancy, which it sounds like that's what it feels like for this caller. So for anyone that feels like it's not just that

we disagree on quote unquote politics, it's not that we voted for different candidates, it's that it really fundamentally feels like we don't care about the same things. We don't want the same things. We don't have the same values. And we don't want the same future. That's hard to reconcile in a relationship. It's hard to realize that you're that misaligned with people that you feel like you should be aligned with. And I think this is why it's so hard for families because we kind of have this expectation of like they should be able to see what I see. They should care about me. They should want. me to be able to have my voice heard and for my needs to value, for my needs to matter,

especially for those of you that have been marginalized or left behind or hurt by certain decisions. And so I'm not speaking anymore, of course, just to this caller, but I think for any of you that are in this position of feeling like this isn't just about politics. This is about how you feel about me as a person, what you want for me. as a person, our values, our desires for the world, our desires for the future. How can we have a relationship when we are so different in that way? And I think this is where I hear a lot from a large group of people that come on to like my comments and my videos and will say, oh my gosh, how could you ever let politics destroy a relationship? How could you ever just not agree to

get along. And I think it's because this isn't about politics to some people anymore. This isn't about who you voted for. He could have put any person in that slot. It's the fact that certain messaging resonates with you and a desire to push forward certain policies matters to you. And that can make certain people feel like you fundamentally disagree with their right to exist as a person. And I think there are some people that would listen to this and be shaking their heads like, I don't feel that way. I don't disagree with their right to exist. I love XYZ person. I am okay with them. I think that it's fine that they're doing what they're doing. I would never stop having a relationship with them. And if that's the case, I think it might be wise for you to talk to the

people in your family about how you feel about them. And I think it would be wise. I think it would be wise for you to tell those people who are feeling fearful about this, that you love them and that you support them, and that you want good things for them, and that you want to understand where they're coming from. Because I think if you're like this caller and you're in a family where you feel so othered and different and strange and confused and just kind of like, am I crazy what's going on here? You need to know where people stand. And we can have conversations about why people got to feel this way, you know, is it media messaging? Is it things we're being told and fed? I don't care about all of that right now. I'm talking about

what is going on in your individual families. And if you have people in your life that are saying to you, your decision makes me feel scared. Sorry, this, talking about this makes me get choked up because I've been talking to so many people that feel this way about their families. And it makes me really sad. And I don't think that it started with this election. I think this has been going on for a long time. But if you have people in your life, it's not enough to say, I only voted for this issue or it's not a big deal. You don't need to worry about your rights getting taken away.

You have someone that you claim to love and care about. out in your family who is telling you, this thing makes me feel hurt. This thing makes me feel scared. And I don't care if it's your vote or it's something else that you did. When someone brings that to you, the way to ensure that you still have a relationship is to try to understand and to talk to them about it. And to try to say, I love you. I care about you. I want to know why you feel this way. I want to try to understand how we can have a better relationship, how we can talk about these things, how I can understand my impact on your life. Because I think a lot of what's happening is that this isn't going on. These types of conversations and reassurance and

discussion and explanation are not happening. People who are saying, I feel hurt by your decision, I feel alone, I feel othered, are kind of being told, your fears are made up, you need to get over it. And that's not why I voted for that. This person's not going to do X. You know, they're kind of being like brushed off. And that doesn't help because it makes those people feel like you don't see them and you don't understand them. And you likely, everyone on this planet has reasons for why they make.

certain decisions in their life, whether that's who they vote for or whatever else they do in their life. And a lot of those decisions are motivated by fear. Whether that fear is legitimate or illegitimate is not for me to decide in this episode. But I think it's important for everyone on all sides of this spectrum to sit here and think about what are the things that I'm afraid of? What are the things that motivated me to make this decision? Where does my fear come from? And how might that fear be causing me to act in certain ways? And what kind of fears does my neighbor have who's different from me? What might they be fearful of that I don't have to contend with on a day-to-day basis because of who I am, what I look like, what I navigate within the world? And how can I

try to practice looking at the world from their lens. My fears don't get to be more important. They don't get to be more legitimized when I'm having these conversations. We don't need to yell at each other. We don't need to call the other person's concerns dumb or illegitimate or whatever it is. We need to try to reach across and say, I have a family member who feels hurt by me, who feels scared, who feels misunderstood, And I'm going to do my best to understand them. And I truly, truly believe this is the only way that we move forward from this.

It's that or it's cut off. And for those of you that don't want your family relationships to end because of politics and you're saying, I don't get why that would happen. That's so immature, you have to meet people where they're at too. You can't just tell them that what they're doing is immature. We have to get back to our family systems and think what has allowed this culture to take over my family, where we feel this way, where we feel like we can't talk to each other about these things. We can't have rational, civil conversations because everybody gets so

explosive. I think that when we come back to that, we can do a lot of good. And for those of you that are listening to this caller and saying, she can't have a relationship with those people, you might be right. You might absolutely be right. She might only be able to have a relationship with these people that includes talking about the weather, other topics, checking in every now and again, or no relationship at all. And that's okay. But I want everybody to really think about the suggestions that I just offered about reaching across from both sides and saying when the relationship allows for it, please hear me on that. If you have someone in your life that is abusive, demeaning, controlling, they abuse you when you bring these things up every

time, don't do this. But if you're somebody who is kind of feeling like, gosh, I don't get when my family member is like so hurt by my decision. I don't get why they're being so emotional about this. It might be time for you to reach across and say, I want to understand how you feel. And I want to understand why my decision makes you see me in this light. And maybe they will be able to give you some type of feedback, and I hope that you can hear it. Because I think that this type of compromise, when possible in relationships that allow for it, will be really helpful. Thank you again for your call, and I appreciate you all listening to me. I hope that that was helpful. This is a topic that I feel very passionately about, I'm sure, as you can tell.

so much to everyone that called in this week and asked questions. I love being able to help you with these family situations and hopefully help you find a way to better navigate them with your adult family relationships. You can always call and leave me a voicemail and I may pick your question for an upcoming Thursday episode of the Calling Home podcast. Just call 866-225-4-66 and leave me a voicemail. I do these episodes every Thursday. and I love being able to get to help each and every one of you with your family relationships. If you're ready to work on your adult family relationships outside of this podcast and take what you've learned to the next level, we do have the Calling Home community. You can join us for

weekly groups and watch videos, take courses, get access to worksheets and more. And those groups are run by me so we can actually meet. And you just need to go to www.com calling home com and join the family cycle breakers club thanks and i will see you all on tuesday for another episode