“Why are you so worthless?”
The prevalence of emotional abuse in Asian migrant families
By Clinton Chan
10 minute read
CONTENT WARNING: Emotional and Verbal Abuse, Parental Violence, and Gaslighting
Perhaps it's personal pride or a form of stoicism but I’ve never considered myself a “victim of abuse”, and I imagine many other people of Asian migrant backgrounds might not have either. No matter how difficult or strict your upbringing may be, I imagine many of us just think of it as part and parcel of growing up Asian.
For me, I’ve known for much of my life that I didn’t have the best relationship with my parents. There were countless times when they had called me “worthless”, “idiotic”, and handed out corporal punishment in bucket loads.
However, until this year I’d never thought of myself as a victim of abuse. When compared to other Australian-Chinese families, I knew that other parents had been crueler, with higher standards of achievement, and with more brutal corporal punishment. It was kind of “normal” in our community and since it could have been “worse”, why should I complain? “Victim” feels like a label reserved for those who have experienced sexual assault or violent crime.
Part of me also recognised that maybe I had deserved to be treated that way - I was a hyperactive child after all. I was openly rebellious, and though I had the brains, I never had the focus needed to channel this into academic results.
But I was wrong. Earlier this year I had a panic attack which took several months to recover from. Since the age of nine I have had fluctuating clinical anxiety and depression, which I had also assumed were just a part of me and my genetic makeup. It wasn’t until my psychiatrist told me that he believed my anxiety was derived from emotional abuse, and that this abuse had now cemented itself in my psyche as constant self-derision and unrelenting standards that I yielded to. I can now say with clarity that I was and am a victim of “emotional abuse”.
I recognise that this is both a deeply traumatising and highly intimate topic. For many people of Asian heritage it is an area of personal and cultural shame, and a life chapter we’d rather forget. But in some ways I think our self-effacing shame could be an inhibitor of growth and healing. I personally believe that only by owning and recognising our trauma with acceptance can we reach catharsis.
So, I want to talk about “emotional abuse” and how to recognise it if you or somebody you know may have experienced it growing up in an Asian family. It will be heavy, but seeing that this is something that moulds the way I carry myself, the lives of people in my community, and still affects my close friends and the people I work with, I’d like to open the box of stinky tofu...
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What is “emotional abuse”?
Emotional abuse comes in many forms, but it often involves one person exploiting their power over another person. Within a family environment it often involves an elder (like a parent or grandparent) interfering with a child’s cognitive, emotional, and/or social development by actively dishing out verbal attacks, restricting freedom, putting a child down, ignoring the child’s needs (emotional and physical), or deliberately lying to the child.
The long term effects of emotional abuse can include depression and anxiety disorders.
From a child’s point of view, this is damaging, not least because of the immediate emotional harm it can cause. It also has long-term effects on a child’s sense of self-worth. After all, if the people who supposedly “care” the most for you and raise you don’t think you’re “good enough”, what hope do you have in the outside world?
According to psychologists, emotional abuse damages self-esteem and it can manifest later in life as pathological problems such as outbursts of anger, clinical depression, and anxiety disorder.
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How do I recognise if I am a victim? Is it more prevalent in Asian families?
Confucian family values about social ascendency and the role of the child in the family may contribute to abusive child-parent interactions.
Though there seems to be limited research in this field (but lots of social commentary), there are common patterns of emotional abuse that seem to find unique expressions in migrant Asian families. In particular, the behaviours of “tiger parents” stemming from Confucian teachings for family life are arguably congruous with psychological definitions of emotional abuse.
Using this understanding, we can also begin to dissect whether emotional abuse may be more prevalent amongst families of East Asian descent. Does emotional abuse stem from Confucian ideals that still pervade East Asian families, particularly those in the Western diaspora?
Belittling Due to Poor Academic Results or Career Performance
Within Confucian philosophy, self-improvement, high work ethic, and the pursuit of knowledge for academic excellence are all ideals each person should live by. For millennia (literally since the 5th century BC), many East Asians have constructed their lives around this ideal with education considered as one of the only avenues of upward economic and social mobility, particularly as members of the white-collar class.
From a young age there is a great deal of pressure on children to excel academically.
It’s not surprising then that thousands of years later, children of most East Asian parents feel a significant amount of pressure to excel academically or to land top white-collar jobs. It’s also not surprising that when their academic results slide or stagnate, children are belittled like their future depends on it and called every variant of “stupid” in a manner resembling emotional abuse. For a culture that places such a miopic view of personal and familial worth on the attainment of academic results or an “elite: job (to the detriment of all other qualities), poor exam results give some parents licence to pronounce the worthlessness of their children with many families even harshly punishing their children for poor exam marks.
Of course, other non-Asian cultures place a high level of importance on academic performance too. However it’s not clear that other cultures have such a miopic focus on academics to the same extreme as Asian families, nor is it clear that other cultures respond to poor exam results in a manner that sees them belittle their children.
Restricting Freedom, Severe Guilting, and Gaslighting
As many will surely know, one of the central tenets of Confucian family values is ensuring utmost respect to your elders (filial piety), however in family contexts this may lead to morally questionable thoughts, methods, or motivations from parents to assert their authority. In the eyes of many parents you are essentially their property, and you have no freewill, rational thought, or individuality until you’re well into your twenties.
Growing up, I was a curious child. I didn’t appreciate being told what to do without an explanation and was known throughout my extended family as the kid who always asked “why”. Importantly, many assumed my curiosity and quest for justification was not only hyperactive, but a direct challenge to the unequivocally ordained authority of elders. Overtime, this became self-fulfilling and I started actively rebelling my parents’ orders more often when forced to do things against my will. This led to further limitations to my own liberties (for the “greater good”), including not being allowed to go to anywhere after school (even in high school), not being able to hang out with my friends in public until I was 16, and only being allowed to watch TV twice a week until I was 18.
It’s a fine line between controlling a child based on what’s good for them, and controlling a child in an overly possessive manner. There can be a thing as “too much love”.
Interestingly, when I reached my teenage years, my rebellious attitude began to wear them down and my parents switched gears. Instead of punishing me or using corporal punishment to assert their authority, they became more insidious by gaslighting me into admission of wrongdoing, or providing heavy doses of silent treatment.
Much of what I experienced is quite pervasive amongst Asian migrant families, with many families faring worse, often limiting their child’s movements, choices, friendship circles, thoughts, and habits well into their thirties. When looking at the psychological definition of emotional abuse, all of this extreme curtailing of choice and individual liberty appears to be a case of emotional abuse.
It should be noted, however, that this restriction is also highly gendered - daughters often experience freedom restriction much more severely and for a longer period of time than sons due to the expectation of lifelong subservience to your own parents or your husband’s. I am fortunate that my parents began to “relax” once I hit 20 - many females of Asian migrant families experience this limitation from their parents well into their thirties.
Additionally the restriction of freedom amongst children is not something that is unique to migraint Asian families. For many young girls the world over, the same filial piety is expected in any patriarchal society, and sadly extends beyond childhood, becoming a lifelong condition. As a result, many young and adult women of various cultures likely undergo constant emotional abuse due to a limitation on their freewill.
Denial of Affection or Validation
Interestingly, a key aspect of emotional abuse isn’t so much the enactment of authority from parents, but often the lack thereof, especially when it comes to denying emotional needs. For many migrant Asian families, “warm” and “loving” aren’t words you’d use to describe family life, particularly the relationship between parent and child.
Praise, emotional support, and encouragement of self-confidence are all things that seem to be reserved for children of non-Asian families. Though it may seem sad, I honestly cannot remember a time when my parents told me they loved me or mentioned they were proud of my achievements - even after I got into law school!
In my opinion, being a good parent isn’t just about enabling your child’s successes, but also nurturing them through their failures.
For children of East Asian heritage child discipline and strict parenting are the only panaceas for a peaceful family life, not encouragement. The stereotypes of Chinese children playing piano, violin, or some other archaic instrument through gritted teeth and tears are all true - my sister cried her way through eight years of piano classes, without a word of positive or emotional encouragement from my parents.
This denial of emotional support, including an absence of validation and affection are a core tenet of emotional abuse, and seems to be particularly significant amongst East Asian families. Arguably it’s similar to “tough love”, or other forms of authoritative parenting. I would argue however that the “tough love” shown by East Asian parents is often more extreme and with less at stake - parents get strict about everything, because everything is life-or-death.
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Closing Out
I mentioned that this article would be difficult to stomach - my intention isn’t to shed light or rationalise what for many people is a dark chapter of their lives. However I hope that by sharing my own experiences and by providing a psychological definition of “emotional abuse” situated within the cultural dynamics of Asian migrant life, some of you who read this will realise that the self-effacing thoughts and behaviours you’ve held through your life are likely not valid at all. Both you and I are victims of trauma and that’s neither a moniker to promote or shy away from.
As a child, when I felt entirely alone because I had had a fighting match with my parents or had been belittled to tears, I would often run to one thought: that if I ever had children of my own I would never let them feel the way I felt. I hope we all commit to doing the same.
