Má Quotes in The Best We Could Do
But if I surrender, I’m afraid I’ll want a full retreat—
to go all the way back. To be the baby and not the mother.
FAMILY is now something I have created—
—and not just something I was born into.
The responsibility is immense.
A wave of empathy for my mother washes over me.
My parents escaped Việt Nam on a boat so their children could grow up in freedom.
You’d think I could be more grateful.
I am now older than my parents were when they made that incredible journey.
But I fear that around them, I will always be a child…
and they a symbol to me—two sides of a chasm, full of meaning and resentment.
My parents are retired, in good health, and free to do as they please…
…but also lonely, aging, and quietly wishing we’d take better care of them.
In Việt Nam, they would be considered very old in their seventies.
In America, where people their age run marathons or at least independently, my parents are stuck in limbo between two sets of expectations…
…and I feel guilty.
Soon after that trip back to Việt Nam (our first since we escaped in 1978)…
…I began to record our family history…
thinking that if I bridged the gap between the past and the present…
…I could fill the void between my parents and me.
And that if I could see Việt Nam as a real place, and not a symbol of something lost…
…I would see my parents as real people…
and learn to love them better.
I understand why it was easier for her to not tell me these things directly, and I DID want to know.
But it still wasn’t EASY for me to swallow that my mother had been at her happiest without us.
We were now BOAT PEOPLE—
—five among hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding into neighboring countries, seeking asylum.
That first week of parenting was the hardest week of my life, and the only time I ever felt called upon to be HEROIC.
I’m no longer a kid…am I?
Having a child taught me, certainly,
that I am not the center of the universe.
But being a child, even a grown-up one, seems to me to be a lifetime pass for selfishness.
We hang resentment onto the things our parents did to us, or the things they DIDN’T do for us…
…and in my case—
—call them by the wrong name.
To accidentally call myself Mẹ
was to slip myself into her shoes
just for a moment.
To let her be not what I want her to be
but someone independent, self-determining, and free,
means letting go of that picture of her in my head.
Má Quotes in The Best We Could Do
But if I surrender, I’m afraid I’ll want a full retreat—
to go all the way back. To be the baby and not the mother.
FAMILY is now something I have created—
—and not just something I was born into.
The responsibility is immense.
A wave of empathy for my mother washes over me.
My parents escaped Việt Nam on a boat so their children could grow up in freedom.
You’d think I could be more grateful.
I am now older than my parents were when they made that incredible journey.
But I fear that around them, I will always be a child…
and they a symbol to me—two sides of a chasm, full of meaning and resentment.
My parents are retired, in good health, and free to do as they please…
…but also lonely, aging, and quietly wishing we’d take better care of them.
In Việt Nam, they would be considered very old in their seventies.
In America, where people their age run marathons or at least independently, my parents are stuck in limbo between two sets of expectations…
…and I feel guilty.
Soon after that trip back to Việt Nam (our first since we escaped in 1978)…
…I began to record our family history…
thinking that if I bridged the gap between the past and the present…
…I could fill the void between my parents and me.
And that if I could see Việt Nam as a real place, and not a symbol of something lost…
…I would see my parents as real people…
and learn to love them better.
I understand why it was easier for her to not tell me these things directly, and I DID want to know.
But it still wasn’t EASY for me to swallow that my mother had been at her happiest without us.
We were now BOAT PEOPLE—
—five among hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding into neighboring countries, seeking asylum.
That first week of parenting was the hardest week of my life, and the only time I ever felt called upon to be HEROIC.
I’m no longer a kid…am I?
Having a child taught me, certainly,
that I am not the center of the universe.
But being a child, even a grown-up one, seems to me to be a lifetime pass for selfishness.
We hang resentment onto the things our parents did to us, or the things they DIDN’T do for us…
…and in my case—
—call them by the wrong name.
To accidentally call myself Mẹ
was to slip myself into her shoes
just for a moment.
To let her be not what I want her to be
but someone independent, self-determining, and free,
means letting go of that picture of her in my head.
