Like father, like son

We read an excerpt from Michelle Obama's Becoming about her family, and particularly, her father's health complications. When I read about her father's obstinate pride, I couldn't help thinking of my dad.  I couldn't help thinking about the similarity of how difficult it is to ask and to offer help to a father.

I've written about my dad in previous blog posts. He immigrated to America when he was in high school. He couldn’t speak English and struggled in high school. Without any career prospects, he enlisted in the Navy for citizenship. Like a lot of our parents, he worked odd jobs, ranging from car salesman to computer hardware technician.

He became a math teacher when he was 40 years old and he loves it. He’s great at math and he’s great at teaching (anyone other than his kids). For the first time in his life, he was working at a job he enjoyed. 

I knew his most common complaint were his students who either didn’t show up or showed up and disrupted the classroom. I figured it was a common part of the job, and my father never told us anything more than his usual complaint about his disrespectful students. 

Last year, a family friend, who was the same age as my father, committed suicide. When something like this happens, there’s a morbid selfishness where we ask ourselves if it could have been us; if it could have been our family going through this tragedy. When the subject came up at a family dinner, my father finally revealed how much he had been struggling, and how he felt as if he was at his tipping point.

He told us that his students were walking all over him in his classroom. He wasn’t able to teach a single class without disruptive students, and he wasn’t being supported by his administration at all. He told us how, recently, his students started throwing markers, erasers, and water bottles at him whenever he turned around to write on the white board. He had to secretly record this behavior on his phone to turn over to his administrative faculty because they refused to do anything unless he had evidence. My mom didn’t even know these details. 

He assured us he would never harm himself, but I was so upset to hear that this had been going on for so long, and he never once informed his family. Older immigrants in America struggle with mental health and a lot of it goes undiscussed amongst older men. Part of me wonders how much the pressure of being a man and a father forces my dad to bottle it in.  And part of me wonders just how much of this stubborn pride I’ve picked up.

After my 1L year, I was confronted with the realness of my deteriorating mental health for the first time in my life. It could have been my pride or something old-fashioned in me, but I was always reluctant to recognize my mental health out of fear that it would become another excuse. I opened up to my friends and recalled how terrible I felt by the end of 1L, and how I felt like I was in a huge pit. 

Yet, I didn’t tell my family. Whenever my parents asked how difficult law school was, I would always respond by saying it’s tough, but I would take care of it. I didn’t want them to worry about their son who was living away from home for the first time, and I think I was trying to convince myself that I would be able to take care of it.

In Hillbilly Elegy, Vance writes about how much of his conflict style comes down to nature v. nurture. I asked myself the same question when it came to how I deal with stress and mental health. How much of my pride and reluctance to open up to my family is because of my father’s influence on me? What can I do to change this? 

In class, when we talked about what we could do to raise our family’s understanding of our struggles in higher education, I raised the point that we could be more transparent with our family. It feels hypocritical, but I think it’s a good idea. I don’t have to keep everything bottled in to be a “man.” Who knows, maybe by opening up and being transparent with my family, my dad might be encouraged to do the same.