Raising Immigrant Children – Insights from a Daughter

[00:00:00] Paula: Hello everyone and welcome to chat in with the experts, another episode being put on by me, Paula Okonneh, the host. Every week I bring an episode in which I showcase women from Africa and the Caribbean who either live there, that’s in Africa or the Caribbean, or they live abroad. And I showcase women who in turn educate, inspire,
[00:01:00] and empower women globally.
[00:01:03] Paula: My guest today is extra special. I say that every week because indeed they are, but my guest today is no one other than my daughter, Amaka. Well, you may wonder why I have her on the show. As I had said initially, this show started out as one being for immigrant women, and so, being an immigrant woman, have a daughter.
[00:01:26] Paula: And so today we want to talk about the experiences of an offspring of an immigrant, me. For years, my daughter. My son, I also have a son, would always say, Mom, we have two different types of lives. We have a life in our house as immigrants, and then we go out and we go to school, and it’s different. And so I thought, there’s no better time than today to talk about that, address that, because there’s so many things she says that she thinks we moms, we immigrant moms, we African and Caribbean [00:02:00] moms need to know about. They, in her case, first-generation Americans and their experiences outside of the home. So, Amaka, welcome to your mom’s show.
[00:02:10] Amaka: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor, mom. I don’t take this privilege lightly, so I’m ready.
[00:02:17] Paula: Alright. Do you want to tell my audience just a little bit about you?
[00:02:21] Amaka: Happily so. I’d love for you all to comment below at some point and guess my age, but I am in my late 20s. I won’t say my exact age and I’m privileged to be the daughter of my mom and my father whose name is Henry Okonneh. Very privileged for that. I’m a graduate of university. I graduated a few years ago. I studied marketing and communications, but life had some twists and turns and I’ve found myself working predominantly in the nonprofit space. And now I work in education as I work towards going to law school. So currently studying for my LSAT and that’s going well, believe it or not. I’m enjoying [00:03:00] studying for my LSAT. But naturally, being in your late 20s, they say your 20s is a time that you figure yourself out, and that’s certainly been the case for me.
[00:03:08] Amaka: And I’m here to, share some of my personal reflections on what it was like being raised by immigrant parents. The beautiful, the good in some areas that my mom, who is not perfect, could have improved in, and hopefully future generations learned from my mom’s generation’s triumphs, and not so much triumphs.
[00:03:29] Paula: Not so much so triumphs, she says. So let’s talk about the not so much, that’s a tongue twister.
[00:03:35] Amaka: It is.
[00:03:35] Paula: Yeah.
[00:03:36] Amaka: I’m trying to spin it and not say the failures.
[00:03:41] Paula: So I believe in starting low and rising higher. So let’s talk about the lows. So what do you think is one of the things that I could have done better as an immigrant mom?
[00:03:51] Amaka: So everyone has different faith perspectives. So I’m going to give you that disclaimer. But for us, as my mom has shared on her show, she is a Christian. [00:04:00] She is a believer. So for me, I would have loved to have been rooted more in my Christian faith growing up. We definitely went to church, right? But I wish that growing up, my mom, who was very busy, it’s not easy being an immigrant as many of you all know, in the audience. There’s challenges. You’re trying to navigate a new system. You’re trying to sort yourself out. By the time it was nighttime, my mother found it hard to read the Bible with us, read Bible stories.
[00:04:24] Amaka: She’d usually fall asleep. Yep. We didn’t have family prayer time. And I think that’s the result of them just trying to make it in this country, one. But two, learning from their own childhood of maybe they didn’t like, Quote unquote, forced religion. But for me, if there was a happy balance, that would have been great growing up. So that’s one thing I hope to do better with my kids. Find a way where it’s not like religion, not beating them over the head with it, but find a way that Christianity particularly is a delight and it’s something they want to continue to grow in when they become adults. So that’s one. [00:05:00] But in that same vein, I think a second thing as believers, we really believe in being having purposes and having giftings.
[00:05:06] Amaka: And so I wish my parents had raised me to know my giftings and to walk in it. Naturally, as immigrants, I have found among African immigrants, particularly they aspire, excuse me, for their children to become doctors, lawyers, or bankers, or maybe an accountant, definitely an accountant, excuse me, and I wasn’t like that growing up. I didn’t like math. I didn’t like science. I liked history. I liked languages. I liked English. And as immigrants, particularly Nigerian immigrants, they’re like, what could you do with that? How can you eat? Excuse my false Nigerian accent, excuse me, audience. But yes. And so I felt a lot of my childhood was like, I’m trying, I’m being forced into math, I’m being forced into this and this.
[00:05:51] Amaka: I can do it, but it wasn’t a delight and it was stressful. But I thank God that by the time I got to college, I maybe being in [00:06:00] America long enough I learned how to respectfully advocate for myself, and I was able to study communications and marketing, and that was a great, happy medium between the arts and the sciences, and post-graduation, I was able to work in the nonprofit space and bring those skill sets, and so my advice to Immigrants who have younger kids is take stock of your children’s giftings and encourage them to walk in that way. They will be successful. We thankfully live in an economic time where if you’re good at something for the most part, you can make a living from it. You probably will have even more longevity because you’re passionate. If your child loves art, you don’t have to tell them twice to wake up and practice their art etc.
[00:06:44] Amaka: So that is my second area where my parents could have improved, but it’s funny enough now I’m working towards law school. The very thing I never thought I was going to do. And then lastly I wish my parents were more in touch with my emotional needs. [00:07:00] Emotions are different. I would say for the American child or the semi-American child in my case, than those of immigrants from the Caribbean or Africa. And so I wish they were more in touch with my emotional needs. At times, what was challenging for me was most certainly not challenging compared to their childhood, but I wish they had taken the time to listen, to learn, and to help me process those emotions as best they could.
[00:07:28] Amaka: So that’s just three areas that they were not the best in, but here’s the thing, I can do better with the next generation and I was always raised, here’s one thing among many other things my parents really taught me. One, you always want to aspire to do better than the previous generation, so I can improve in those three areas with my children, God willing. But a second thing that I felt my parents did a really good job and is instilling in us. Excellence. Instilling in us perseverance. Instilling in us hard work. My parents had their [00:08:00] challenges, but I always thought if my parents have a challenge, they’re going to overcome it because they’re not quitters and they’re responsible adults who loved each other and love not only their children, but their own extended families.
[00:08:13] Amaka: And so my parents did a great job in showing me what it looks like to be resilient. That’s a very key buzzword this day and age, resilience. A lot of parents are asking themselves, how can I teach my kids resilience? I’ll give you an example. One is model it. That’s one of the best teachers. It’s not just your words as parents, it’s your actions. And my parents were most certainly resilient.
[00:08:34] Amaka: Two, I would say my parents didn’t let me quit everything that I wanted to quit. A good example is Kumon, a Japanese learning and reading center. I did it! Let me be honest. But you know what? I am so thankful my parents paid for it and drove me there and made me do my Kumon. Why? Because my mom signed me up for the math program and I’m amazing at [00:09:00] arithmetic thanks to that. Thanks those years of sacrifice in terms of time and money and effort into my life and that of my brothers. And I would say the third thing my parents taught me was generosity. My mother is a very humble woman, so she’s not going to talk much about herself on this show. But I can. I can boast about my mommy. One disclaimer, I’m a mommy’s girl. I love my mommy to bits.
[00:09:22] Paula: I love you too. So she’s just following in her mom’s footsteps.
[00:09:25] Amaka: Yeah. And I just say my mom and my dad. Oh my gosh. They taught me a lot about generosity. We live in a day and age where people are selfish. My parents were not selfish. They sacrificed for each other, for their kids, as well as for their extended family. And so I just want to say a great lesson. You can impart to your kids, immigrants is generosity, like how you treat your family back home in the islands or in Africa speaks volumes to your kids in terms of the value of [00:10:00] generosity that it pays to be a giver.
[00:10:01] Amaka: As many people say, they’ve never seen a giver lack. And let me tell you, my parents don’t lack in many different forms because of that principle. And so I want to say thank you for having me on your show, I want to keep this brief, maybe we’ll do a part two one day, but that’s all I got folks, thank you for your time.
[00:10:20] Paula: She says that’s all we’ve got. Piggybacking on what she talks about generosity, I believe that it takes a village to raise a child. My house was, I don’t want to say a village, but we always had relatives who have impacted so positively into my children’s lives. They know what it is to have aunties live with them, uncles live with them, and the importance it is to their in-laws and cousins live with them.
[00:10:42] Paula: Yeah. I believe when a man and woman come together and have children, the children are from both sides. They belong to both sides of the family. And there’s only richness that you can get from that, from knowing your family on your dad’s side and your mom’s side. Oh my gosh. It enriches you in ways that you [00:11:00] can’t even, money cannot describe the love that we get. I got it. I experienced it on my side. I still am. They are experiencing it as well. And last but not least, when you teach someone how to fish, it’s so much better than giving them fish. Education is what’s going to change us in Africa and in the Caribbean. When we help our relatives, become better educated. Oh my gosh, the doors that open not just for them but for future generations. It’s just like I say on these shows, I say women are important because we are the ones who typically are the nurturers, and we are the ones who mother or nurture the future generation and the generations, to come.
[00:11:45] Paula: Yeah, and the same way you know when we help our relatives. Back home in whichever way, sometimes it may not even be monetary, maybe just opening up your house to them and maybe just encouraging words, just being there, prayers, very important. And just [00:12:00] guidance, what a difference that can make to not just their generation, but to the generations to come. And as my daughter says, she grew up in a multi-generational house, and I think she’s the better for it.
[00:12:13] Amaka: One thing I’d say is my mom left a legacy of having a house.
[00:12:18] Paula: I’m still here.
[00:12:19] Amaka: She has left. It continues to leave, excuse me, a legacy, and my dad, a legacy of yes generosity yes perseverance. As I shared, but for me who believes she is called by God to adopt children, perhaps even to foster children, the fact that I know how to navigate the blending of families because aunts, uncles, cousins lived with me growing up, that’s priceless. And like I mentioned earlier, the next generation wants to do better. And I think it’s amazing to take in family, but some might say there’s even a challenge in taking in those who are not officially your family by blood, but they’re [00:13:00] your family in your heart as they say in the adoption community and so an area that I want to grow in is not just opening my heart, my excuse my heart and my home to my blood relatives, but opening my heart and my home to those who are not biologically related to me.
[00:13:15] Amaka: But as a believer, God has ordained them to be a part of my family through adoption, through foster care, through whatever means. So that is what I intend to do in the next generation. And my mom and my dad laid such a solid foundation because we live in America where everybody and their mama. It’s just about their nuclear family. That’s a generalization, please. Not everybody is like that, but a lot of people focus so much on their nuclear family. And there’s beauty to that, but you’re lacking a color, a diversity and really beautiful, rich experiences and character formation when you’re just focused on your spouse, your partner in this day and age, or your children.
[00:13:59] Amaka: [00:14:00] When you have wonderful aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents out there who can add to your family’s history and life experiences, but also who may need your help and most certainly you need their help. And so that is certainly something that I have learned from my parents as well, opening up your home to beyond your nuclear family.
[00:14:21] Amaka: And as immigrants, if you’re wrestling with bringing some of your family to live with you, who need to immigrate from Africa or the islands, I would say, definitely pray about it. But if you feel peace with it, take the leap of faith. There may be some challenges, but they’re good challenges that form your character and help mature your kids.
[00:14:42] Paula: Undo it legally. I always say that.
[00:14:45] Amaka: Yes. Disclaimer. As a future lawyer, I would advise that.
[00:14:51] Paula: And so folks, this was an abbreviation, an abbreviated, can’t speak to the kind of version of Chatting with Experts, but one in which [00:15:00] I wanted to blend the generations. Typically my audience are women who are more mature, but when my daughter said to me, mom, I think I have a word that I love words I’d love to share with your audience. I said, why not? And so today is the day. And so, Amaka, is there any way they can find you? Are you on LinkedIn? If they’d like to talk a bit more about you or hear more about what you’re doing.
[00:15:27] Amaka: I am on LinkedIn, but I’m not the most active on LinkedIn, but if anybody wants to get in contact with me, I’d say the best thing is to contact my mom and she’ll pass it on to me.
[00:15:37] Paula: Yes. And I can be contacted on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com. Or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Just look for or search for Paula Okonneh on LinkedIn. I also am on Instagram and my handle there is at chat_experts_podcast. I’d love to talk with [00:16:00] you. I’d love to talk with you women who are from Africa and the Caribbean, living there, or you now live abroad, because I believe that we have a lot to impact to the world in general. Thank you again, my daughter.
[00:16:17] Amaka: This was great.
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