Making time to listen to our family's stories

2023 was a tough year for my family. My grandma on my dad’s side and my aunt’s husband (He was an uncle to us – even if only by marriage) passed away both in the back half of the year. I feel for my family but I particularly feel for my aunt who said goodbye to her mother AND her husband inside of 4 months.

Listening to eulogies at the funerals made me realize that there are often so many stories we don’t know about our family. From the little things like funny moments in friendships and relationships to big moments like the decision to leave your home country behind or fleeing for your life.

For that reason I wanted to talk today about making time to listen to our families and their stories.

For many of us as children of immigrants – we were raised in a household where the focus was more on the achievements. Study hard & get good grades, maybe do some extra curriculars to be able to get into University (with a degree that would translate into a profession later on).

We were most often rewarded for:

1)????? Putting in the work – always working hard

2)????? Getting the outcome. Getting the good grades or winning the competition.

The idea was this work is what eventually pushes us to get out of university with a “good job” that would allow us to provide for us and our families.

It worked for many of us. We owe our parents an eternal debt of gratitude for that.

The flip side to this though – is now – as we get older and successful careers often come with longer hours, relocation, etc – we don’t get to see family as often. When we do – it may be spent getting caught up about “work”. After all that was what we were used to talking about – various academic and work achievements.

We all know though that life isn’t a perfect streak of achievements though. Sometimes grades sucked. Sometimes we didn’t get the promotion, sometimes our relationship with friends or significant others falls on hard times. ?Sometimes we are stuck facing the demons of our own mental health illnesses alone because it feels strange or uncomfortable to talk about it.

In a world where we are only used to talking about the “good achievements” it can feel a lot like this part of us doesn’t come out to shine.

The realization I had though wasn’t around learning to talk about my own past but rather…it was learning to ask my family about theirs.

Over the last year I’ve started to experiment with taking the reigns of asking my family open ended questions around things like:

-????????? Memories of loved ones they have lost

-????????? Their struggles with parenting

-????????? First experiences when coming to Canada

-????????? Key for many Sri Lankans – what was it like in Sri Lanka when times were tough and they were forced to leave?

The more I ask these types of questions – the more I see the world through my family’s eyes and I realize – they had many of the same fears and struggles I have (like the struggles and hopes/fears/dreams of being a good parent)…but also I get a tiny glimpse into how wild, scary, and horrific experiences sometimes were compared to the easy life I have.

-????????? Leaving a war torn country

-????????? Dealing with open in your face prejudice

-????????? Sudden deaths that come to pass

Hearing these stories puts life into perspective. It becomes easier to focus less on the “work” in the back of my head and focus instead on the families and the stories that will soon be gone if I don’t do the work to ask and remember them. Losing my grandma and my uncle has made me realize all the wisdom I lost with them that I will never get the chance to ask.

We all have these stories buried in our family and there is a lot of wisdom and insight that can come of it.

There is one key challenge though. Learning to ask those questions and those stories is not easy. It forces us to shake off the “always be focused on work and achievement” mentality that we grew up with. It requires us to be still and break the ice with our family and learn to ask the questions to go deeper one story at a time. ?

It also forces our family at times to confront hard times or unpleasant memories and that’s not always something they will want to do. We need to be able to be around and increase the length of and frequency of those interactions in a way that allows for those stories to come out.

Why did I choose this as my initial thought for my Saturday post?

Because like all things in personal finance – the decisions that get made and the desired goals are a byproduct of who we are. They are a manifestation of our lived experiences and our values.

A belief in real estate might be because of all things – land is often the only thing that remains after a bomb goes off.

A desire for a “safe” career or “safe” investments might be because the only association one has with “risk” is life or death.

A deep rooted belief in education and career success above all (and the endless hours of hard work) may be because it was the only way to get out of a country where you didn’t feel safe any more.

For us to be able to understand our families, understand how we were raised, and understand how to help our parents (and ourselves) navigate their finances…we first really need to understand who they are.

The pleasant byproduct is we will likely come to value and appreciate them for who they are and all they have gone through even more.