Choosing my passion over my parents’ life plan
Growing up a child of immigrant parents who escaped a war-torn country, my mom and dad instilled in my sister and I perseverance and resilience. They taught me to work hard, study hard and do everything with excellence…which made me a great student and obedient daughter…until the thing I wanted to do excellently, was not in their life plan for me.
For so many years I felt so lost, so broken and so angry. It was a decision between my passion or my parents – and I chose my passion. It broke our relationship and to this day, remains the thing I still cry about every time I think about it, talk about it, or write about it. Like literally right now. Ugh.
As I get older, as my parents get older, and as the past becomes more of a scar than a fresh wound, I find myself trying to heal by trying to understand them. They wanted my sister and I to be safe. To be financially secure. To not suffer. To have stability. Things that were robbed from from them. Telling my parents I was going to pursue fashion design was none of those things. But the more they told me NO the more it lit my fire.
I’m extremely grateful to my parents because had they not done what they did, I would not have fought as hard as I did to get where I am today.
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I want to thank you for supporting me all of these years, whether it was by doing a Blogilates video on YouTube or by purchasing something from POPFLEX (or recently Blogilates!). Know that you have the power to change the trajectory of someone’s life, as you did mine, by the choices you make. I say this because as a consumer, our loudest “vote” comes in the form of a dollar. Corporations, at the end of the day, make decisions heavily influenced, if not totally influenced, by numbers. Now more than ever, if you have the means to support minority owned brands that make products you love, let your dollar do the speaking. Know that your collective choices are POWERFUL and that THIS is how they listen.
Also WOW how has this January been 847 days long!?!?
Chuc Mung Nan Moi (Vietnamese)
Gung Hay Fat Choy (Chinese)
Happy Lunar New Year 🧧🐍
4 thoughts on “Choosing my passion over my parents’ life plan”
There are 4 comments posted by our users.
Thank you so much. I am also a daughter of immigrants parents who wants to pursue fashion, having you as an example truely gives me hope for what I will be able to do in my future. I also admire how willing you are to listen to your customers which is something few people really do. Over all thank you for all you’ve done and I wish you the best with your own struggles, Again, thank you.
The level of bad-assery required to forge your own path and truly own your own power is perfectly captured in the pistol squat in heels selfie. There is NO amount of well-intended parental self-righteousness that could EVER compete with a child who is born to be a force of nature. Do not continue to feel sad for a situation where those who should be your biggest supporters did/do not recognize and celebrate your true and authentic fabulous self. YOU choose your value – it’s internal. External validation is not required. In other words, as I’ve seen quoted on Pinterest – eagles do not take flight lessons from chickens. Love you!
Cassey, it is beautiful to see you accomplishing so much and living out your dreams! I have a similar story. My parents are neither Asian nor immigrants, but in some ways fit into that sort of mindset. When I told my parents I wanted to try to dance professionally, my dad yelled at me about how he would kick me out of his house and off his health insurance, how I’d never get married or have kids (my then-bf, now-husband has always been very supportive of my dance aspirations), how he wished he had never sent me to college because he wasted his money that he could have used for his retirement (my parents are quite well-off, they don’t need any more saved for retirement, it’s not like he gave up his life savings for me), and a bunch of other nasty things. And then he walked out. It was ten at night and he left and didn’t come home for two days, during which he didn’t respond to any of my texts or calls. It was the most traumatic experience of my life and left me gutted. I developed really bad depression. But, I still managed to graduate college the next year with degrees in both dance and a STEM field. I worked in that field for two years but then was able to go back to school for a degree in dance education and have now transitioned my life to being totally focused on dance. I teach dance in a public elementary school in a major city, where I dance all day and get to share my passion with kids. I have great pay/benefits, actually more than I made as an entry-level scientist. And I dance and act outside of work on a semi-professional basis (some paid gigs, some experiences that I am paying for, but overall I’m doing a lot of high-level performing). Oh, and I’m also married, and my husband and I are hoping to start having kids once he finishes grad school. I am living something pretty close to my dream life. My parents have come around and are now very supportive and proud of what I do. I’ve had a hard time feeling like I can forgive them, but my dad apologized (again) over Christmas for how he had treated me and I realized it didn’t hurt as much. I think I’m finally ready to accept that apology. And much like how things worked out for you because you aren’t sure you would have worked so hard if your parents hadn’t been so against your fashion work, it kinda worked out for me because if I had been dancing professionally right out of college, I would have lost all my work when Covid hit two years later, and might have left dance. Instead, I had a short break from dance and then came back to it with a vengeance, and now it’s my life. I don’t know where I’m going with this, you sharing your story just inspired me to share my story and I wanted to say I love that we are both now living our lives in such a fulfilling way and please keep being awesome.
As a child of immigrants parents myself, I understand their need to make sure we, their children, are safe. I have a similar relationship with my parents, sort of strained/sort of hanging on by a thread. But I do hope that you know that what you’ve done has been fantastic and the quality of your products are a testament to your drive and passion for your craft! Stay true to yourself and congrats on everything that you’ve accomplished and what will come in the future! ☺️☺️☺️