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About 6 months ago, husband and I fully committed ourselves to our business. It has taken us 7 years of planning and preparations to get to this point. I was an engineer and he was a PR professional. Our business utilisizes both of our skills fully.
I'm an asian immigrant. To us asian immigrants, job security is very very very very important. And it doesn't help that I came from a culture that actually looks down on starting a business. I normally don't tell people this because western culture encourages people to start businesses. Where I came from, the big psychological belief is you either inherit your wealth and business or you spend all your life working for somebody else.
I actually have a theory on this. I believe this cultural belief came from the old aristocratic system where you were either born into nobility or not. The old money folks perpetuated this cultural belief to keep the masses down.
So, we have members of our community who are very successful lawyers, bankers, doctors, etc. We also have business owners, but they are talked down to. They are a shame. The belief is they are lazy because they are not "working". And that's another thing. Most have no idea what owning a business require, so they think business owners don't do anything all day. They think we just sit around all day doing nothing. And that's the definition of laziness.
Let me just say this. Ever since we started committing fully to our business, there have been days when we woke up at 5am and worked all the way to 9pm nonstop.
Anyway, so I recently came across an article about Andrew Yang, one of the Dem candidates. It talked about him quitting his $250K/year lawyer job to pursue his own business ventures. On a personal level, it was very hard on him because of pressures from his parents and relatives. And I was like oh my god that's my life right now. I've tried many times to make them understand that (1) it's real work whether I'm working for someone else or myself, (2) I'm making more now than I ever did as an engineer, and (3) my business has the potential to earn me many many times more versus my old job which gave me 1.5% raise every other year for the rest of my life.
But again, none of that matters. My mom just called me this morning yelling at me telling me why am I so stupid? It's very hurtful that everybody refers to our company as a "side hustle". Yes, they insist on referring to our million dollar company as a "side hustle". As far as they are concerned, we have no social status right now. We are nothing. Why? Because we are not "working".
Wow, that must be very painful to hear from your parents! Yet, you've persevered for 7 years, and it's really paid off. Take strength from that. Clearly, you're already very strong, to be able to start and grow a very successful business, in spite of the lack of family support.
You'll need to disengage emotionally from your family regarding this so that their disapproval (which sounds like verbal abuse) doesn't affect you so strongly. Perhaps telling yourself, that they mean well but are very culture-bound, will help. You may have to draw a boundary with your parents, telling them that you love them, but verbal abuse isn't acceptable, and you can't tolerate it. If they argue back, say you need to end the conversation now, and do it. This may be very difficult at first.
Focus on positive role models, as you have done. Probably Yang went through some of what you're going through.
By the way, have you taken them on any special holiday weekends or vacations, to demonstrate your success in your business? That's not an uncommon thing to do, for people who achieve their goals in business as you have. I wonder if that would open their eyes a bit, or if they would only spend the entire time being insufferable.
Do they not value real estate, owning property, as a "profession"?
It's a shame she is so cruel to you, but in my experience there is no way you will change her POV. You can have as many frank, honest and respectful conversations with them as you can muster, but it won't matter. You're battling thousands of years of ingrained culture.
I think you have to decide to what extent you want to play her game and kowtow to your relatives, or continue to be more independent and distance yourself.
Wow, that must be very painful to hear from your parents! Yet, you've persevered for 7 years, and it's really paid off. Take strength from that. Clearly, you're already very strong, to be able to start and grow a very successful business, in spite of the lack of family support.
You'll need to disengage emotionally from your family regarding this so that their disapproval (which sounds like verbal abuse) doesn't affect you so strongly. Perhaps telling yourself, that they mean well but are very culture-bound, will help. You may have to draw a boundary with your parents, telling them that you love them, but verbal abuse isn't acceptable, and you can't tolerate it. If they argue back, say you need to end the conversation now, and do it. This may be very difficult at first.
Focus on positive role models, as you have done. Probably Yang went through some of what you're going through.
By the way, have you taken them on any special holiday weekends or vacations, to demonstrate your success in your business? That's not an uncommon thing to do, for people who achieve their goals in business as you have. I wonder if that would open their eyes a bit, or if they would only spend the entire time being insufferable.
We have only doing this full time for 6 months. We worked on it as a side hustle and planning for the last 7 years as we both worked full time to save up for it.
So, by all intent and purposes, our company is still in its infancy. We are living pretty leanly right now to be safe.
And it's not really about the money. They all know that a full time job will never make anyone rich. It's the perceived security of working a full time job that they are worried about. We could be multi-millionaire and they would still want us to get a job.
This is a huge weakness in my culture. It's the perceived social status. For some damn reason, an engineer working for a company has higher social status than the company owner... Unless the company owner inherited his company. It doesn't make much sense from a westernized capitalist point of view. And again, I am convinced this cultural aspect was perpetuated by old money aristocrats to discourage everybody else from starting their own businesses. You are more revered for working for someone else than for you to start your own company.
Do they not value real estate, owning property, as a "profession"?
It's a shame she is so cruel to you, but in my experience there is no way you will change her POV. You can have as many frank, honest and respectful conversations with them as you can muster, but it won't matter. You're battling thousands of years of ingrained culture.
I think you have to decide to what extent you want to play her game and kowtow to your relatives, or continue to be more independent and distance yourself.
In order to make them understand our REI business, we have to first get them to understand two concepts: passive income and consumer RE versus investment RE. My husband and I have pulled out most of our hair trying to get certain people to understand these 2 things.
Unfortunately, the way my parents see it, they owe a mortgage on their house. Every month, they have to pay to live in their house. They don't get any income from it. Therefore, they apply that to our many investment properties. Hence, they think it is stupid to own this many houses and buildings.
People in my culture are very hard workers. They will work themselves to death if need be. But they only understand active income. You work for 2 hours you get paid for two hours. The concept of passive income completely bewilders them.
In short, they only value RE as much as a place they live in. They just don't get that RE can earn income from now to infinity.
Thank you for speaking out on this. Can you say what your country of origin is? I'm just curious because I find some Asian cultures very secretive - unwilling to talk much about what is really going on with them (and I am assuming there is a very good reason for this, but I still find it difficult to talk to people who are not introspective, thoughtful, or forthcoming about cultural differences).
It sounds incredibly painful because you are working hard doing something you believe in and instead of supporting you, your family is ridiculing and maligning you. Because of your culture, you are probably hesitant to tell them to keep it to themselves. It sounds very discouraging.
I would say you have to keep doing what you think is right and maybe find a way to limit your interactions with naysayers. If they can't understand that they are actually hurting you, I don't know what your recourse is.
Find a nice older couple at church or some organization. Ask them to allow you to adopt them as surrogate parents. They will love and support you if you hunt around and find the right surrogate parent, especially if you have kids.
Thank you for speaking out on this. Can you say what your country of origin is? I'm just curious because I find some Asian cultures very secretive - unwilling to talk much about what is really going on with them (and I am assuming there is a very good reason for this, but I still find it difficult to talk to people who are not introspective, thoughtful, or forthcoming about cultural differences).
It sounds incredibly painful because you are working hard doing something you believe in and instead of supporting you, your family is ridiculing and maligning you. Because of your culture, you are probably hesitant to tell them to keep it to themselves. It sounds very discouraging.
I would say you have to keep doing what you think is right and maybe find a way to limit your interactions with naysayers. If they can't understand that they are actually hurting you, I don't know what your recourse is.
Know that Asians are not a monolithic group. I've dealt with some (white) people before where they went to ask their "Asian" friend and if it diverged from what I said then I must be lying. Memo: Asia is a big-ass continent with thousands of individual cultures.
I hesitate to tell you the specific country I'm from, because even within that country there are hundreds of individual ethnic groups that have different subcultures and attitudes toward certain things.
Even here in the US there are many different subcultures that have very different attitudes to certain things.
I think if it were me, I'd have a conversation with my parents to the effect of "Mom, dad, it's good to hear from you, except for THIS thing...(explain you're tired of talking about it, and that they don't understand.) Tell them if the conversation devolves again, you will not discuss, and will, instead, hang up.
They will probably not believe it at first, because they're your parents, and they think they know better than you. When and if they go down that rabbit hole again, you say something like "Ok mom, gotta go! Love ya!" and you hang up.
You might have to have a few conversations like this...but I think they will eventually learn that if they want to hear from their daughter, they will have to change their tune.
Know that Asians are not a monolithic group. I've dealt with some (white) people before where they went to ask their "Asian" friend and if it diverged from what I said then I must be lying. Memo: Asia is a big-ass continent with thousands of individual cultures.
I hesitate to tell you the specific country I'm from, because even within that country there are hundreds of individual ethnic groups that have different subcultures and attitudes toward certain things.
Even here in the US there are many different subcultures that have very different attitudes to certain things.
It's okay. I was just giving my impression. I asked *what* Asian country, because I know they are different, so not sure why you would point out "Asian" is not monolithic.
Maybe the better question right now would be if you feel *YOUR* particular Asian culture tends to be secretive in sharing stuff with other cultures - and if you don't want to address that, it is fine - your post asking *others* for feedback just struck me as *possibly* being out of a cultural norm.
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