Larry Lee shares his experiences working in his father’s restaurant as a child.
I went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch last week and was served by a young man in his teens and noticed a little girl sitting at a table in the back folding napkins. Neither of them looked particularly happy about being there. This familiar scene brought back memories of my wife, having to work at her father’s restaurant, as well as my having to help out at my father’s grocery store.
I could totally identify and empathize with the responsibility of having to work in a family’s business. I spent weekends and summers working at my Dad’s store when I was 11 years old. It always felt like a no-win dilemma, acquiescing with resentment or feeling guilty and ungrateful for refusing to help. All the while knowing my friends were having fun on their weekends and summers.
I always wondered why this was so common for children of immigrants in family run businesses. On one level, this was probably driven by economics, obligation and loyalty to parents, but there is a much deeper emotional dynamic going on. As a child of an immigrant, I was persistently given the message in no uncertain terms, that huge sacrifices were made in order to make life better for me. But the deeper effect was that this also fueled an underlying belief that there was nothing I could do to ever repay my parents for providing me these privileges.
One of my mentors described this deep sense of obligation that children of immigrants carry as an elusive longing to compensate our parents for their sacrifices coming to this country. I certainly have tremendous gratitude for what I’ve been given but I also carry the burden of guilt which each of us has to make peace with.