This post is a broader attempt at understanding women who were raised in the US as immigrants from another country. While the specifics here are about Indian American women, I believe it can be generalized to many other immigrant communities, and indeed, close-knit communities in general (such as religious communities) and the women that are raised within them.
My title pays homage to Freud's seminal work Civilization and Its Discontents because I think he basically explained what's going on here. For most groups outside of mainstream America, being an "American" is thought to mean having absolute freedom. The ability to be anyone you want to be, do anything you want, reinvent yourself any way you choose, unfree yourself from the shackles of conformity and expectation, yadda yadda yadda. This is America's "brand" to the rest of the world, including immigrants who come from that world but live in America.
In contrast, one's native culture is often considered constraining, demanding conformity, stomps out individuality or any ideas that conflict with the culture or community.
Specifically talking about relationships, women raised in these communities often equate being "American" with being sexually free to do whatever and whomever they want, not being shamed for their choices, etc. and indeed actively rejecting whatever their community might have recommended. In contrast, remaining "Indian / religious / " means facing constraints on their sexual choices and behavior. Inevitably then, lots of these women attempt to become "American", often going to extremes that even native-born, regular "Americans" don't go to, such as extreme promiscuity, exceedingly poor choices in men, etc. And reject the label of "Indian / etc" as bad.
This is all fine and well until the woman gets older and the consequences of her actions start catching up to her. Then she realizes that the flip side of American-style freedom is American-style responsibility: no one gives two shits about you and whatever particular problems you might be facing. You're expected to fix it yourself. Even your own parents, in America, often kick their children out at 18 and tell them they're on their own. At the same time, she re-discovers the benefits of the community she previously rejected: the community will help you get back on your two feet, but with a very important caveat: as long as they see you as still one of their own, i.e. that you can convince them you've been conforming to their standards all along.
IOW, when you're young, American-style freedom is great, and Indian-style conformity is bad. But as the body counts start piling up, American-style responsibility starts to suck, and Indian-style community-helping-their-own starts to look good.
So for example, in religious communities, girls rebel against their strict upbringing by become sluts in college and early post-college years. But then, when they want to settle down, they become born-again virgins, going back to their old church in the hopes of getting the pastor to set them up with a "good, Christian man." In similar fashion, Indian women pronounce their independence from Indian conformity by becoming turbo sluts in college and actively rejecting and demeaning Indian men as nerdy, boring, etc. And then change their tune when they find none of the "American" guys they're fucking want to settle down with them. At that point, they come back to the community, pretend they've always been "good Indian girls" and hope to get an arranged marriage.
The fact that these women always have an escape outlet unavailable to actual "American" women means they can take risks even more extreme, and behave even less responsibly, than an average American women. A mainstream American woman can't fall back on her church finding her a good man, or her parents setting up an arranged marriage. Which is why when these fallback options disappear, the shock can be much worse than what a typical post-wall American woman faces when she attempts to hop off the CC.
[Slight tangent: When I was in my early 20s, Americans often would ask me if I was going to get an arranged marriage. The women of that age thought it was weird, oppressive, etc. and were relieved when I said no. It meant I wasn't a weirdo. But in my 30s, when they asked that question, more often than not, the 30-something women would be baffled when I said no. "Really? Man, I wish my parents would bring me 10 or 20 great guys that I could pick a husband from." And they seemed to mean it. It surprised me that even fully American women with no historical attachment to arranged marriages all of a sudden started to see it as a positive compared to the dating history they accumulated over their years.]
So let's see how this plays out in this one example as laid out here: https://www.forums.red/p/whereareallthegoodmen/321913/2nd_gen_immigrant_goes_nuts_and_rides_tyrone_now_she_is_ghos
This dad is being way too kind in describing his daughter, either out of pride or genuine love. The biggest delusion he has is that his girl is a woman. She's not. She's still a girl aka someone who has never taken responsibility for her actions, and never will, unless he stops coddling her.
I know this type of girl. She's common in the Indian community (and lots of other immigrant communities). Most likely this is an upper middle class or richer family. Not to downplay the number of poor or working class Indians there are in America now, but the fact that he emphasizes how smart she was, that she was in AP / GT classes, and went to a "top" university (even the fact that he calls it a university rather than college), as opposed to say talking about how beautiful his daughter is, or about her values, etc. indicates that education was a huge part of her life, which is a common thing among all (not just Indian) upper middle class suburban families.
And right off the bat, I will say, that she was already a disappointment to them because she only got into a public university. At that level, Ivy League or near-Ivy League is the goal. While a "top public university" is acceptable, it's not considered a particularly noteworthy achievement. I bring this up not to insult the girl, but to establish what I suspect her family dynamics are: they are traditional, well educated, highly paid professionals who want their daughter to grow up as a traditional Indian: focusing on her school work, working hard, getting into a top university, etc. etc. And she was one of those kids who rebelled against her upbringing, probably partied and dated instead of studying, and ended up at a public school rather than what she could have achieved if only she'd gotten As in all those AP / GT classes. Truth is, she probably wanted to go to Harvard too like the rest of her classmates, but when she only got the thin envelope from Cambridge, MA, rather than re-assessing what part of her actions led to this rejection, she blamed her parents: they didn't let her join anything besides the math and chess clubs ("don't they know Harvard wants well-rounded students?") And by well-rounded, she doesn't mean usual Asian stuff like tennis and violin, which her parents would have gladly paid for, but smoking weed and blowing off midterms to go to a rock concert. Because, you see, there is no middle ground between becoming a complete automaton and completely rebelling to the other side. This was her first opportunity for her to reflect on her actions, understand that there can be consequences for them, consequences that her Dad, no matter how much he loves her, and how much she hates him, can't just rescue her from (unless he has Harvard's admissions director on speed dial).
And here we already see that conflict between being "American" (or more accurately, an immigrant's idea of an "American") which she takes to mean blowing off her studies, partying, getting drunk, having sex from an early age, etc. and being "Indian" meaning focusing on her education and delaying gratification. And we know which side she picked.
This would have been an excellent time at which to learn a valuable lesson about being "American": that the freedom to fuck around comes with the possibility of finding out. If you blow off your studies, your dad can't just buy your admission into college (unless he's a billionaire, I guess) like he can in India (private colleges in India are frequently called donation colleges because you just need to make a donation to get in; the amount is usually published and very open). So you need to exercise your freedom cautiously and balance it out with the consequences (sure, enjoy your high school years, go to a few parties, but don't let it affect your grades).
If she had learnt that lesson here, she might have still had a great life. After all, there are plenty of great schools outside of the Ivy League. But I bet that's not what happened. She was furious she didn't get into the college of her dreams, and blamed her parents ("You forced me to take AP calculus instead of that interpretive dance elective! Don't you know Harvard doesn't care about Asians who know calc?!") and instead of calling her out on her bullshit ("I didn't tell you to get a 'C' in the course..."), they accepted it ("I'm sorry sweetheart. I didn't understand the college admissions process. You're right, I didn't go through it so what do I know? Things are different in India. It was my fault you'll now have to wear Penn State Blue instead of Princeton Orange. Forgive us!")
So you already have a girl who refuses to take responsibility for her actions. Anything bad that happens is her parents fault, for not understanding the "unique pressures" of being a rich, privileged, American girl who is basically guaranteed to live a life unimaginable to 99.9% of the world's population and even 90% of America's. All she has to do is not fuck it up. Which brings us to college...
Once she got to college, having double downed on the idea that American=good and Indian=bad, and all parental restraints were finally cast aside, she went nuts, and often deliberately did things to piss off her parents and announce to the word that she was a "liberated American woman!" while her parents were old-school, square, oppressive Indians. It's the same as when daughters in strict religious families go to college and become the biggest campus sluts. I would bet she's not even all that attracted to African Americans per se, just to the fetish image of a big, muscled, tatted out black thug and the heart attack it would cause in her father knowing he was fucking her. It was payback for all the perceived wrongs her Indian parents did by not letting her grow up as an all-American girl.
At this stage, if she wanted to find a docile Indian guy to hand her everything she wanted on a silver platter, she could have found one. In a good school, you can basically throw a rock and hit 10 Indian guys who will go on to 6-figure careers, and who are desperately looking for an Indian girl to date and marry (yes, even for guys, there's a stigma in America to getting an arranged marriage; that you couldn't get someone to fall in love with you the "normal" way; sort of like how both men and women look down on guys going overseas for a bride). But those guys are boring, and besides, she figures they'll always be around in case she has her fun and then can't find an exciting, handsome, non-Indian 6-figure dude (aka alpha bux) to marry. Plus, it would basically just confirm everything her dad always told her ("You should find a good Indian boy, maybe a doctor or engineer, to settle down and marry.") and who at 20 wants to admit their parents were right?
Some excitement here, some daddy issues there, it's all fun and games until she gets pregnant. Now again comes a moment when she can discover that her actions have consequences -- big, irreversible ones, and she needs to think long and hard and get this one right or she will be truly fucked. 100% certain this girl is pro-choice, and this is exactly the situation where pro-choicers argue abortion is a good choice. She's not married, the father has skedaddled, she's young with her whole life ahead of her, a good life, if she just finishes college, finds a decent guy, and then she can have a family in a situation that is far better for her and her future children.
If she used this decision, as painful as it might be, to basically sober up, become an adult, and start leading a more responsible life, then it could even have been spun as a positive. And that's what her family recommended. But again, she refuses any introspection. She probably yelled at her parents that the reason they're recommending an abortion is because the baby is half-black, accusing them of being racists, not wanting to understand the real issue is that she'd become a single mother and basically fuck over her life and her child's by doing it. Because if she acknowledges that the mistake was becoming a single mother, then she'd have to accept that that was her mistake and hers alone. While if the "mistake" is that it's a half-black baby, then it's not really a mistake and indeed, it deflects all blame to her parents for being racists (a juvenile defense mechanism shared by most of the commenters in the original thread, with plenty of them calling her father, and all Indians, racist for talking about the mixed race child, rather than focusing on the real issue, which is the single mother part). I brought up that she's 100% pro-choice to emphasize that for her, this was not due to any moral issue against abortion. If she was pro-life, maybe she does realize it's the single mother part that's the problem, and her responsibility, but still chooses to carry the baby because she's morally opposed to abortion. I could respect that. But that is not this woman. Her decision to not have an abortion was not due to morality, but because deciding an abortion is right would imply her parents are right and she fucked up, while having the baby means her parents are wrong and not only is she not wrong, she's a martyr in the fight against racism.
From there, her life predictably goes downhill. From looking forward to a high-earning job, and the dating circles that would open up to her, she finished her bachelors and didn't pursue anything further (only having a bachelors is equivalent to being a high school dropout in the Indian community). She now has a diminished job and lives by herself with her baby in an apartment. No doubt her parents help her financially and with child rearing tasks. Based on the timeline, she is now probably around 23-24. All of her friends are either in grad school preparing for lucrative careers like law or medicine, or making great money in an exciting city and playing Sex and the City with guys way hotter than "John" or the losers she finds on tinder who are willing to slum it with a single mom for a night. All those instagram posts her BFFs from high school and college (who now never call her or visit) post with hot rich guys doing exciting, fun stuff, eats at her while she's stuck at home changing diapers and watching Sesame Street before going to sleep at 7.
She thought being a martyr for the cause would be fun! She'd get to wear a cute Che Guevara t-shirt, go on 4-block marches (with hot cocoa at Starbucks afterwards), and what's more, where are all of those allies who should be genuflecting in front of her and worshipping her for all she's done for the movement? Not even a damn interview on local TV, or a shout-out on her favorite blog! She never contemplated that martyrs are called that because they frequently get shot and/or die alone in a mud encampment surrounded by soldiers while dysentery turns your bowels inside out (or would, if you had eaten in the past week). Which is the equivalent of what she realizes is slowly happening to her.
And yet again, we come to an inflection point. She is firmly in the Find Out phase of her FAFO life. She can remain an "American", look back on her decisions, and accept that they were hers alone, and that her current predicament is therefore 100% on her. Or she can return to the community she once rejected, to bail her out.
At this point, most Indian women become born-again Indians. They chameleon back to becoming "good Indian girls". They start going to their local temple, hanging out at the monthly cultural events, etc. Their history is quickly wiped of any evidence of debauchery, and everything that can buff her Indian cred is emphasized.
Usually this works (like it works for most born-again women of all stripes) but it's gotten harder in the internet age where guys (and their families) have gotten good at internet and social media sleuthing. But in this case, it's impossible: she has a child out of wedlock. No way to erase that part of her history. But she doesn't care. She's never been taught to take responsibility for her actions, and she sure as hell isn't about to start now. She still wants her bailout.
And not just any bailout, but back to her Dad, that old coot who forced this life of hell on her in safe, secure, rich, suburban post Cold War America. He owes her! It's all his fault, after all, and she doesn't give a shit if he has to burn down the entire family's social capital to rescue her! The OP doesn't mention if they have other children, but if they do, they must also consider them. It's bad enough for people to know you have a "problem child". In arranged marriage discussions, that's definitely a black mark. But everyone can relate to having a black sheep. What they won't forgive is if you seem to agree with their decisions and resulting life (there's a difference between supporting and loving a problem child, and agreeing with their decisions). Then your whole parenting skills are suspect and no one will want your other children either.
But this daughter doesn't care about any of that. She's still a child. A toddler to be exact, perhaps younger in maturity than her own son. The entire world exists to serve her, consequences don't exist, and if anything bad happens, you should run to your parents to fix it. Which is, of course, the entire point of their existence. As I said, a toddler.
But the problem is that, at this point, it's beyond anyone's capability to fix. She tried fixing it herself. She spent a year of dating around and found out no hot 6-foot tall brad pitt with a million dollar mansion is looking to sweep her off her feet. And even Ajay that boring guy in her high school who became an accountant and apparently is making bank blocked her facebook friend request. Her asking her parents to take over in this quest is basically saying she wants them to face the humiliation of begging for someone to rescue her, rather than take that humiliation herself.
And now for a quick explanation of arranged marriages:
For those who have never seen it, understand that arranging a marriage for your child can be the biggest joy of a parent's life. And why not? Finding the right partner for your child to spend their life with gives you far more happiness than pretty much anything else you do. It is literally the only thing that Indian Moms live for, to find the best, most amazing person for their child to marry. Once they've found that person -- and with them, another family who will be there for them -- they can die happy.
Think of it like college admissions, only even more important. If your child is smart and has good grades, they're getting literally hundreds of glossy photobooks from colleges begging your child to enroll. Every college counsellor in those college fairs is sidling up to your child and trying to sell them on it. And on the flip side, if your child didn't do well in school, no one is looking, no one is sending glossy ads. You have to tell your child that it's probably not worth the time sending in an application to Yale, he won't get in. And maybe start broaching the possibility of community college "you know, just in case you don't get into your dream school."
It's exhilarating or heartbreaking. And it's 1000x better / worse when it comes to arranged marriages. If your child is handsome / beautiful, smart, on track for a good career, "a good boy / girl" (aka raised with good values) literally everyone is approaching you about them. Friends, friends of friends, relatives of friends of friends, prominent, hugely respected families in the US and India (and other large diasporas like UK, Australia, etc), the network spreads far and wide and fast if you have a "good one". And it's all validation that you were a good parent. That the 20-30 years of blood, sweat, and tears that you spent raising this person was worth it, and it's not just you who sees it in your child, but literally a worldwide community of people see it too.
The opposite is equally heartbreaking and humiliating. Seeing a child flounder breaks any parent's heart and gives rise to recriminations about what they did wrong. Now imagine that same worldwide community sees it as well, and judges you for it. Just like the parent who's celebrated for raising a "good kid", you see their quiet condemnation of you for raising a "bad kid". They'll never say it in front of you. Rather, it's the silence that stings. No one is blowing up your phone asking you about your kid, wondering if they're available and open to meeting someone. And when you ask your friends if they know of any boys / girls who are looking, they just say "no sorry, I don't know anyone." Or if you ask someone directly about their child, and the response is "Oh, they're seeing someone right now, sorry" or "well, they're not really interested in the whole arranged marriage thing. They're finding someone by themselves." (as if even someone dead set against arranged marriages would pass up an introduction to a hot Chad or Stacy). It is incredibly humiliating for a parent to experience.
And that's what this daughter wants to put her parents through. It's 1000x worse than any rejection faced by a single individual on tinder. That rejection can sting, but at least it's just a stranger you'll never see again. This is a community, but she doesn't understand what that means. She still believes American freedom is great and the Indian community sucks. She has no idea how much a community can mean to a person invested in it, or even how much a community can do for you (admittedly, if you're willing to conform to it and also give back).
To her parents, their community was the one thing that allowed them to survive when they first came to America and didn't know a single soul, didn't have a job, and didn't even know how a cash machine worked. It's the families that understood them when Americans still seemed like a different species; the people you could hang out with and speak your native language, eat your comfort food, and exchange bootlegged copies of the latest movies from back home. And once her parents got established, they probably paid it forward by helping out new immigrants while still staying close to the ones that helped them out before. It is so much more than just a matchmaking service.
But she doesn't understand that, and doesn't really care. She doesn't really want the community. She just needs a beta bux bailout and the community is her best shot at getting one. And she's willing to make her parents burn it down, humiliate themselves in front of people they can't just unfriend on facebook because that's easier on her than her doing it herself.
And truth is, her parents probably would do all that, if they thought there was a chance in hell that they might actually find someone, and rescue their daughter one more time. But they know it's futile.
The OP indicates they've had these difficult discussions with their daughter. But I'm not so sure. There's a big difference between saying "I'm not doing this because it's futile; there are no guys in our network that would want to marry you." vs "I'm not doing this because you need to fix your fuckups yourself." The first implies the responsibility is still with them, and they're failing at it ("you need to try harder! Ask around more! Don't you have better contacts?!").
Only the second is the shock they need to deliver to their daughter. That she is an adult, she needs to take responsibility to fix her own fuckups, and that if she's not able to, which will also happen -- some fuckups are too big to fix -- then she needs to learn how to live with the consequences. And if she refuses to accept it, they need to drop the ultimate truth bomb that Kevin Samuels used to drop: "Look at your baby boy. When he grows up, would you want him marrying a single mother with no prospects, and raise a child that's not his? As his mother, if he brought such a woman home, would you tell him 'Yes, marry that woman! That's the best woman you can get!'?" She'll probably be speechless for a long while, and you'll probably see her soul shatter in her eyes, and it will be painful to see as a parent. But without that shock, she'll never develop the caution and logical reasoning she needs to avoid fucking up in the future, and they'll spend the rest of their lives continuing to bail out their daughter from increasingly bigger and bigger fuckups.
Meanwhile, she will continue to pursue her dream of being a true "American woman" (meaning freedom, freedom, freedom! but without any responsibility), and rejecting her Indian community (except for the times she needs something from it). And her parents will continue to enable her dysfunctional approach to living her life.
NB. As a 2nd-generation Indian American myself, I believe there are ways to take the best parts of both communities and create a culture that's stronger than either culture alone. It's difficult, but definitely possible. And there are men and women who are able to do this and they can often be great partners to their spouses, regardless of whether that spouse is American, Indian, something else or if they had an arranged marriage or met through other means. But lots of people fail at this task, and instead take the worst parts of both cultures and become more dysfunctional than either one alone. That's what the OP's daughter did. If you're interested in dating daughters of these types of groups / communities / cultures, you'll need to suss out what group they fall into: merged the two cultures in a good way; merged the two cultures in a bad way; or stayed firmly in only one culture. It's not hard to figure out which group a woman falls into because they believe their way is the best way so they'll be pretty open about it.
NB-2. In anticipation of the women who will inevitably be enraged by my post and take to calling me an incel or a loser Indian that's just upset he couldn't get an Indian girl, let me just say the vast majority of the women I've dated were non-Indians, by choice. Oh yeah, and it used to upset my female Indian friends -- the same ones that insulted Indian guys as nerdy, boring, ugly FOBs -- when a desirable Indian guy wanted nothing to do with them and dated outside the community. But that's a post for another day :-)
moorekom Mod 8mo ago
@ogrilla99,
Please cross post this to WAATGM reddit and sticky it until this weekend ends. It's up to you to decide whether to lock comments there or to allow discussion.
ogrilla99 Mod 8mo ago
Done. I left comments enabled there but did encourage people to post directly on here instead. Let's see what happens :-)
moorekom Mod 8mo ago
Laziness.
wswZtyqNGQ 8mo ago
You're a good storyteller!
(And I'd sure love to read about the angry Indian women bullies getting their just deserts.)
Overkill_Engine Endorsed 8mo ago
Spot on this is how a lot of "women" raised in a small tradcon town act once they get freedom to fool around outside of the watchful eyes of the community. They end up single moms and are basically blacklisted from a comfortable life because top tier men aren't going to risk their future on a woman that has proven she can't figure out when to keep her fucking legs closed. Mid-tier men are starting to get the memo too, and well, Pookie and Cletus never really gave a shit enough to commit no matter what so they were never going to be a reliable fallback.
It would be a valuable selection pressure mechanism IF we did not have a Welfare State allowing them to replicate. Then women that lack the ability or desire to reign in their impulses would not passing on their genes.
ogrilla99 Mod 8mo ago
Yeah, I debated about writing this more about communities in general, not just the Indian community. The bottom line is that communities offer you a trade-off: in exchange for conforming to their rules, they help you throughout your life. Now, you're free to reject that trade-off if you don't think it's worth it. But then don't come running back to the community when you suddenly find yourself wanting the benefits it offers, especially if you're still not willing to conform to their rules.
Many women in these communities underestimate how much the community can help them. They take the help for granted, and bitch and moan about the rules they're expected to follow in return. Partly it's the grass is greener on the other side. They view the "American" world as all freedom and rainbows, whereas anyone who's actually spent time in this country understands that American individualism cuts both ways. Even the ones who finally learn this rule, for many it's too late: they've broken the rules in a way that can't be unbroken, and so the option to return to the community is gone forever. That's when the lying / scrubbing of social media / chameleon behavior starts :-)