How to talk to a parent about their past

Life Kit

2024-07-11

25 分钟
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You might not know a lot about your parent's life before they had you: their childhood dreams, their first love, their heartbreaks. If you're a child of immigrants, there might be even less you know due to language barriers or traumatic experiences. But all of these things are passed down through generations. This episode, journalist and writer Aarti Shahani interviews Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, and three other writers about how to unpack your parent's past with them — and how doing so can both bring you closer and help you better understand yourself. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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  • The Republican National Convention is happening this week, and the NPR Politics podcast takes you there.

  • We're on the ground in Milwaukee with analysis, recaps and coverage of what happens every night of the RNC.

  • Listen to the NPR Politics podcast.

  • Before we start a warning.

  • In this episode, we'll be talking about suicide and abuse.

  • Youre listening to life kit from NPR.

  • Hey, Andrew Limbaugh here in for Mario Saguera.

  • Heres the origin story for todays life Kit.

  • When Aarti Shahani was NPRS technology correspondent, she published her first book.

  • Here we are.

  • Its a memoir about her and her familys immigrant experience.

  • Now, Aarthy doesnt come from a family of engineers like the people she reported on.

  • Instead, her mom was a seamstress.

  • Her dad, Naam Dev, was a shopkeeper.

  • He had a side gig, though, of being arthys arch nemesis, you know, the man policing her dating and dancing and skirt lengths.

  • He was the type of dad who worried more about his daughters marriage prospects than her career ambitions.

  • Then Namdev got arrested for selling calculators to a drug cartel.

  • He landed in Rikers island and then was put put into deportation proceedings.

  • In a weird way, this legal crisis led to the two becoming friends.

  • Aarti stopped going to school to help fight her dad's case.