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Over 59 million Americans provide unpaid care for aging family members.

Children of immigrants often act as cultural brokers long before adulthood.

Cultural expectations can make caregiving feel like obligation rather than choice.

Financial therapy helps uncover money beliefs shaping caregiving decisions.

“Our parents don’t have 401(k)s, they have children.”

It’s a joke I’ve heard many times in Asian-American and other immigrant communities, usually delivered with a half-smile and a knowing look. However, beneath the humor is a complicated and nuanced truth.

Many immigrant parents did not have the opportunity to build traditional retirement savings, not because they lacked the desire, but because they were working within a very different economic reality. Oftentimes, they were limited to jobs in restaurants, small businesses, domestic work, construction, or other parts of the informal or gig economy, positions that rarely offered employer-sponsored retirement plans or long-term financial security. Many worked multiple jobs simply to keep their families afloat.

As a result, those parents were focused on the immediate demands of survival and did not have the space to think about long-term financial planning. Whether consciously or unconsciously, instead of investing in their own futures, they invested in their children. For many families, that decision came from love, necessity, and the belief that education and opportunity were the safest investments they could make.

Over the years, I have heard numerous stories of families (including my own) who left their home countries, postponed their own educational dreams, and worked long hours so their children could have opportunities they themselves never had. The implicit hope was that the next generation would “do better” and that success would eventually create stability for the family unit.

For many second-generation offspring, this unspoken contract began to shape their relationship with money, responsibility, and familial duty. As these children grow up, they may feel pressure to provide financial support to their parents by sending monthly payments, helping with housing, or covering medical costs. Others carry a quieter but deeply held expectation that success means eventually “repaying” their parents for everything that was sacrificed.

But........

© Psychology Today