My grandad has been in critical condition the past couple of days, and whether he will pull through is still very unpredictable and shaky right now. Naturally it’s been making us as a family think a lot about him and our memories with him and I find myself thinking a lot about my role as the grandchild and grandaughter who stayed with him the most, and as his health slowly has been deteriorating over the last 6 years, how said role became more and more apparent. I’ve been thinking a lot about south asian cultural expectations, unspoken duties and labour always falling onto the women in the family, to the child or grandchild who can speak better english, ask the right questions, keeping it together emotionally for the sake of other family members, who knows what to do in situations of crisis and must be able to respond in action because no one else can.
I’ve just been ruminating on a lot of different things, and it’s a weird mix of sadness and pride but also guilt and frustration at the fact that I’ve been unable to see something different in my family when it comes to gender roles, and just how low the bar was for the men in the family to do things differently (because all men from the maternal line have all been fucking atrocious according to the elder women in the family). My aunt was talking about how involved my grandfather was with raising her and my mum and uncle as kids, how much he did for them, and although for her this is an incredibly cherished quality about her dad and is very valid, especially because we’re used to expecting fathers in traditionally patriarchal roles to do the opposite, I really couldn’t help but feel sad that this is what the exception looks like for a lot of brown women. I’m almost like frustrated that this is the “rare golden standard” that the women in my family praise in a man. My cousin’s wife similarly explained how my cousin is like my grandad, in that he’s equally very involved with their newborn baby and does everything with her, but again this is what we should be expecting father’s to do for their children with their partner. I think the irony is although my grandad is an incredible man I won’t deny that he also lost a lot of his sense of self to duties and roles as the eldest of 7 siblings once his mother passed away and has only ever known to be this way due to his circumstances and experience of taking on a parental role at such a young age. So I just feel sad and guilt for him too and idk it just feels so complex. I wish he didn’t isolate himself and stayed in touch with friends and had other social groups, and didn’t make family the only thing to depend on. I wish he never felt the need to avoid being an inconvenience to anyone, or make himself small throughout his life when it came to jobs and careers, because I see myself in him too. He did what he needed to in order to just survive as an immigrant, but even so his experiences and stories he often shares with us show that his life was still incredibly rich compared to mine.
