Why We Grew Up Obedient - And Why We Expect Something Different Now

There’s a sentence almost every South Asian or Middle Eastern adult child knows by heart:

“When we were young, we just listened. We didn’t talk back. We didn’t question anything.”

It arrives in living rooms, car rides, WhatsApp voice notes, and every family argument that gets even slightly inconvenient. It appears when we set boundaries, when we disagree, when we point out a double standard, when we ask for emotional accountability, or when we simply say, “I don’t think that’s right for me.”

It’s a sentence loaded with nostalgia, suffering, cultural pride, intergenerational trauma, and unexpressed grief - all wrapped into one tidy proverb.

But here’s the truth:

They didn’t “just listen.”

They survived.

And survival looks a lot like obedience when you zoom out.

In this piece, we’re going to gently unpack where this generational obedience came from, why our parents cling to it, how migration intensified it, why our generation is wired differently, and what we can actually do to bridge this gap without betraying ourselves or disrespecting them.

This isn’t about labelling one generation as wrong and the other as right.

This is about understanding the context that shaped each of us - so we can finally stop talking past each other.

1. The Myth of Obedience: Why Our Parents “Just Listened”

When our parents say they “just listened,” they’re often not describing an ideal childhood — they’re describing a necessary coping strategy.

For many South Asian and Middle Eastern parents, childhood wasn’t an era. It was a training ground.

They grew up in environments shaped by:

☑ Hierarchical family structures

Respect flowed upward. Elders’ decisions were final. Questioning was equated with insolence.

☑ Economic instability

With limited options, you didn’t get to negotiate. You complied so the family could function.

☑ Strict social expectations

Reputation mattered. Honour mattered. Families were collective units, not clusters of individuals.

☑ Survival-based parenting

Children were raised to withstand hardship, not to explore their emotional landscapes.

☑ Lack of psychological safety

Disagreement could come with genuine consequences - punishment, shame, or emotional withdrawal.

☑ Religious and cultural teachings emphasising obedience

Not blindly, but strongly. Questioning elders was morally discouraged.

In those worlds, obedience wasn’t a virtue.

It was a protective mechanism.

The message wasn’t just “listen.”

The message was “survive what we survived.”

And so our parents grew up strong, resilient, adaptable - but also emotionally compressed.

They didn’t learn to advocate for themselves, set boundaries, negotiate needs, or name feelings, because those skills weren’t useful in their context.

Their obedience wasn’t compliance.

It was adaptation.

2. Migration Made the Obedience Narrative Even Stronger

For parents who migrated, especially from South Asian and Middle Eastern countries, the narrative of obedience took on a new form.

Migration was destabilising.

Suddenly, the rules of the new culture didn’t match the rules they grew up with.

In moments of overwhelm, stress, financial pressure, culture shock, and isolation, people cling to what they know.

What our parents knew was:

• “Structure keeps a family safe.”

• “Discipline keeps kids on track.”

• “Obedience prevents chaos.”

Diaspora parenting often tightened rather than loosened, because:

• They feared losing culture and values.

• They feared their kids drifting too far into Western individualism.

• They didn’t have community support or extended family to guide them.

• They equated “questioning” with “danger” because back home, questioning authority was risky.

• They needed to feel in control in a world where they had very little control.

So when they say “we just listened,” what they're really saying is:

“I’m afraid that if you don’t listen, something bad will happen - to you, to us, to the family’s reputation, to our connection to culture, or to everything I worked for.”

This isn’t about obedience.

This is about fear, loss, and identity.

3. Why We Expect Something Different Now

Our generation grew up in a completely different emotional climate.

Where our parents’ generation was shaped by survival, ours is shaped by:

• mental health awareness

• therapy language

• emotional literacy

• access to education

• global ideas

• exposure to diverse parenting models

• individual freedom

• an online community that validates our experiences

• autonomy as a core developmental need

• trauma-informed understandings of family dynamics

We expect:

• to be heard

• to be able to express ourselves

• to be treated with emotional respect

• to talk about our mental health

• to negotiate decisions

• to have boundaries

• to explain instead of obey

• to choose relationships intentionally

• to have equitable roles in our families

• to be seen as individuals, not extensions

We grew up with entirely different tools.

And our world requires different tools.

You cannot survive in modern workplaces, relationships, friendships, or institutions by “just listening.”

You need to ask.

You need to advocate.

You need to understand your emotions.

You need to push back gently.

You need to unlearn fear-based conditioning.

You need to think critically.

Obedience does not build psychological resilience.

Emotional intelligence does.

And so we want - and need - something different.

4. The Clash: When Survival Meets Self-Actualisation

Here is the heart of the generational conflict:

Our parents’ survival strategies collide with our survival strategies.

For them, questioning meant danger.

For us, not questioning means danger.

For them, obedience kept the family functioning.

For us, obedience disconnects us from ourselves.

For them, silence was safety.

For us, silence is self-abandonment.

For them, individual needs were luxury items.

For us, individual needs are the foundation of mental health.

Neither is wrong for their generation.

But they are incompatible when placed in the same room without context.

When they say,

“In our day, we just listened,”

what they often mean is:

“Why is the world so different now, and why are my skills not enough for this new world?”

And when we say,

“Why can’t you just listen to us?”

we mean:

“Why do I have to shrink just to be loved?”

This isn’t a values conflict.

It’s an era conflict.

5. What We Can Actually Do About It

We’re not going to change our parents’ childhoods.

We’re not going to replace obedience with therapy language overnight.

And we’re certainly not going to win by arguing.

What we can do is learn how to translate between generations.

Here are trauma-informed, culturally-safe ways to navigate the gap:

A. Use contextual empathy, not emotional invalidation

Instead of saying:

• “Why are you like this?”

• “You never listen.”

• “Stop comparing everything to the past.”

Try:

• “I know you grew up differently.”

• “I want to understand where you’re coming from.”

• “Your experiences matter, and mine do too.”

You’re not agreeing.

You’re creating space.

B. Acknowledge the survival they came from

A simple “I know you had to do what you did in your time” works magic.

It reassures them you’re not disrespecting their hardship.

C. Explain why things have changed

They often don’t realise that:

• the world is psychologically different

• mental health is not a luxury

• more autonomy is required in modern systems

• questioning is part of healthy development

Use examples from work, study, relationships, or general life to show the practical need for modern emotional skills.

D. Frame boundaries as protection, not rebellion

Saying:

“I’m setting this boundary because I love this relationship and want it to last.”

works much better than:

“Stop doing this.”

“You’re toxic.”

“I’m not putting up with this.”

Make the boundary about longevity, not control.

E. Learn to break the cycle gently, not with guilt

You are allowed to:

• say no

• speak up

• name your needs

• prioritise mental health

• refuse to inherit generational silence

• choose curiosity over fear

You do not have to become the “good child” to deserve love.

F. Redefine respect

Respect doesn’t mean erasing yourself.

Respect means:

• speaking kindly

• listening without collapsing

• staying grounded

• honouring your parents’ dignity without sacrificing your own

Mutual respect is possible - but only if it includes you, too.

G. Seek community support

Healing doesn’t happen in isolation.

Talk to:

• cousins

• therapy

• friends

• diaspora spaces

• cultural healing groups

• intergenerational storytelling spaces

We make sense of our childhoods together.

6. A New Way Forward: Courage, Not Compliance

No generation is wrong here.

Each is shaped by the world they were handed.

Our parents weren’t raised to understand boundaries, mental health, emotional nuance, or negotiation - and that’s not a moral failing.

It’s a historical context.

We, on the other hand, weren’t raised to survive war, poverty, instability, or authoritarian social structures - and that’s not a moral failing either.

It’s a different context.

So when your parents say,

“We just listened,”

you can lovingly hold both truths:

They listened because they had to.

We speak up because we have to.

Both are forms of love.

Both are forms of protection.

Both are forms of survival - just in different worlds.

Our task isn’t to choose between obedience and rebellion.

It’s to build a bridge strong enough for both generations to walk across together.

A bridge that looks like:

• empathy

• boundaries

• cultural pride

• emotional growth

• healing

• unlearning

• listening

• dialogue

• love

Not the love that demands silence, but the love that makes room for voices - of the past, the present, and the future.

And maybe that’s the real gift of being the in-between generation:

We are the first to question not out of disrespect, but out of hope.

We are the first to choose healing over hierarchy.

We are the first to believe that family can mean connection, not compliance.

And hopefully, one day, when our own kids ask us why we raised them differently, we’ll say:

“Because we finally understood that love grows best when everyone gets to speak.”