Youwearmany hats.
One might be Airport Navigator, towing your family through the holiday crowds with everyone’s boarding passes in hand, double- and even triple-checking that no one has a secret water bottle in their carry-on before security check. You might also be Homework Completer, pulled in to do your siblings’ final projects at the eleventh hour. Maybe you’re Family Mediator, squashing little beefs and making sure everyone is getting along at big family events. And you were probably also Translator, responsible for connecting your elders ― whose first languages may not have been English ― to the rest of the world.
If the above resonates with you, you’re likely the eldest child of immigrant parents. And you’re definitely entitled to compensation — especially during the holidays.
The sentiment among eldest children is familiar. They feel like they do everything, yet “everything” doesn’t feel like enough. Across different cultures, family structures and genders, firstborns are commiserating on social media about the pressure and stakes they grapple with: parenting both siblings and parents, buffering generational trauma, deescalating family arguments and keeping it together when no one else can.
The holidays only add a slew of new stressors to an already taxing role. While some eldest children are returning home this year with a renewed sense of self — prioritizing their personal well-being and enforcing healthy boundaries — others find themselves back in a familiar rut, whether it’s sorting out awry holiday plans or shouldering the insurmountable task of keeping the holiday spirit alive. “Praying for strength for all the eldest daughters this holiday season, keep strong with your boundaries,” one person on X sympathized.
“Every single individual has different lived experiences that impact the way that individual perceives the world, and it’s important to acknowledge this in every human,” says Adriana Alejandre, a trauma-informed therapist and founder of the mental health hub Latinx Therapy. Alejandre, who is Latine, approaches her clients — often first- and second-generation BIPOC — with anti-racist, decolonized and humanistic sensibilities.
Among her clients, Alejandre has found eldest children to overwhelmingly assume these responsibilities. Holidays are stressful for myriad reasons: stretched finances, increased alcohol consumption and general family dysfunction, among a few. All of this can contribute to a rise in depression, anxiety and even grief, Alejandre says.
Grief may seem like an unexpected emotion when there isn’t a death or loss involved — but the feeling is stark around this time. “The eldest siblings feel a loss of their own childhood around the holidays, and are grieving a family they wish they had, experiences they long for their siblings [or] family, [or] grieving due to living estranged from family,” Alejandre explains.
And if there’s one demographic among the eldest children whose voices sound particularly tired, and who have rallied around each other online, it’s the eldest daughters. They not only must be high-achieving mediators, but are also burdened by societal expectations of girls and women to be nurturing and “natural” caretakers.
In fact, there’s a name for it: “eldest daughter syndrome,” coined by the marriage and family therapist Kati Morton. The overextension of eldest daughters is so widespread, it’s become a well-researched phenomenon. Research from UCLAfound that firstborn daughters tend to mature early and, whether consciously or unconsciously, help their mothers raise younger children. Notably, the researchers didn’t find this to be the case among eldest sons or non-firstborn daughters.
These complex emotions are only compounded for the eldest children of immigrant parents. Among many diasporic immigrant communities — including my own, as a South Asian person in the U.S. — guilt is a manipulation tactic often weaponized, implicitly or explicitly, to reach a desired outcome. There’s a name for that, too: thriver’s guilt. This term, which has been around for a while, captures a shared experience among children of immigrants — which Sahaj Kaur Kohli, a therapist and founder of the mental health community Brown Girl Therapy, explained in a Washington Post column earlier this year.
“When they do follow their own path, second-generation immigrants can feel guilt for, among other things, being what their families may consider to be too individualistic or seeming ungrateful,” Kohli wrote.
This is especially true among communities of color that prioritize the collective over the individual. Kohli and I, for instance, are both South Asian. That heritage comes with a richness — in its people, its celebrations, its intimacy. But it also comes with a pressure to maintain balance and equilibrium, to preserve that richness by whatever means necessary. “What will people think?” is asked rhetorically, a warning that the fabric will be frayed. To compromise the self, and what the self desires, is the only way to ensure preservation.
There’s no one single way to cope with holiday stress. But Alejandre says the first step should be to identify people who support you and your mental health. And of course, finding a therapist, if possible, can also be helpful.
Regularly practicing breath work and taking time away for yourself while you’re at home ― such as going on walks or exercising ― can make it easier for you to reset. “Holidays activate the nervous system and put us in a state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn due to perceiving triggers from spending time with family or finances,” Alejandre says. It’s a time to “increase your physical activities to help your body combat stress.”
As much as familial obligations may draw you away from your priorities, and as much as you might experience guilt for saying “no,” it’s important to set boundaries and prioritize what’s important for you — even if it isn’t important to your family.
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“Oftentimes, families expect the eldest to be available at all times, especially if they do not have children of their own, and careers or personal responsibilities are not seen as important for them,” Alejandre says. “And, even though the eldest may be available, it does not mean you are obligated to give your time.”
Alejandre’s words have stuck with me this holiday season. These next few weeks, I’ll find moments for myself, even if it means having difficult conversations and diverging from what I’ve always done. But I’ll still download everyone’s boarding passes.