Angry Daughter Lied To Therapist And Mischaracterized Family

Parent Cafe
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I can’t tell if these two threads (the other one about direction) are the result of some cultural values, or are somehow intended to whip up prejudice about those same values.

If the posts are real, this one in particular is disturbing. Many young people seek therapy for a variety of reasons. Many young people have trouble going home after a period away, where they begin to carve out a separate identity.

Many of us parents are trying to make our returning kids maintain autonomy and whatever happiness they can salvage in this difficult situation. It is a tricky dance.

To the OP please get some help with it and learn to love your daughter, who seems vulnerable right now, and for good reason. We all are.

I hate to say it but the anger and disdain in your posts would seem to support some of what your daughter is feeling.

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To give the benefit of the doubt to the OP, and since she is new, this is for you, mom who started this thread and posted your questions and family situation above:

The way that CC works is that you post a question and people will give responses. We get enough people who come here just fishing for attention or the opportunity to be posting “not real” stuff that we will be a bit suspicious of anyone who posts and does not respond to anything in the thread. You’ve got to have the back and forth exchange to develop trust around here! You are a new poster with only two threads and pretty intense topics. If you’re “real” please post something about comments you’ve already received.

We are happy to help! We are less happy to think we are potentially being duped. :slight_smile:

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Of everything you said this is the thing that stood out the most to me. You mentioned he “crossed the line physically” which to me a big red flag. Regardless of cultural differences and feelings about corporal punishment, “crossing the line” suggests to me that what happened those “few times” went beyond normal corporal punishment. And his apologies don’t erase what happened or make your daughter potentially any less scared of him.

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As a person of Korean heritage, I find your post quite disturbing in several ways. I don’t know what part of Korea you came from, but the majority of Koreans do not practice nor accept corporal punishment as “normal.” What’s even egregiously NOT normal for Koreans is the practice of criticizing – more like attacking in this case – one’s own family members for the whole wide general public to see. In fact, if you are indeed a Korean, then you should most certainly know the well-known Korean saying, “don’t spit lying down” (누워서 침 뱉기), because the spit will land on your own face. The issues you’re bringing to this forum is YOUR personal issues and most certainly not a part of Korean culture or practice that you so irresponsibly painted with a big brush.

From reading this post and your other post, I’m quite alarmed for the safety of your daughter. Do you realize that your husband can be “emotionally abusive” to your daughter WITHOUT even trying? It DOESN’T matter that he’s stopped beating her three years ago or 10 years ago. Abuse takes on million different forms, even from a mere glance, words, expressions, to physicality and violence. I’d add to this list of abuse: controlling. So, I wouldn’t rule yourself out, either, if your posts are of any indications.

Your daughter apparently had already established seeing a therapist while in college away from home. She was just starting the college as a freshman and had already sought out help. Kudos to her. Coronavirus couldn’t have happened at the worst time in her life, as she’s now forced to return to live in a household that reminds her – and re-live – of emotional abuses. She didn’t lie. You and your husband are clueless.

For you and especially for your daughter’s sake, might I recommend the following book that is so befitting your situation. In fact, the book is written by two Korean-American sisters: Dr. Soo Kim Abboud is a surgeon and a clinical assistant professor at Penn. Her sister, Jane Kim, is an attorney and an immigration specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, at the time of the book publication. The book is entitled, “Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers – and How You Can Too.” I’m not a fan of the book title, and I’m certainly not recommending this book so you can continue to try to make something big and high achieving thing for you and your husband to be proud of. I’m recommending this book because it’s full of cases of once high achieving Asian students in high school and college that went bad and often tragic. The title in this sense is highly misleading. It should be more like, “Cautionary Tales of… for Asian Parents.”

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Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments. I went to sleep so I couldn’t immediately respond to all of them. I’m going to address a few concerns that many of you have said:

  1. How do you know the extent of your husband’s abuse?

Before this whole incident, I’ve confirmed to my daughter and my husband that he hasn’t touched her outside of the times I’ve seen. And there was no sexual abuse either, as my daughter has confirmed. The few times he crossed the line was when I think he was hitting her for too long (only happened two or three times) and as a result he started to attack me too. This hasn’t happened in three years and only happened a really small number of times. Also, my husband has never hit me or even gotten angry when DD is not at home. In the months she was at college, our household was the most peaceful it has ever been. That shows how DD, not my husband, is the issue here!

  1. Why don’t you think he’s abusive?

In addition to Korean culture, abusive parents hit their kids for no reason. The few times my husband has hit my daughter, it was because she was being incredibly rude to us. She deserved it. Abusive parents hit their kids for no reason, but my husband had every reason to hit my daughter.

  1. You should accept the fact that your daughter is culturally American.

Ah, the racist assimilationists are at it again! American culture is to pillage and plunder the rest of the world and imperialize my home country. American culture and its individualism is the reason why this country has downward social mobility, the reason why the government has handled Coronavirus so badly, and the reason why there was a genocide against the indigenous population. We want no part of your culture, and at the very least, you should respect that immigrant groups want to preserve their own heritage across generations.

  1. You should go to family therapy.

I should’ve mentioned this in my original post, but three years ago my daughter told her high school guidance counselor that my husband abused her. As a result, CPS came to our house and did an “investigation” which was really just 30 minutes of questioning. The social worker confirmed that my daughter had no physical scars from my husband, so there was NO long-term physical damage. Keep in mind that the social worker was white himself. At the end, the only thing he told us was that he suggested family therapy (only because he was legally required to do so).

We looked into the suggestion and saw that there are no therapists in our area that follow our beliefs (Korean and Christian) and our health insurance doesn’t even cover therapy. At this point, we decided that therapy wasn’t even necessary. Most Korean American kids are raised just like my daughter and they have no problem, so why should we do anything?

  1. Don’t you want a positive relationship with your daughter in the future?

American parents are so afraid that their kids will “threaten them” with the “scary” prospect of not frequently contacting their parents. The whole notion itself is ridiculous— why should I live in fear of my own daughter? It’s so absurd to me that Americans treat their kids like customers at a restaurant, this being only one of many examples.

  1. Why would you, as a Korean, air your frustrations out in public?

Well, this is an anonymous forum so no one would know it was me…

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MODERATOR’S NOTE: The moderating team agrees that the OP and her family need more help than strangers on the internet can give her. @iowaboy3 if you’ve been honest with us, you need to get professional assistance immediately. Good luck to you!