Daughters of Immigrants and Our 20-Somethings

The Dichotomy of Maturity and Adolescence

For the past couple of months, I’ve been inundated with the twenty-something-year-old “teenager” phenomenon on TikTok. 

A concept that ruminates on the time- our early twenties- when we shed our adolescence for the big and bold Hollywood-esque, ADULTHOOD.

The videos about the topic discuss preemptively feeling failure upon entering this new stage of life, especially after graduation, often discussing job rejections, adult friendships/loneliness, living with parents to save money, feeling like a time jump has occurred due to COVID-19, and finding yourself regressing to a melancholic state that college freed you from.

While this phenomenon and feeling of inadequacy when aging- as if we’re all cosplaying what adults should do- isn’t particularly new, it makes sense that an influx of this content is being produced. 

According to Fast Company, “Housing prices have increased 118% since 1965, while incomes have only increased 15%.” 

According to Bloomberg, “About 36% of older Gen Z-ers -- those aged 20 to 25 -- have student loan debt,” the average balance being $20,900. This news being reported before the Supreme Court, recently, ruled against alleviating $10,000 for borrowers. 

Rising wealth disparities, cost of living and ecological crises, and missing major milestones because of COVID are all things that make the propagandist “freeing” nature of adulthood and your twenties more so feel like the instability and restrictiveness of being a teenager- making this experience, although not new, specific to Gen Z.

But, I often hold my breath when people claim that this experience, especially when discussing feeling hindered only after COVID, is an all-encompassing one. 

The feeling of juggling childhood woes and maturity, and having it worsened by COVID and economic instability is felt ten-fold by marginalized communities (USA Today reports that undocumented women are one of the lowest paid groups in the United States), particularly amplified for the young adults who live in conservative-leaning, low-income, immigrant households- specifically if they were raised as daughters.

The “twenty-something-year-old teenager,” is often a phrase used by women, frequently cited as “twenty-[something]-year-old teenage girl.”

I’ve seen commentary about how using this term could be misogynistic, claiming that it’s odd for women to infantilize themselves. But, I don’t think I necessarily agree, I think the phrase does a great job of capturing how a lot of women feel regarding aging. As most of the women using this term are engaging in ironic humor, poking fun at the societal infantilization of womanhood, and nodding at the misogynistic notion that women don’t have “real” responsibilities, such as jobs, because they’re perceived to be “childlike” and “incompetent.”

This is where my friends and I, who experience misogyny in an immigrant household, both start and stop relating to the consensus of the term. A lot of women conveyed this phenomenon as a new feeling upon entering adulthood while navigating economic insecurity and more responsibilities, which is a daunting experience. Where my friends and I kind of stray off, was that, to us, this experience and feeling has always been pervasive throughout our lives, more so just amplified when becoming adults and entering the workforce.

Although, regardless of gender, many children of immigrant parents experience this to a certain extent, I specifically highlight daughters, or those who were raised as such, because of the gendered roles that are pervasive throughout society, that are often upheld by parents- making them lean, whether intentional or not, on their daughters more. Especially when it's often insinuated that the only time we’ll be perceived as self-actualized, by our parents, is when marriage to a man is attached.

For the most part, my friends and I have always had to be mature and take on adult responsibilities to help our parents navigate a country that is hostile towards immigrants, non-English speakers, and cultural differences. 

This creates a strange paradox for many first/ second generation adult daughters who’ve had to mature quickly, in their adolescence, while also exhibiting what could be perceived as “immaturity” and emotional restrictions in relationships (platonic or romantic) because we didn’t experience certain aspects of childhood. What also intensifies this emotional stagnation is when cultural differences butt heads. Living in a country where societal norms about adulthood differ from your parents’ norms can be convoluted. For example, in the U.S. it is common for an adult to not have to ask their parent’s permission to go out, but (using my parent’s ethnicity as an example) in a Haitian household it very much is uncommon- especially if you’re living with said parent- and may even be treated as a sign of disrespect. 

I can’t begin to convey how perplexing it feels to be asked when I’m getting married or having children, while having a curfew.

I find where my friends and my frustrations lay, is not the fact that our parents have differing norms, but rather when it’s weaponized or no common ground can be made- especially when hypocrisy can be detected in how our brothers and different family members who are men are treated. 

I do want to make it clear that I am not saying nor endorsing the xenophobic, white supremacist, and colonialist notion that parents who immigrate to the U.S. are inherently abusive and exploitative towards their children (though some of us, as similar to children in the States, and across the globe, may have experienced abuse).

When writing about the nuances of the “twenty-something-year-old teenage girl” phenomenon I also can’t help but use it as an analytical lens, not just on my life, but my mother’s. 

She is a Haitian woman who had her first child around 23 years old (the age I’m turning in a couple of days) after immigrating to the U.S. at age 21. And while sadly she is abusive, I can’t help but- sometimes- imagine her in her youth juggling life as a victim of patriarchal lies about submissiveness, womanhood, and motherhood that was enforced upon her through European religious propaganda. She was restricted from experiencing youth in totality, just as I.