By Lydia Sohn
@lydia_sohn

The first time my husband James and I moved in with my parents, I swore to myself that it would be the last. We had just ended our graduate program, and James was off to work on a doctorate in my hometown of Claremont, California while I job searched.  

Though I wasn’t thrilled about the arrangement, it seemed like a sensible stopgap with some upsides for us all: my parents would graciously house us as we got settled financially, and my then-fiancé would get a chance to get closer to the people who raised me. Prior to the move, the sum total of their interactions happened over a few fleeting holiday visits.

The conflicts between James and my parents started as soon as we moved in. During our first week, my mom added the pile of dirty clothes James had left in the laundry room to the load she was doing—she thought she was helping him out. When the laundry was done, James expressed frustration about his bicycle jerseys being put in hot water and then, worse, the dryer, which made them wear out faster. “What did I do wrong?” My mom asked me the next morning with tears in her eyes, just before James came down for breakfast. 

“How could you behave like that to your Korean mother-in-law? Don’t white people know how to conceal their annoyance?” I exploded to James in the privacy of our bedroom later that afternoon. Disputes like that recurred and intensified over time. My parents complained he didn’t in-sah, give a proper greeting to elders, when they entered the room, his eyes transfixed by his iPhone. And he seemed annoyed by their requests for help, his frustration peaking the day my dad asked him to fix a weed trimmer that James had neither used nor knew the workings of. He was ready to bash it against the side of the house after hours of fruitless toil. 

The complaints flew both ways, but never directly to the other party. I was the middleman, the messenger, the mediator. The problem was that I wasn’t calm and objective. I was heavily invested in my parents’ approval of James.

“He’s not used to Korean etiquette!” I would plead with them. “He just needs time.” To my future husband, I would give long rundowns of my parents’ 1950s hierarchical South Korean upbringing, hoping to create some context for the behaviors he found similarly off-putting. 

But nothing seemed to help, even after I was able to pinpoint to James what I thought to be the essential truth behind their conflicts. “The most important thing I need you to know about having Korean parents is that once we become adults, it’s our turn to take care of them. Do you get that?” He nodded as if he did, but it would be years before he fully grasped what I meant.

I grew increasingly weary, as did James, in trying to become the son-in-law my parents expected their eldest daughter to bring home—a new patriarch of sorts who made them feel like they were in good hands as they aged.  

It broke my heart that the people I loved most didn’t love one another. So once we got married, we moved out. And the only way forward I could conceive of at the time was to distance myself from my parents as well. Mundane interactions became halting and brief. I ached to see them when apart but wanted to leave as soon as I arrived at their house.

Discussing the situation, my therapist explained, “You’re differentiating from your family of origin. It’s a healthy developmental process at your age.” Was that what this was? It felt like I was cutting off a limb. 

I did differentiate over the years. Having our own home helped our marriage blossom outside of my parents’ gaze. I was ordained as a minister, James received his doctorate, and we upgraded from a small apartment to a house. We had two children, creating a family identity of our very own. 

Then, last spring, as the COVID-19 pandemic surged throughout the United States, we watched every support network that enabled us to balance our work and parenting responsibilities—schools, playgrounds, play groups, babysitters—get stripped away. We did our best for a few months, swapping Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu passwords with family members, creating endless possibilities for my kids to stay occupied in front of a screen. 

But our exhaustion grew with each passing month. Desperate for community and more support, I broached the idea of quitting my job and doing the one thing I promised we would never, ever do again: move back in with my parents.

We were all reluctant at first, knowing how horribly it went the first time around. Our relationships had finally started healing. We were able to engage with one another as fully grown adults, rather than people who needed one another’s approval or deference. None of us wanted to ruin the good thing we had going. At the same time, my parents could see we were struggling, and it helped that they had just finished adding a kitchenette in a separate section of the house. 

Let’s just try it, we all said. Worse comes to worse, we’ll move out again. We came up with certain guidelines to keep the peace: we won’t disturb my parents after 7 p.m., we won’t ask them to babysit on demand; my parents won’t undermine our parenting, they won’t complain about James to me (they’ll speak to him directly), and we’ll have separate meals except for Sunday dinners. Last, we’ll pay rent.

In many cultures, there’s a belief that three generations living under one roof is especially auspicious because maximum benefit is bestowed upon those in each phase of life. The oldest generation, who are prone to experience more loneliness and isolation, have constant companions and physical assistance. The middle generation, who are at the busiest times of their lives, get brief respites. The youngest generation are inarguably the greatest beneficiaries of this living arrangement. Providing the least amount of labor, they receive the most care with the fortune of two generations’ eyes, hearts, and wisdom set upon them. 

If living with my parents before felt like stumbling around in a new pair of leather shoes, awkward and painful, living with them now feels like dancing in my most comfortable ones. As the pandemic nears its end, or at the very least, a semblance of normalcy is on the horizon, we have neither the intention nor the desire to move out any time soon.

James in-sahs more to my parents, but there are still times he’s preoccupied and forgets. They no longer cringe at this. They’ve witnessed his diligent and conscious effort to change over the years. What’s more, their daughter has found someone she wants to grow old with and perhaps, this was enough, more than enough. It’s also hard to dislike the man who brought into existence their two biggest sources of joy: their grandchildren, with one of them being a miniature replica of James in both personality and appearance.

It’s been over a year since we’ve moved back in with my parents. Outside my bedroom window, I hear my four-year-old son’s voice and footsteps against the gravel as he plays outside with my dad. “Halabogi, but what will the gophers eat if they get hungry?” It’s Sunday and my dad, like usual, has many tasks around the large house: putting up wire netting over the vegetable patch so animals don’t eat the hard-won harvest, cleaning up the chicken coop, fixing a bench. My son assumes the role of my dad’s assistant. He trails behind him, and his helping mostly consists of peering over my dad’s shoulder and making my dad lose focus with his irrepressible curiosity. 

The list of chores that have been piling up over the week summons me but I don’t move. I close my eyes and feel my heart swell as tears stream down my cheeks.

Guest essay written by Lydia Sohn. The Rev. Lydia Sohn is a minister and writer based in Southern California. Follow along on her website.