Consolation: “I’m already typecast by my family”
Consider others:
Strangers aside, you feel as if your role with your family and friends has already been typecast, and it is beyond you to go against their expectations. (Family)
Un-Consider others:
It may also be the case that, by being so closely affiliated with your family[1], you feel that you must stay loyal to family expectations, and (a) get a generic stable job, (b) get married to that parent-approved someone, (c) and have how many children/sons that your cultural convention advocates; without ever standing out in any way not explicitly condoned by your cultural/family conventions, or rocking the Family Name boat. In short, your actions and decisions directly reflect upon your family, and you’re not at all free to live your own life.
The issue here is largely similar to that of Point 6, regarding parents: Chances are that, up until this point, you have been strongly dependent upon your family for resources, and that your family has reciprocally seen and treated you as nothing more than a dependent[2]. This support can be both physical and mental, meaning that – apart from stuff like pocket money, free food, and a roof over your head – your identity is also strongly borrowed from your family[3].
Thus, part of the solution here is similar to that of Point 6: Expand your boundaries[4], to the point where your family ceases to view and treat you as a boy, and start to interact with you as a man that is self-efficacious, and autonomous in thought and desires. In his program Power Masculinity, David DeAngelo notes that “The boy must die”, indicating that the natural development of males must take place: The fragility, naivety, and restrictedness of the boy must give way to the resilience, worldly maturity, and physical and mental liberty of the man. As a man, you discover the burden of responsibility (through the accountability of your actions and abilities), but also the opposite and bright side, that is your right to strive unapologetically towards fulfilling your purpose and desires.
Of course, the above solution only makes your family see you as a possibly autonomous person instead of a faceless pawn of the family army, and does not fully resolve the pressures of family expectations[5]. At this point for ppl in non-laissez faire families, there are only two options: Stop giving a shit about family expectations, and go away to take on the big bad world by yourself; or start negotiating passes towards fulfilling your wants and needs. The first option is likely to burn the bridge down (going against the family) and dirty-bomb it simultaneously (shaming the family name), such that future reconciliation may be prove unnecessarily difficult, and you also lose the most reliable social support network for the rest of your life[6]. In contrast, the second option is more likely to end in win/win:
a) Your family may turn out more understanding than you expected.
b) Even if your family is not that immediately yielding, by virtue of your disclosure and investment[7] in your wants and needs, your family may slowly concede “That’s just who he is”, and become more tolerant of your “antics”.
c) Meanwhile, you up your social/negotiation skills
If you consider Point B above, you may conclude that, even if your family deep down is ok with your goals[8], they may not be in a position to explicitly condone your behaviour[9]. This means that you should be forwarding your goals even while negotiating: The rules and expectations set by your family are largely passive[10], and that passiveness cannot be countered by passiveness, but action[11] – act and expect acceptance[12], don’t wait and ask for permission.
[[12]]Maybe negotiating with your family feels like asking for permission – and that was the initial intention (using the magic word and asking nicely to bypass opposition completely). However, since your family still won’t budge, the negotiation now serves two purposes: To continue to chip away at your family’s stubbornness; and – more practically – for show: It represents to outsiders that you’re not the bad son who doesn’t give a toss about his family, and that you’re still willing to negotiate reasonably.
It’s quite amusing that, as you press on with your agendas during negotiations, you might be indirectly helping the negotiation process along: You pressing along means that your family is in no position to stop you; and this, coupled with the appearance of your willingness to negotiate, puts the family in quite a pickle. Thus, in order not to lose face (from their lack of authority to control their son), the family needs to portray to outsiders that they actually are beginning to support your cause.
This is a lot of tasty arm-chair theorising, but it is all based on your autonomy and self-efficacy: If you can’t become at least financially self-sufficient by the time you start to forward you goals, expect to be easily blackmailed out of your quest by losing your pocket-money or parental housing.[[12]]
FOOTNOTES
1. Such as by living at home, or in more-than-necessary contact with your family (e.g. Calling your parents every 1 or 2 days even if not living at home). My personal family-centred tendencies (whether I like it or not) is greatly exacerbated by (a) being asian (mostly of collectivistic cultures which prioritise family relations), (b) being a son, (c) being the eldest sibling and only son of my parents, and (d) my dad being the only son of my grandparents (meaning that I’m the only legitimate heir to my family’s name). Even though my parents aren’t the total hard-line authoritative types, I have always felt a salient sense of family pressure weighing down on myself.↑
2. E.g. “Mommy’s boy”, “that good kid”, and worse – whatever your juvenile family nickname is.↑
3. Whether or not by choice: You may have known yourself as “one of the kids in the family”, with your lack of social experience preventing the development of higher-level identities such as “reliable friend”, “guy with social smarts and can handle self in the night-life”, or “man who’s flexible yet in control, and can take care of women in all categories of his life”.↑
4. In all aspects: Get a job, hang out more with friends, arrange to travel interstate or overseas without your parents (or even sadder, your guardian/chaperone), discover hobbies and favourite food and venues, learn to take care of various problems by yourself, etc.↑
5. Hence the saying “Blood is thicker than water”: The flip-side of your parents’ biological imperative to look after you, is you the offspring’s imperative to live up to family and cultural expectations.↑
6. Not to mention that, even when you’re rich and famous, your family issues will continue to haunt for satisfaction; and you will note one less crowd to – more or less genuinely – celebrate your successes and progresses.↑
7. It takes effort and motivation to negotiate stuff.↑
8. You know how most parents (in this case, probably especially yours) are always trying to level-up their children to compensate for the success they’ve never milked out of life? Similarly, your oldies or grand-oldies may be secretly rooting for your self-centred ends, and projecting their inner rebelliousness (unfulfilled through strict adherence to family values) through you.↑
9. Because, since your goals are not conventionally accepted by your family or culture, condoning your agendas would inevitably threaten family cohesion and tradition.↑
10. In that they are reactive – without power or action until they are transgressed upon. To clarify, think about passive-aggressiveness: The person doesn’t tell you what to do, or how to do whatever it is you don’t know to do, but readily indulges in reprimanding you when you do something wrong.↑
11. It is around this point that I realised that the family members charged with enforcing expectations are, in fact, a lot like women: Both parties have social status and standards to uphold, and are not allowed to condone your transgressive behaviours even if it benefits them in some way. Both exercise the balance between unspoken-“unbreakable”-norms and plausible deniability nicely, and the only way to get your way is the boil the frog slowly: Gradual but consistent escalation/transgressions, and as long as they don’t completely shut you down – to keep on truckin’.↑
12. Maybe negotiating with your family feels like asking for permission – and that was the initial intention (using the magic word and asking nicely to bypass opposition completely). However, since your family still won’t budge, the negotiation now serves two purposes: To continue to chip away at your family’s stubbornness; and – more practically – for show: It represents to outsiders that you’re not the bad son who doesn’t give a toss about his family, and that you’re still willing to negotiate reasonably.
It’s quite amusing that, as you press on with your agendas during negotiations, you might be indirectly helping the negotiation process along: You pressing along means that your family is in no position to stop you; and this, coupled with the appearance of your willingness to negotiate, puts the family in quite a pickle. Thus, in order not to lose face (from their lack of authority to control their son), the family needs to portray to outsiders that they actually are beginning to support your cause.
This is a lot of tasty arm-chair theorising, but it is all based on your autonomy and self-efficacy: If you can’t become at least financially self-sufficient by the time you start to forward you goals, expect to be easily blackmailed out of your quest by losing your pocket-money or parental housing.↑
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