11 ms·

My Father, in Four Visits Over Thirty Years

223 points by lermontov 9y ago

minipci1321 9y ago
To all emigrants who left close family behind...
MrZongle2 9y ago
The author sounds like a real hoot at parties.
- mnglkhn2 9y ago
  I feel sadder for the girl than for the father. She comes across as quite self-absorbed, where even a child is a distraction, close to an imposition.
- roymurdock 9y ago
  It's funny, I read the piece because of your comment, wanting to see what you meant. The tension between the way she acts and the way her father acts is fascinating, grotesque, and kind of beautiful. For me, the story would be really boring if not for that central dynamic of discomfort you picked up on, which is ostensibly caused in part by her father's absence from her life, but not stated in such direct terms. Seems like the author has come to terms with her neuroses, and that she can now write about them frankly and candidly. I'd love to talk with the author at a party.
- sctb 9y ago
  Could you please not post unsubstantively like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
VA3FXP 9y ago
This was a touching story. Thank-you for sharing it.
bussierem 9y ago
Reading this, I wasn't quite clear what the intent of the story was. Usually these have some kind of moral to them, or a lesson learned, or something. The author came across as an extremely uptight and unapologetic jerk, who "quietly tolerated" all 4 of her lifetime visits with the man who stayed behind to make it easier for them to escape. Every time he came to visit, he seemed to be the "fun uncle" personality - Loud and boisterous, but always having fun and chatting up people. He seemed to have a few problems, for sure, but overall by the end I felt really bad for the father and rather upset at the abysmal treatment the author gave him. If I was supposed to sympathize with the author, they failed pretty spectacularly.
- mnglkhn2 9y ago
  She got older and realized that there is more to life than career and material status. Edit: she also does not seem to realise that her father's behavior might have been determined by the sacrifice he made, staying behind and having his family ripped apart.
  - bussierem 9y ago
    I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what part of my comment this was in response to... I definitely empathize with the father, he seemed to have things figured out for himself, and by the end seemed to just kind of "give up" trying to please the author, preferring to spend his time with people who were less uptight.
    - octalmage 9y ago
      I think they were responding to your first statement.
      - bussierem 9y ago
        That makes sense. My mistake!
- roymurdock 9y ago
Jpoechill 9y ago
Had to read the entire article to get the full picture. Started off unsure, though finally drove the point home by the end. Enlightening story; much appreciated–
emilsedgh 9y ago
As an Iranian with a torn apart family (me in Europe, mom and brother in the U.S. and my father back in Iran) this was a spectacular read. Almost brought tears to my eyes. The situation is not exactly the same for us. We'd like to reunite as soon as we can (but the immigration situation in the world has become an issue and we don't know how its going to happen). But what I relate to is my connection with my father. I love him. He loves me immeasurably. But I cannot make the right connection with him and I feel its mostly my fault because he tries and I fail. Both the main story and comments were fantastic. Many thanks to the Author and everyone here.
pschon 9y ago
I suspect the author felt betrayed. She's sent away. She is not 40 years old. Imagine trauma with absence of a father and who knows how the mother might have explained it all. Nothing easier than blame. I'm sure at the first visit she was extremely upset and trying to cope and kept coping to survive. It seems in the end that she might have gained some empathy for her father just at the time he lost it for her.
- mnglkhn2 9y ago
  I think it is the father who sacrificed: Out of a family of four, he is the one that chose to stay behind so that the other three (mother and two children) can get to US. Interesting fact is that we do not hear much at all about the mother.
cletus 9y ago
This is an interesting story but as others have commented, one without a clear point. that's not to say that we can't draw something from it. We can. Or at least I can. Very tangentially I'm reminded of a book called White Teeth (by Zadie Smith) that I found compelling (I was living in England at the time). Some others have commented that the author feels like things like children are an imposition. Superficially, I see why, but I think that misses the point. She hints at this in other parts. How she comes across to me is I think what must be typical of many first generation immigrants (those first to be born in the country or who emigrated there in childhood). You see stories like this where a family comes to the US from Russia where someone who was a doctor now works as a janitor to give his or her children a better life. I think it must be common to get knocked down several rungs on the social ladder when making this kind of move. But it's a sacrifice many parents make for the sake of their children. Having gone to Princeton and Harvard (as the author and her brother did), they became fairly high achievers, which is to be applauded but is also I think the exception. It must be a huge part of their psyche to remember where you came from, coming to the US with nothing, living as a refugee on virtually nothing and so on. One affect that has on someone, and I think you have to have experienced poverty to some degree to truly appreciate this, is the inescapable fear that all that you've worked for in life might go away, be taken away. Those who aren't first generation immigrants or came from money I think just don't appreciate this lack of security as it's not something they're typically exposed to or have any experience with. I'm not even sure the author realizes it even though it's what I took from the piece. Perhaps the book will explore this (the book is mentioned at the bottom). Perhaps it's an editing snafu with the excerpt.
- Swizec 9y ago
  Oh man this comment is perfect. I often get into arguments with my girlfriend because she says I think about money too much and that money isn't everything. That you should focus on living life and having fun. Money is everything. Without money you can't do any of that living life stuff. But only someone who's experienced not having any can understand that.
  - mars4rp 9y ago
    Thank you for this comment, you shed some light on my relationship!
vowelless 9y ago
I feel bad for the girl for not valuing family enough and I feel amazed by the father not only for the initial sacrifice but also the subsequent seemingly cheerful attempts to stay in touch with his daughter and son who, sadly, seemed to have written him out. I hope my own dad doesn't feel like I don't value his sacrifices endured while getting us to safety decades ago during one of the wars in the middle east. I got him out of the middle east and into Canada a few years ago (bringing parents to the US is hard). So far, fingers crossed, he seems to have resettled.
- rtx 9y ago
  This is something I am always baffled by, is a western or modern thing. The lack of remorse really disturbs me.
  - mmagin 9y ago
    Not everyone shows remorse or guilt in the same way. I think it's best for us to avoid judging people on the basis of what we think they are feeling, because their outward presentation of their feelings may not be what they are actually feeling.
oarla 9y ago
I got the impression that the author is blaming her father's decision to stay behind, as the root of all her issues in life, including who she has become over the course of her life.
pjc50 9y ago
A lot of people seem to be missing the culture shock involved in this.
jimmies 9y ago
As an immigrant, I see the "American pride" a lot, which is not necessarily healthy. That attitude of American doing everything right or better than everyone else is apparent specially first generation immigrants who are still riding the high horses, like the author in her early days. Only when I had the first bitter taste of having the first series of failures did I bother to find out that not everything that I think is right is right, and there is not one true highway. People have different ways of living a life. Thinking everyone who doesn't live or think the style that I do is worse than me (especially the people and family back in the home country), is the one thing that will lead me to my ultimate demise. It got me to the utmost lonely, singled out, outcast feeling that I have ever experienced, despite how many likes and support I get on social networks because of my popular idea.
skeaton 9y ago
The read was a great journey. It felt very honest but in that honesty I did not get the impression that there were good guys or bad guys in this story, and am a little taken aback by the strong comments to the contrary here.
msteffen 9y ago
I don't understand the negative reactions to this. Emigrating to a new country is hard, being a teenager is hard. She was frustrated with her new culture for not accepting her and with her old culture for putting her in an impossible position and making her an alien in the first place. I felt like this was an honest account of what it feels like to be a refugee. Maybe she could've done more for her Dad by moving him, but as she seemed (to me) to say, he didn't really want that.
- mnglkhn2 9y ago
  Maybe the mother did not help keep the image of their father in perspective. It would be great to know how mother coped.
gknight 9y ago
This one hit very close to home. I too was born in Iran. My family too emigrated to the United States with my father staying behind. Our family too grew up poor in the United States and managed to work very, very hard collectively and individually to realize common measures of success in this country. I want to address an aspect of this piece that seems to be a bit controversial in these comments. Many seem to be sympathetic to the father and feel that the daughter is unappreciative and uptight. I completely understand where she's coming from here from my own experience. One very vivid memory I have as a child was my brother, a teenager at the time, yelling at someone on the phone like I had never seen someone yell before in my short life. He then slammed the phone down and ran into the bathroom crying – one of two times I've ever seen him cry to this day. Only a couple years ago I shared this memory with him, asking him who the hell was on the other side of that phone call to generate that sort of reaction from him. It was our father. He called to see how everything was going. He was being cheery and asking how everything was going. Things weren't going well, and he had thrust a teenager who lived a very comfortable life back in Iran a couple years earlier straight into the role of "man of the house." We were poor, my brother was bullied endlessly, and my mom had become depressed. When you've been abandoned by a father, you don't have the patience for the "fun uncle." The abandoner wasn't there for the hard times – the bankruptcy, the eviction, the teasing, the depression, the canned food your classmates would donate that ended up on your table, the toys they would donate that would end up under your Christmas tree. The abandonment is a burden that follows you throughout life. It manifests itself in the form of insecurity, anxiety, and/or a shitty attitude. Sorry if that's too deep for HN, but this struck a chord with me. Dug up a part of me that I bury way deep down.
- CognacBastard 9y ago
  My parents were born in Iran, and the culture is very family-centric. Much more than European cultures.
  - snakeanus 9y ago
    > Much more than European cultures. Including eastern european and Balkanian cultures? If so, I would be interested on the reasoning behind your claim.
andrewem 9y ago
I just (re)read a book which deals with a lot of similar themes. It's a collection of letters to a Yiddish-language newspaper advice column which started in 1906. Many of the letters are about immigration, including conflict between generations who are divided by their experience of immigration, both in families where everyone came to the US and in families where some stayed behind in the old country. Although the immigrants come from a different culture and a different time than in this essay, they share many themes (keeping the old language, being ashamed of parents who seem too attached to the old world, fitting in, etc). https://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish-Forward/dp/0805209808 https://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish-Forward/d...
dman 9y ago
Found this poignant. I made the decision to immigrate from India to the US in my early twenties. At the time I looked at the decision merely as a change of address. Thirteen years later I am still struck by how much of a profound change a "mere change in scenery" can have on basic issues of identity.
jackvalentine 9y ago
I'd like to voice my appreciation for the discussion here. I've read The New Yorker (and similarly targeted magazines like The Paris Review, etc) since I opened one up to kill some time in the university library, freshman year. Though I've never found a place to discuss them with people like myself - I'm not a literary kind of person though you pick up things here and there. I identify much closer with the HN crowd. While some of your comments make me roll my eyes for how to me it appears you missed the point, some are genuinely enlightening and even those I don't "like" have been valuable. So thanks all, for talking about this article. It was interesting.
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
I wonder if they would have been better off (happier) remaining in Iran and being together. The children basically lost their dad in order to live in the USA. I'm not sure that's worth it.

223 points by lermontov 9y ago

minipci1321 9y ago

To all emigrants who left close family behind...

MrZongle2 9y ago

The author sounds like a real hoot at parties.

mnglkhn2 9y ago
I feel sadder for the girl than for the father. She comes across as quite self-absorbed, where even a child is a distraction, close to an imposition.
roymurdock 9y ago
It's funny, I read the piece because of your comment, wanting to see what you meant. The tension between the way she acts and the way her father acts is fascinating, grotesque, and kind of beautiful. For me, the story would be really boring if not for that central dynamic of discomfort you picked up on, which is ostensibly caused in part by her father's absence from her life, but not stated in such direct terms. Seems like the author has come to terms with her neuroses, and that she can now write about them frankly and candidly. I'd love to talk with the author at a party.
sctb 9y ago
Could you please not post unsubstantively like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

VA3FXP 9y ago

This was a touching story. Thank-you for sharing it.

bussierem 9y ago

Reading this, I wasn't quite clear what the intent of the story was. Usually these have some kind of moral to them, or a lesson learned, or something. The author came across as an extremely uptight and unapologetic jerk, who "quietly tolerated" all 4 of her lifetime visits with the man who stayed behind to make it easier for them to escape. Every time he came to visit, he seemed to be the "fun uncle" personality - Loud and boisterous, but always having fun and chatting up people. He seemed to have a few problems, for sure, but overall by the end I felt really bad for the father and rather upset at the abysmal treatment the author gave him. If I was supposed to sympathize with the author, they failed pretty spectacularly.

mnglkhn2 9y ago
She got older and realized that there is more to life than career and material status. Edit: she also does not seem to realise that her father's behavior might have been determined by the sacrifice he made, staying behind and having his family ripped apart.
- bussierem 9y ago
  I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what part of my comment this was in response to... I definitely empathize with the father, he seemed to have things figured out for himself, and by the end seemed to just kind of "give up" trying to please the author, preferring to spend his time with people who were less uptight.
  - octalmage 9y ago
    I think they were responding to your first statement.
    - bussierem 9y ago
      That makes sense. My mistake!
roymurdock 9y ago

Jpoechill 9y ago

Had to read the entire article to get the full picture. Started off unsure, though finally drove the point home by the end. Enlightening story; much appreciated–

emilsedgh 9y ago

As an Iranian with a torn apart family (me in Europe, mom and brother in the U.S. and my father back in Iran) this was a spectacular read. Almost brought tears to my eyes. The situation is not exactly the same for us. We'd like to reunite as soon as we can (but the immigration situation in the world has become an issue and we don't know how its going to happen). But what I relate to is my connection with my father. I love him. He loves me immeasurably. But I cannot make the right connection with him and I feel its mostly my fault because he tries and I fail. Both the main story and comments were fantastic. Many thanks to the Author and everyone here.

pschon 9y ago

I suspect the author felt betrayed. She's sent away. She is not 40 years old. Imagine trauma with absence of a father and who knows how the mother might have explained it all. Nothing easier than blame. I'm sure at the first visit she was extremely upset and trying to cope and kept coping to survive. It seems in the end that she might have gained some empathy for her father just at the time he lost it for her.

mnglkhn2 9y ago
I think it is the father who sacrificed: Out of a family of four, he is the one that chose to stay behind so that the other three (mother and two children) can get to US. Interesting fact is that we do not hear much at all about the mother.

cletus 9y ago

This is an interesting story but as others have commented, one without a clear point. that's not to say that we can't draw something from it. We can. Or at least I can. Very tangentially I'm reminded of a book called White Teeth (by Zadie Smith) that I found compelling (I was living in England at the time). Some others have commented that the author feels like things like children are an imposition. Superficially, I see why, but I think that misses the point. She hints at this in other parts. How she comes across to me is I think what must be typical of many first generation immigrants (those first to be born in the country or who emigrated there in childhood). You see stories like this where a family comes to the US from Russia where someone who was a doctor now works as a janitor to give his or her children a better life. I think it must be common to get knocked down several rungs on the social ladder when making this kind of move. But it's a sacrifice many parents make for the sake of their children. Having gone to Princeton and Harvard (as the author and her brother did), they became fairly high achievers, which is to be applauded but is also I think the exception. It must be a huge part of their psyche to remember where you came from, coming to the US with nothing, living as a refugee on virtually nothing and so on. One affect that has on someone, and I think you have to have experienced poverty to some degree to truly appreciate this, is the inescapable fear that all that you've worked for in life might go away, be taken away. Those who aren't first generation immigrants or came from money I think just don't appreciate this lack of security as it's not something they're typically exposed to or have any experience with. I'm not even sure the author realizes it even though it's what I took from the piece. Perhaps the book will explore this (the book is mentioned at the bottom). Perhaps it's an editing snafu with the excerpt.

Swizec 9y ago
Oh man this comment is perfect. I often get into arguments with my girlfriend because she says I think about money too much and that money isn't everything. That you should focus on living life and having fun. Money is everything. Without money you can't do any of that living life stuff. But only someone who's experienced not having any can understand that.
- mars4rp 9y ago
  Thank you for this comment, you shed some light on my relationship!

vowelless 9y ago

I feel bad for the girl for not valuing family enough and I feel amazed by the father not only for the initial sacrifice but also the subsequent seemingly cheerful attempts to stay in touch with his daughter and son who, sadly, seemed to have written him out. I hope my own dad doesn't feel like I don't value his sacrifices endured while getting us to safety decades ago during one of the wars in the middle east. I got him out of the middle east and into Canada a few years ago (bringing parents to the US is hard). So far, fingers crossed, he seems to have resettled.

rtx 9y ago
This is something I am always baffled by, is a western or modern thing. The lack of remorse really disturbs me.
- mmagin 9y ago
  Not everyone shows remorse or guilt in the same way. I think it's best for us to avoid judging people on the basis of what we think they are feeling, because their outward presentation of their feelings may not be what they are actually feeling.

oarla 9y ago

I got the impression that the author is blaming her father's decision to stay behind, as the root of all her issues in life, including who she has become over the course of her life.

pjc50 9y ago

A lot of people seem to be missing the culture shock involved in this.

jimmies 9y ago

As an immigrant, I see the "American pride" a lot, which is not necessarily healthy. That attitude of American doing everything right or better than everyone else is apparent specially first generation immigrants who are still riding the high horses, like the author in her early days. Only when I had the first bitter taste of having the first series of failures did I bother to find out that not everything that I think is right is right, and there is not one true highway. People have different ways of living a life. Thinking everyone who doesn't live or think the style that I do is worse than me (especially the people and family back in the home country), is the one thing that will lead me to my ultimate demise. It got me to the utmost lonely, singled out, outcast feeling that I have ever experienced, despite how many likes and support I get on social networks because of my popular idea.

skeaton 9y ago

The read was a great journey. It felt very honest but in that honesty I did not get the impression that there were good guys or bad guys in this story, and am a little taken aback by the strong comments to the contrary here.

msteffen 9y ago

I don't understand the negative reactions to this. Emigrating to a new country is hard, being a teenager is hard. She was frustrated with her new culture for not accepting her and with her old culture for putting her in an impossible position and making her an alien in the first place. I felt like this was an honest account of what it feels like to be a refugee. Maybe she could've done more for her Dad by moving him, but as she seemed (to me) to say, he didn't really want that.

mnglkhn2 9y ago
Maybe the mother did not help keep the image of their father in perspective. It would be great to know how mother coped.

gknight 9y ago

This one hit very close to home. I too was born in Iran. My family too emigrated to the United States with my father staying behind. Our family too grew up poor in the United States and managed to work very, very hard collectively and individually to realize common measures of success in this country. I want to address an aspect of this piece that seems to be a bit controversial in these comments. Many seem to be sympathetic to the father and feel that the daughter is unappreciative and uptight. I completely understand where she's coming from here from my own experience. One very vivid memory I have as a child was my brother, a teenager at the time, yelling at someone on the phone like I had never seen someone yell before in my short life. He then slammed the phone down and ran into the bathroom crying – one of two times I've ever seen him cry to this day. Only a couple years ago I shared this memory with him, asking him who the hell was on the other side of that phone call to generate that sort of reaction from him. It was our father. He called to see how everything was going. He was being cheery and asking how everything was going. Things weren't going well, and he had thrust a teenager who lived a very comfortable life back in Iran a couple years earlier straight into the role of "man of the house." We were poor, my brother was bullied endlessly, and my mom had become depressed. When you've been abandoned by a father, you don't have the patience for the "fun uncle." The abandoner wasn't there for the hard times – the bankruptcy, the eviction, the teasing, the depression, the canned food your classmates would donate that ended up on your table, the toys they would donate that would end up under your Christmas tree. The abandonment is a burden that follows you throughout life. It manifests itself in the form of insecurity, anxiety, and/or a shitty attitude. Sorry if that's too deep for HN, but this struck a chord with me. Dug up a part of me that I bury way deep down.

CognacBastard 9y ago
My parents were born in Iran, and the culture is very family-centric. Much more than European cultures.
- snakeanus 9y ago
  > Much more than European cultures. Including eastern european and Balkanian cultures? If so, I would be interested on the reasoning behind your claim.

andrewem 9y ago

I just (re)read a book which deals with a lot of similar themes. It's a collection of letters to a Yiddish-language newspaper advice column which started in 1906. Many of the letters are about immigration, including conflict between generations who are divided by their experience of immigration, both in families where everyone came to the US and in families where some stayed behind in the old country. Although the immigrants come from a different culture and a different time than in this essay, they share many themes (keeping the old language, being ashamed of parents who seem too attached to the old world, fitting in, etc). https://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish-Forward/dp/0805209808 https://www.amazon.com/Bintel-Brief-Letters-Jewish-Forward/d...

dman 9y ago

Found this poignant. I made the decision to immigrate from India to the US in my early twenties. At the time I looked at the decision merely as a change of address. Thirteen years later I am still struck by how much of a profound change a "mere change in scenery" can have on basic issues of identity.

jackvalentine 9y ago

I'd like to voice my appreciation for the discussion here. I've read The New Yorker (and similarly targeted magazines like The Paris Review, etc) since I opened one up to kill some time in the university library, freshman year. Though I've never found a place to discuss them with people like myself - I'm not a literary kind of person though you pick up things here and there. I identify much closer with the HN crowd. While some of your comments make me roll my eyes for how to me it appears you missed the point, some are genuinely enlightening and even those I don't "like" have been valuable. So thanks all, for talking about this article. It was interesting.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

I wonder if they would have been better off (happier) remaining in Iran and being together. The children basically lost their dad in order to live in the USA. I'm not sure that's worth it.