When your Asian parents are unimpressed with your side hustle
They worked to put food on the table. How can they understand that you can make a living doing this?
The other day, I was picking up my daughter from my parents’ place when I get an email from Medium saying that I made a bit of money last month from writing.
Holy shit! The Medium Writers Program only pays if your stuff is read enough to reach their threshold. So, the better writer you are, the more money you get paid.
I had a moment of self-validation. People want to pay for my writing! I am good enough and people want to read what I want to write. The dream of doing what I love and living off it was slowly (very slowly) coming into fruition. Every dollar in my pocket was a dollar I never thought was possible.
I was incredibly proud of myself. It wasn’t a lot of money but still…I was happy about it.
So when I entered my parents’ house, I wanted to share my joy with them. I was mentally prepared for their unimpressed response, expecting a blank stare of indifference, possibly a nod to confirm they understood…well at least I thought I was.
I whip out my phone and show my mom the numbers.
