Parenting Between Cultures: Immigrant Parents and the Weight of Raising “Good” Kids

For many immigrant parents, parenting is more than just raising children — it’s a mission to preserve culture, secure opportunity, and heal generational wounds. Navigating parenthood in a new country can come with immense pressure: to succeed, to assimilate just enough, to raise grateful children who do well here without forgetting where they came from.

This tightrope walk between two cultures often becomes a source of stress, guilt, and tension for immigrant caregivers — especially when mental health needs are involved.

The Weight of Expectations

Immigrant parents often carry both visible and invisible expectations:

To provide a better life than what they had.
To keep cultural values alive while helping their children thrive in a new context.
To parent “perfectly” because sacrifice was made to be here.
To avoid failure, because too much is at stake.

These expectations, though rooted in love, can feel overwhelming. When children struggle with school, mental health, or identity, parents may feel personal shame or self-blame — “What did I do wrong?”

Parenting in a Cultural Tug-of-War

It’s not uncommon for immigrant parents to feel like they’re constantly navigating contradictions:

Authoritative parenting norms vs. Western gentle parenting models.
Academic success as survival vs. emotional development as a priority.
Extended family influence vs. child-led independence.

Children may absorb Canadian cultural values around autonomy, emotion expression, or boundaries, which can clash with parents’ beliefs or upbringing. This often creates misunderstandings or emotional distance, even in loving families.

The Impact on Mental Health

This cultural juggling act can lead to:

Parental burnout, especially when social supports are limited.
Guilt — for being too strict or too lenient, too traditional or too assimilated.
Isolation, especially when friends or family back home don’t understand the context or struggles of parenting in a Western country.
Emotional suppression, as parents prioritize resilience and sacrifice over vulnerability.

How Mental Health Is Often Overlooked

In many immigrant households, mental health wasn’t something openly talked about in the home country. Parents may struggle to:

Recognize signs of mental health challenges in their children.
Know how to talk about therapy without shame.
Understand behaviours that stem from emotional overwhelm rather than “disrespect” or “laziness.”

As a result, children and parents may grow emotionally distant, despite good intentions on both sides.

Bridging the Cultural Gap: What Helps

Culturally responsive education: Workshops, community programs, or even therapy can help parents learn about child development in ways that honor their values and offer practical tools.
Open conversations with children: Validate their unique experience of living between two worlds — and share yours.
Therapy: Individual or family therapy with a culturally competent provider can help reframe conflict and heal misunderstandings.
Release the perfectionism: Good parenting isn’t about perfection — it’s about presence, repair, and love. Being “too hard” on yourself doesn’t make you a better parent.

For Therapists and Educators

Don’t assume all immigrant parents are resistant to mental health support — many simply haven’t had access to it.
Acknowledge the emotional labour of parenting in a society that often doesn't reflect their values or struggles.
Offer compassion before critique — especially when parents feel judged by Western standards that don’t align with their own upbringing.

A Final Word

To the immigrant parents: you are doing one of the hardest jobs — building a new life while nurturing the next generation. You carry love, grief, hope, and pressure all at once. You are not alone.

You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to not have all the answers. You are allowed to ask for help.