Manipulation Tactics by My Parents: Parentification & Withholding Recognition

Growing up in a Vietnamese-Chinese household, my parents could be… let’s say, a bit slack when it came to parenting. I believe they do love me deeply — I really do — but love doesn't cancel out the ways they messed up.

One of their go-to moves?
“Oh, he’s just a kid. He won’t know. Let’s just take the easy route.”
And by easy, they often meant controlling. Manipulating.

Now, to be real — I know all parenting involves some manipulation. “Eat your broccoli or no TV” is a classic. But in my case, it went deeper.
My sense of agency was never really honoured — even into my 30s.

Take this for example:
My mum sells at the markets. We weren’t struggling — we made decent money, more than most.
But almost every other day, she’d come home with the same script:

“My competitors are playing dirty. I work so hard for this family. I sacrifice everything so you can have this life.”

And I’d sit there.
Listening.
Holding space.
Being her emotional container.

I internalized that. I became the good kid. The worried kid. The one who thought we were poor, even when we weren’t. I felt guilty for needing anything. I learned — early and deep — that love comes with a price tag. That it had to be paid back, earned, justified.

Somehow, “make it count” meant: make me feel like my suffering was worth it.
And that’s not love. That’s a transaction dressed up in sacrifice.

And yet — I know she loved me. I believe that.
But she didn’t trust her own love to be enough, so she wrapped it in conditions.
Like putting pineapple on a pizza.
It confuses the kid.
It blocks the heart.
It messes everyone up — the giver and the receiver.

And then there’s recognition.
Whenever I did something well — like getting straight As — I’d run home excited to share.
And what’s the first thing she’d ask?

“How do you know you got it right? Did the teacher say so?”

As I got older, the teacher got replaced by other “authorities” — mostly, money.
If you don’t earn, it doesn’t count.

That kind of withholding — it wasn’t malicious. They genuinely believed it kept us grounded.
But here’s what it taught me:

Who I am doesn’t matter unless someone else approves of me first.

Even if that someone else isn’t them.

They’d brag about my achievements to their friends — but never directly celebrate me.
To this day, I carry the residue of that conditioning.
The reflex to doubt myself.
The constant reach for external validation.
The hesitation to just feel proud of who I am.
The struggle to believe that I’m enough.

This is a heavy post.
But I’m not writing it from a place of victimhood. I know it wasn’t my fault.

What hurts is that now — it’s my responsibility to end this cycle.
To learn how to be compassionate with myself.
To have faith in myself.
To build a relationship with myself.
And — more than anything — to not pass this on to Alfred.

Because here’s the question that keeps me up:

What do we teach our kids — to seek approval? Or to trust their inner voice?

Do we raise them to be self-referencing, to know their worth from within?
Or do we condition them to always look outward for permission to feel proud?

For Alfred — I want him to know:
He doesn’t need to earn my love.
He doesn’t need to prove anything.
He’s worthy.
Right now.
Always.