Hot Asian Mom: Loving Moms 2

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Mirjam – I agree there needs to be more representation among all backgrounds for mental health issues, particularly PPD. To anyone watching, the message was clear: Asian American motherhood was a trend that could pass, not an identity to be represented. As the growing pressure to be beautiful gets even heavier in Asia, is it right to pin these expectations onto mothers as well? Thankfully I am in touch with myself enough to realize that this wasn’t normal, and marched myself off to a doctor, saving face be dammed!

We use cookies to offer you a better browsing experience, analyze site traffic, personalize content, and serve targeted advertisements. In my neighborhood alone, the Chinese takeaway I walked past on the way to my daughter’s school was vandalized. Sleep-deprived, my stomach still aching from the C-section, I’d left my three-month-old baby and my six-year-old daughter with my husband to speak to Jessamine. My mother-in-law stayed with me for the 'confinement' period just after I had my first, when I struggled with some PPD. It's funny how cultures that are so different from each other (Asian versus African American) can also have some distinct similarities.Our Missing Hearts showed me the mom I need to be—necessarily political, fiercely truthful, fearless to act. At the same time, I was stressed because my mom seemed to be watching my every move, not giving me space to learn to be a mother on my own. Reading The School for Good Mothers and meeting Jessamine herself sent me down the path to finding the mantra that came to me in Inyoung’s house. My mom would be much more open to me taking an herbal brew with who-knows-what in it than to take a pill for depression.

Suddenly, my grandmother’s stories weren’t foreign or strange, but rooted in a shared Asian suffering; my mother’s fixation on success, her way of protecting us from a world that saw first the color of our skin. While American Pie has made the idea of a MILF (you can look that term up if you don’t know it) a run-on joke since the 90’s, China seems to take this concept very seriously. Critics have swooned over the movie’s hot dog fingers, the butt plug fight scenes, the trippy zigzags through possible worlds, but stripped of its zaniness, the indie sleeper dominating the Oscars is essentially the story of an aging Asian American mom confronting her very real flaws to reach her daughter.Aimee – It's interesting for me, as well, to hear about your perspective as an Anglo-Australian dealing with an Asian MIL. I needed her after my daughter’s traumatic birth, I needed her when I wasn’t sure if I had postpartum depression, I needed her when I doubted my ability to look after my captivatingly precious but astoundingly fragile baby. Although our different cultures have rarely been much of an issue between us, it has been very interesting seeing the cultural differences, particularly with his parents, when we had children. When I was pregnant with my first child, I received all the standard prenatal care: frequent OB visits, lab tests, and ultrasounds. A story where Asian women aren’t portrayed as quiet or submissive, but as the complex people they are: fierce and flawed, strong and vulnerable, hurting and hurt.