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Complete story recap and breakdown for The Good Daughter.
You're the responsible one. The strong one. The one who knows better. But who takes care of the first daughter? In many immigrant families, being the first daughter isn't just a birth order. It's an unpaid, lifelong position you never applied for. In this episode of Between Two Worlds with Dr. Phebe, Dr. Phebe sits down with a fellow first daughter and therapist - Khadijah Layne, LMFT, to unpack the invisible expectations placed on eldest daughters, from becoming the family's second parent to learning that obedience, sacrifice, and silence are the ingredients for being a "good daughter." But what happens when being obedient means abandoning yourself? When setting boundaries feels like disrespect? And when you've been taught that your blessings depend on how well you please everyone else? T
You're the responsible one. The strong one. The one who knows better. But who takes care of the first daughter? In many immigrant families, being the first daughter isn't just a birth order. It's an unpaid, lifelong position you never applied for. In this episode of Between Two Worlds with Dr. Phebe, Dr. Phebe sits down with a fellow first daughter and therapist - Khadijah Layne, LMFT, to unpack the invisible expectations placed on eldest daughters, from becoming the family's second parent to learning that obedience, sacrifice, and silence are the ingredients for being a "good daughter." But what happens when being obedient means abandoning yourself? When setting boundaries feels like disrespect? And when you've been taught that your blessings depend on how well you please everyone else? T
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00:04if you are the first daughter in an immigrant family i have a question just a quick question
00:10for you right when exactly were you hired when did you get memo the offer letter you know from
00:15gusto or adp or whoever because i don't remember personally filling out an application seriously i
00:21don't but somehow we became the babysitter we became the translator we became the example
00:26the responsible one we became the person who knows where everything is and when i say everything
00:32every nook and cranny okay where grandma's pictures are where you know the needle that we use to sew
00:37you know auntie's wedding gown is the pins that are required to tie somebody's ghillie you know
00:42all those things the person that everybody calls when somebody goes missing they haven't been heard
00:48from or something goes wrong right and somehow we're also the child who should not give anybody
00:54too much trouble we're supposed to be these perfect little people and you learn very very early
01:00you have to be respectful you have to be responsible you have to help your mother you have to set
01:04a good
01:04example right because you have all of these siblings after you i know i heard that a lot and also
01:11you
01:11shouldn't embarrass the family listen i got stories on stories like for days about embarrassing the family
01:18and you're also not supposed to talk back right and if you do all of these things you will be
01:25blessed
01:25right but today i want to ask a different question are you ready for this question what if becoming the
01:33good daughter required you to become a smaller version of yourself let's talk about it let's get into that
01:42welcome back to between two worlds with dr phoebe where we talk about the complicated we talk about
01:48the funny the beautiful and sometimes painful experiences of building a life between two
01:53cultures and today's episode is called the first daughter experience and if you know you know
02:01uh there's there's being the oldest child and then there's also being the first daughter two very
02:07different experiences right and those can be two very different job descriptions right and when we first
02:14started talking about this episode you said something that immediately caught my attention
02:19right and you wanted to talk about how first daughters are sometimes taught to shrink right how obedience
02:26becomes part of being considered a quote-unquote good daughter and you know all of a sudden how all of
02:36these things can be tied to this idea of blessings right if you're obedient you'll be blessed if you respect
02:42your parents you'll be blessed like don't be christian because then they will bring in ephesians 6 1 and 2
02:47children obey your parents and the lord for this is right by your father and mom okay right if you
02:52sacrifice you'll be blessed and it sounds so beautiful it's such a beautiful thing until you start asking
02:58yourself what happens when obedience requires you to betray yourself so we're going there today okay
03:05today i have a very special guest with me right and she's someone that i've known for over a decade
03:10i think
03:10we just put together that it's been 13 years since we saw each other like physically face to face
03:16yes so khadija how about i let you introduce yourself thank you i am khadija lane i am a first
03:23born daughter i am a first generation my mother is sierra leonean and my dad is trinidadian and i have
03:31firsthand experience of what it feels like to be a first born daughter and the expectations that are
03:37placed on you and just like a first born daughter i also became a licensed clinician
03:43what so let me take my family stuff and help people heal people as well why not right why not
03:49why not because we have to do some good in the world and prove our worths in some way shape
03:53or form
03:53i've actually been working on my memoir and i'm at that point in my writing where i talk about that
03:58about meeting um mark so so for context we also went to the same grad school as we had the
04:03same professors
04:04and we also went to college together we did well together yeah because similar times similar times
04:09i still remember the very first day when you came to salem college and your mother meeting me i think
04:14i was your ra or something like that you were an ra but you were in the same vicinity yeah
04:20and when
04:20she found out you were african then she was over this is your sister please take care of your younger
04:24sister and so even if you're not biologically connected there is still that expectation that you
04:30are supposed to be the big sister exactly right and so in writing i've gotten to that point where
04:35you know mark dr demarcus clark bless and bless him bless him bless him he he's asking me about or
04:43he's you know i think we were talking he's asking the class why we want to become therapists and all
04:48of
04:48us have come in with this like superiority complex of well i'm here to help people and we got knocked
04:53off that pedestal very early in the very quick in in the program but yeah you're right we come into
04:57this profession with our family experiences and we want to help people yeah not realizing at least
05:04some of us not realizing yo you got some work to do right when the people who needed help was
05:08actually our family so there's that oh okay i felt like a tightness in my chest when you said
05:13when you said that oh my my yeah okay okay you know so you just identified yourself as a first
05:23daughter right you're also first generation and you are a therapist as well and you know surprise
05:30surprise we mostly go into the helping professions you know we're either therapists social workers
05:35nurses right those are some of the professions that we end up going into so khadija let's start
05:41with childhood right let's start there let's go all the way back and i love that you know if you're
05:46watching you can see these beautiful pictures of khadija as a child and i'm wondering for you when did
05:51you first realize that being the first daughter meant something you know like not that you just
05:56happen to be born first in the family but when did you realize that there was a role attached to
06:02it
06:02so i think it became a bigger concept was me and my brother one year apart so you know my
06:08brother is
06:09older and then there's me and we're one year apart so we were kind of always together and there were
06:14nuances when we went to my uncle's house and he'd be you know oh what are you cooking for us
06:19you know
06:20and i'm like five or six what are you cooking i have i got rice under my belt and at
06:23five or six
06:24really like you know that's the first thing to learn how to make rice and at that time i wasn't
06:28really trying to do that and rice would burn it is what it is i didn't care that much however
06:33that
06:34was like the common like caddy you know was gonna cook rice for us and she's gonna learn how to
06:39make
06:40these stews cassava leaf okra whatever but i think it came more into play when my sister was born because
06:46now i had another gender person that was dictating what my role was as an older sister and when i
06:54was younger i was very much a tomboy so i was outside i was sneaking outside i was not trying
06:58to
06:58help my mom in the kitchen or anything like that if you didn't watch me enough i'd be outside so
07:02like
07:02i would slip out i'd be gone my sister was very much more girly so then there was that comparison
07:08of like yeah you need to be like her see she likes her nails painted she doesn't like to riff
07:13rap all that other stuff so probably learned to cook really good rice you know pretty early on
07:18or something along those lines yeah and she stayed with it it didn't burn as often because you probably
07:22put it on fire you just walked away i sure did and forgot about it i was in front of
07:26the tv
07:26they'll tell me to make rice if we all want to eat tonight maybe someone else should be responsible
07:31because it's not me no that is so interesting but also i'm thinking about the fact that you know
07:36when we were younger we didn't necessarily have rice cookers and how much work it was just to cook
07:42rice yeah but also the fact that rice is such a staple in in our cultures you know like we
07:45think
07:45about african families asian families caribbean families it's what we eat yes as a combination of
07:51you know stew pepper i don't know something yeah so it sounds like there were some expectations that
07:56were placed on you that were not necessarily placed on for example your brother no no my brother was
08:02allowed to exist authentically the way that he wanted to like even growing up it's like my mom would
08:07give us a list before she left and he's on his playstation and i was responsible for yelling at
08:13everyone to say like my mommy's coming home like we need to get it together because when she yelled it
08:19wasn't that she was yelling at you didn't do your thing she didn't separate it when she yelled she
08:23yelled at everyone i personally learned very early that i really didn't need that kind of negativity in
08:28my life and so i really was like and at some point it just became this idea that i was
08:32just going to
08:33take over because i didn't want to hear it yeah so you know my brother was more concerned with
08:36playing his game yeah but i didn't want to get yelled at my sister she's the baby no one's yelling
08:41at her right so like there was just like a lot of pressure to accomplish this list but then it
08:47was
08:48like the people that i was supposed to be managing as a first daughter were not actually wanting to be
08:53managed i learned that very quickly too like i was just managing them like my mom managed us but it
08:58wasn't working because i was still their sister and they didn't care that much about me like at all
09:02managing them that is something to have to learn so quickly you know and so early also because i
09:08remember my brothers i have two younger brothers and they didn't always listen to me yeah right and
09:12i would yell at them just like my mom would yell at me and you're right they never listened no
09:16they never listened and so you ended up carrying everything you ended up doing all the things and
09:22we'll talk about that a little later because it definitely impacts how we function as adults yeah
09:28and even in like romantic relationships and things like that did you hear things like you know you
09:32should know better right you're the oldest yeah you should set a good example always and i didn't
09:37even know what that even meant like i was the oldest in comparison to my one-year-old brother
09:42like older than me we both didn't know better right we're both following each other my mom would
09:46always say like you're gonna follow makata so she would always say follow makata but we would be
09:51following each other yeah to hell in a handbasket like why should we know what to do like we just
09:55got here just got here we're still trying to figure it out because at the same time you know that
10:00with
10:00that phrase you know you know you should know better like better than who right right better like
10:04we're just like you said we're just trying to figure it out we're both i don't know under five
10:09and you know we're supposed to know it all and and know how to do some of these things that
10:13is just
10:13a lot of pressure that is a lot a lot of pressure so let's have a little bit of fun
10:17here right so
10:18i'm going to name something and you can tell me whether it's part of you know your first daughter
10:24start a pack okay okay we're going to think about that right so babysitting siblings yes being
10:29responsible for chores before everybody else yes uh-huh yeah because then if the chores aren't done
10:33then you have to even if it's divvied up you have to go pick up the slack from everybody else's
10:39they
10:39didn't do it right uh knowing family information that children probably should not know yeah you know
10:45being the cultural translator and also the interpreter the interpreter yeah because because of my mom's
10:51accent people couldn't understand her often but sierra leone was taken by a british colony but
10:56people still had you know an influx and then she's like i'm speaking english and it's like what was the
11:00problem and then in some ways you know become her unofficial assistant her unpaid intern never got
11:05paid i am owed a lot of money it's just wild and you would also know everybody's business before
11:11knowing yeah like i was also already trained to be a mini therapist i'm sitting in spaces conversing with
11:19aunts about business that i don't even know about but i just happened to be there because i was told
11:24to sit close right and so my brother was okay to go and play with our cousins and stuff like
11:29that
11:30which a majority of our cousins were boys but i was told to just sit in the corner because girls
11:35stay
11:35and now i'm listening to information that i probably shouldn't be privy to family tea yeah you know that
11:41i'm like what what happened right like like this person's kid is not this person like what yeah yeah and
11:48and and you know you talked about being a tumbo and that's something that i can definitely relate
11:51to because i if given a chance i would be outside we had a mango tree outside of the houses
11:56that we
11:56grew up in and i would be on that tree and you know i didn't want to wear the skirts
12:01because i didn't
12:02want anybody looking up my skirt exactly it wasn't it was inconvenient a skirt is actually very
12:06inconvenient because and now i have to figure out how to like tie it and you know make sure i'm
12:10hiding like all of my parts and yeah it was just too much work and i remember going through that
12:15for so
12:15many years and and having that sort of experience to where like i wasn't even wearing earrings i also
12:20had a cropped hair haircut like my i had my head shaved and i remember one of my aunts like
12:25coming
12:25to our home for the very first time and she was meeting me for the first time and she was
12:29like
12:29are you a boy or a girl i beg i was like you know and my mom scolded me after
12:36that she was like you
12:36know see this is why i've been telling you you know put on more girly clothes and put on earrings
12:40but then i think there was this moment there also as the first daughter where i grew up and i
12:44started
12:44hitting like puberty and then even though i'll be outside with my dad it felt like one day he just
12:48woke up and realized oh no that's a daughter because i think maybe secretly he wanted me to be a
12:53son
12:53yeah also because you know how like parents are african parents are with like the first child being the
12:59male and all that and then all of a sudden i was kicked back inside yes yes i was supposed
13:04to go learn
13:04how to be a woman exactly and learn how to cook i remember my feelings being so hurt yeah you
13:09know
13:09because it was like it felt like rejection yeah yeah you know because i've been by your side this
13:13whole time but until the development of who i was did you recognize that there was like there's like
13:19a gap like the day that you grow up the day that a girl grows everyone starts acting a little
13:24bit
13:25different now you can't rough house with your cousins because they might get a different and yeah and
13:29it was just like i just want to actually just play yeah i'm just 12 i'm still playing with my
13:33barbies
13:33i'm literally still in like fifth grade like everyone relax like lucky for even having barbies
13:38they wouldn't let me have barbie my dad would not let me have barbies because he said that it would
13:42promote teenage pregnancy because apparently that was a huge thing back in the day real yeah and so
13:47he wouldn't let me have dolls so you know what i did when i became older and i had my
13:51own money i
13:52started buying i have a barbie doll collection good for you black barbies specifically i'm always on
13:56facebook market trying to find the next one so i have like a little collection i don't know what i'm
14:00going to do with it also because like now i have three sons they haven't necessarily expressed any
14:04interest in yeah that is true right so now i have this bin full of like barbies and every now
14:09and
14:09then i'll open it and look at them like oh you're cute you're cute you know good for you though
14:13you
14:13know what i'm saying yeah i had to reclaim that so anyway so back to our conversation right what you
14:17said something when we're planning this episode and like talking about it that really really stuck
14:20with me and you talked about how first daughters have been taught to shrink yes right and i'm wondering
14:27for you like what does shrinking mean and i think i'm still working on this honestly because i think
14:32there's also a way in which that you're also expressed to be seen not heard yeah so you're
14:36supposed to when someone comes over you're in the back with your mom getting all the stuff getting
14:41the drinks getting knowing the things to put out for someone to come but then there's also a part of
14:46you that is also invisible at the same time and so i think i from the moment i was born
14:52i've been
14:53given my mom issues i'm gonna be very honest with you and i think she should have known because i'm
14:57also a namesake as well so my grandmother's name is khadija and so and she's fiery and passionate so
15:02i don't know why everyone just thought it was just gonna skip a generation yeah so i i was i
15:09came into
15:09the world two pounds two ounces i was very small i was fighting for life right but then i also
15:15think that
15:15i was also very loud very about like i was gonna tell somebody about something even if there was a
15:22way
15:22that i couldn't understand the rules that were placed on me and i fought against it a lot okay
15:27but i feel like my mom really worked hard to beat it out of me she was like you need
15:32to get it together
15:33and my brother's a little bit quieter so i think for me i was always just next to him just
15:39standing up
15:40for him because he was so quiet and people would like bully him or mess with him and i was
15:43kind of
15:43standing in his care but i also think that there was a part of me that was also very loud
15:47and very like let's go do something climb tree was in everything and so i think there was a part
15:54of me
15:54that was split in two growing up and so when i was home i was really quiet and obedient but
16:00when i was
16:00at school i was like a different version i was more loud people my teachers friends they love that
16:07version of me so it was almost like i was celebrated for being all of that but like when i
16:11was home
16:11that wasn't necessarily the case yeah yeah you're saying something that touches on a lot of
16:18immigrant child experiences too because how our parents experience at our home is not going to be
16:25is hardly ever the same yeah when when people like when they experience us outside right you're right
16:31you know we're we're loud we're boisterous we're fun we're funny like all of those things and and i
16:37remember having to like do that because like you i also got that message of you're supposed to be
16:41seen and not heard and so my parents for example were shocked okay like their flabbers were aghasted
16:47whenever they would see me on stage yeah because we went to church and i was a performer i've always
16:53been a performer i love being on stage you know i think that's why people find it hard to believe
16:57that i'm an introvert you know because they're like but you're so maybe yeah i'm a performative extrovert
17:01you know and i would always play these different characters right like little skits and things like that
17:06like i had one skit that i did one christmas where i was the pilot and then i was several
17:11passengers in there too wow and i was voicing every one of them in different like voices accents the
17:16whole night and my parents were just shocked because they didn't see that version of me at home
17:20but that was also because i was shrinking exactly you know while i was home and i know that so
17:25many
17:25people can relate to that yeah you know and also when i think about shrinking i don't necessarily
17:29picture someone saying explicitly like you know make yourself smaller right it's very subtle it's
17:36not too in your face but then it's always this thing of like don't be too loud yeah yeah i
17:43don't
17:43challenge adults i don't talk back don't be difficult don't be selfish yes right and you know
17:49think about everybody else you should be grateful you know yes like things like that and i think i
17:55learned that maybe that's what being a girl meant or being the daughter like like being loved and being
18:01easy to deal with might be connected right right and i don't know if you ever experienced that or
18:06ever felt that way i think i did because i think i didn't get in as much trouble when i
18:12was following
18:13the rules and following what the roles were and i think for me i recognized how to play both very
18:18quickly you know and i think a story that i have is that my mom would actually come to my
18:23classroom
18:23and watch me on her lunch break because did she work in the building no she left her job on
18:31her
18:31lunch break to like be in the bushes of my classroom but like i remember the fear when i came
18:38home one
18:39day and she was like i saw you in class and i'm like what did i do in class like
18:42i'm going through
18:43like what did i do she was like you were just out of control like i don't know what happened
18:47i don't
18:48who that person is so there was just like so much where it's like okay am i being watched today
18:53am i being what will i be watched tomorrow so like there was always a way in which there's always
18:58reinforced that i needed to follow a specific guide because at some point my mom might show up at my
19:05classroom and watch me from the door and it's like the scariest thing ever because she wasn't watching
19:10my brother but she was definitely watching me and making sure that i was staying in line and that i
19:15wasn't doing too much um so it was definitely it was definitely a funny thing now that i've grown
19:22up like oh my gosh like you could have been eating your lunch however you know watching me in my
19:25class
19:26i guess or running errands yeah you know or going anything else doing something else for yourself
19:31doing something that adults do you know for themselves yeah so so let's while we're on that topic
19:36let's talk about obedience right because sometimes respect and obedience get used interchangeably
19:42yeah and i think it gets confusing for for us especially um those of us who grew up in african
19:48households i'm speaking for african households as somebody who grew up in one
19:52yeah but in your home what did obedience mean i think that there was a blind sense of obedience
19:58right my mom still scares me um and because we my this is a big age at my big age
20:04yes i am still
20:05afraid of my mom and will always have a healthy fear of my mom and we didn't live with my
20:10dad so like
20:10yeah it was very clear that my mom was like you can't go anywhere right like this is the only
20:15house
20:15you've got right and so my dad wasn't like i'll save you guys he was afraid of everyone is afraid
20:21of my mom you know what i mean she is just she's fiery and so and she's the she's like
20:26the last of
20:27six and yet she is the scariest out of all of them ain't that something yeah especially as a woman
20:32too
20:32yeah yeah and there's three boys three girls and she's the last of six and she's apparently very
20:38scary to everyone's scared of her in the family in her family so i think that like my mom
20:44from the time that we could understand she knew that there was a boundary and she said i am your
20:49mom
20:49and so when you come into this house whatever your friends do with their mom that has nothing to do
20:53with me you shake that off when you're in this house these are the expectations that i have for
20:57you don't do that over here we don't do that over here you know and they always have like that
21:02one
21:02name that they can't quite get my michael like it's just like okay michael's mom i can't talk
21:07to her like michael's mom right but i think it was just the foundation of obedience yeah and the idea
21:13that however she runs it is how she runs it even if she's wrong in running it she's not apologizing
21:20for her wrongness apologize for what because of what you know there's grace for her but there's not
21:24grace for us to make mistakes absolutely not absolutely not now were you allowed to disagree
21:29respectfully dis uh respectfully no okay yeah never never yeah i was never allowed to disagree
21:36i could disagree in my head of course yeah i was really good at disagreeing in my head or
21:40like she would see the wheels turning when like things didn't quite make sense but like yeah i was
21:46shadow boxing in my room closing the door really hard but then stopping it right before it closed yeah
21:51because how dare you try to like slam a door in her house yeah in her house yeah yeah so
21:56the door is coming off the hinges i don't i think my mom was like i could just create another
22:00person you're gone you're gone out out out out out and this is what i find fascinating because we
22:07spend so many years like teaching girls especially you know listen to authority you know don't be
22:13disrespectful be agreeable don't make people uncomfortable you know like don't speak your mind
22:19and all that and then we become older we grow up come adults we're in the workplace and then all
22:24of a
22:25sudden they're telling us well why aren't you speaking out for yourself right like if your boss
22:29said something you didn't like why didn't you say something right we're being taught to like set or
22:33being expected i should say to set boundaries and speak our minds and advocate for ourselves
22:38and then i think about it when did y'all teach me how to do that you know they didn't
22:43you didn't teach
22:44me how to do that and so how am i supposed to go into the workforce and then all of
22:47a sudden tell my
22:48boss well actually i don't agree with you on that right because there was never a foundation of
22:53self-advocacy there wasn't anything about even apologizing nope nope owning up to anything
23:01accountability like all of those things and yeah we're expected to do that as adults yeah we're
23:06supposed to switch like at some point when we get to 25 i guess we're supposed to switch and say
23:12oh yeah
23:13like i taught you all of these things to like be obedient but now i need you to actually advocate
23:18for yourself and it's like well when does the light switch on for us when do we know because still
23:22even
23:23with my mom there are things that i can and can't say there's still that level of you're and she's
23:28always said this you can grow old dirt every year but you'll never be as old as me so that
23:34all that's
23:35a bar yes i might have to borrow that for one day okay you know what i'm saying maybe not
23:40say it in
23:40that way because you know like i'm raising kids who will speak up and you know you know i apologize
23:45to my kids yes right like very important and i allow them for them to disagree and i always see
23:50my mother cringe whenever we have those like moments but i want them to have a different kind of
23:55experience and to be able to like self-advocate and things like that but i might have to put that
23:59in my back pocket you know and as we're talking about this you know i can't help but wonder like
24:03how
24:03does a woman learn to trust her own voice after you have been rewarded for ignoring it because
24:11then if you know you're compliant you are quiet you're agreeable it's like oh dj such a good girl
24:17such a good girl one day she'll find a fine husband yeah you know like still and actually like i
24:22think
24:22my mom's super like how did i raise this girl because i am actually gay so i am not my
24:28husband
24:29um but yeah i don't know because i i do feel like that's also still where i'm working on
24:34like actively using my voice because again when i was younger i would use my voice and then it felt
24:40like in order to survive my childhood to like kind of dismiss it so i feel like when i get
24:45into really
24:46close relationships i question the impact of my voice or it takes me a really long time to ruminate
24:52process and then i have to talk to myself am i feeling the way that i'm feeling because and i
24:57do
24:58everyone's side right yeah so it's like oh okay so what did they say what did i hear right was
25:03i
25:03because you're a therapist and so you know how to hold space for all of the parts yes yes and
25:07i have
25:07a lot of conversations with other people and how i want them to be that exists in my head and
25:13then
25:13when i have a conversation with them i'm so surprised that they don't say what i had practiced for them
25:17to
25:17say i'm like oh my gosh like you're just going off script that's so weird like i really need you
25:23to conform to what's in my head like the scripts that i had in my head yeah that you weren't
25:27privy
25:28to that i was talking to myself at 2 a.m and i couldn't go to bed because i was
25:33so like like
25:34all of the stuff all of this this interaction that i had is now seeping in me and it's also
25:40affecting my sleep and then i'm like filled with guilt and shame and like why do i feel that way
25:45i
25:45should be grateful that i even have a friend right right should be grateful that like they love me or
25:50they care about me i shouldn't be that mad or that angry instead of i actually have a visceral
25:55reaction to what was said or what was done to me and this is actually me letting them know
26:00how to care and love for me even more i pull in and i shrink and i'm like i should
26:05just i should
26:06just be grateful yeah oh that in itself is a loaded conversation and like a whole episode on its
26:13own and i'm just like thinking about the anxiety of that and having to hold all of those things
26:17especially in the middle of the night and i know i've been called into that sort of thing where i
26:21have the conversations in my head and in my mind i've had the conversation with the other person
26:26then i bring it up and they're looking at me like what are you talking about you know i even
26:29had that
26:30experience with my assistant a couple of times and you know she was blunt with me i was like phoebe
26:34you'd be having those conversations with your head and in your mind you think that we've talked
26:37about this no i don't know about this project that you've thought about and you're working on all of a
26:42sudden and now i'm supposed to be you know producing some deliverables and i just have to like sit back
26:46and be
26:46like oh you know what you're right because like you in my mind i've played out the whole episode
26:51like the end credits have already rolled yeah and they weren't even in the beginning credit now let's
26:56get into one thing that you know you mentioned that speaking of things that we can't stop thinking about
27:00or the things are in our heads like blessings right yes talk to me about the connection that you see
27:05between obedience and blessings so i think growing up and even at this age i was so confused about
27:12blessings mainly due to the fact that it's not quantified so like with most stuff in our world
27:18like okay like you go to school you get a job there's some quantification of that you know i'm
27:24putting in work and i get something but when my mom and my like aunts and uncles were talking about
27:29blessings it just felt like there was a lot of gaps and it also felt like it was on the
27:33backs of
27:33sacrifice of women so my uncle didn't have to sacrifice as much as my aunts and my mom was
27:40yet somehow the fruits of his labor of being being at mit and retiring early somehow quantified him
27:49as being blessed yeah whereas my mom and my aunt had to work really long and kind of retire yeah
27:54so
27:55there was like a way that i couldn't understand what exactly that meant but i knew that there was
27:59something as far as the sacrificial part of being a girl and that my blessings would come
28:07someday at some point yeah somewhere but you don't know when so then it's almost have to continue to
28:14keep that yeah that strive yeah because one day will come but you don't know when you don't know
28:19when but you got to put in a lot of work in the back end and i just felt like
28:22it was like well i just
28:23need to know when so then maybe i can prep like two years before maybe i can do whatever i
28:27want to do
28:27right for 10 years and two years i can really own in right right to the ground and receive my
28:33blessings just couldn't get it i couldn't get it oh because like so many of us heard some sort of
28:38version of that too right yeah respect your parents and you'll be blessed if you sacrifice for your
28:42parents there's going to be a blessing if you obey you know things will go well for you if you
28:46honor
28:47your parents you're going to live long right and i couldn't help but wonder like what happens right
28:52when inside a child when goodness and obedience and parental approval and all of those things
28:57blessings all come like tangled together right like to me it just felt like this complex i don't know
29:06vague like you said you know thing mess it's like a mess i don't even know what it is and
29:12it's like
29:12okay so if i get a new car is that my blessings okay but if i get an accident okay
29:18i gotta get myself
29:19back on track it's like how do i even quantify what is actuality of like the pros and when i'm
29:25listing all the blessings of my life what does that even mean but then also it's weird because
29:30there are people that are not doing what they're supposed to still getting blessed like my uncle did
29:35not turn and give money back like he's supposed to my mom and my aunts did send money back all
29:40the
29:41time and got these people through college and uncles and cousins and their nephews and my uncle didn't
29:47do that and yet and yet m.i.t blessings have been bestowed upon him i don't know i think
29:53we were lied
29:54to i think we were lied to i think that blessings doesn't make sense and i think it's a way
29:58to
29:58um ensure whoever buys it i think buys into it i the
30:02i think that's a PayIP