Take our Dementia Test

Find a therapist to help manage stress

Over 59 million Americans provide unpaid care for aging family members.

Children of immigrants often act as cultural brokers long before adulthood.

Cultural expectations can make caregiving feel like obligation rather than choice.

Financial therapy helps uncover money beliefs shaping caregiving decisions.

“Our parents don’t have 401(k)s, they have children.”

It’s a joke I’ve heard many times in Asian-American and other immigrant communities, usually delivered with a half-smile and a knowing look. However, beneath the humor is a complicated and nuanced truth.

Many immigrant parents did not have the opportunity to build traditional retirement savings, not because they lacked the desire, but because they were working within a very different economic reality. Oftentimes, they were limited to jobs in restaurants, small businesses, domestic work, construction, or other parts of the informal or gig economy, positions that rarely offered employer-sponsored retirement plans or long-term financial security. Many worked multiple jobs simply to keep their families afloat.

As a result, those parents were focused on the immediate demands of survival and did not have the space to think about long-term financial planning. Whether consciously or unconsciously, instead of investing in their own futures, they invested in their children. For many families, that decision came from love, necessity, and the belief that education and opportunity were the safest investments they could make.

Over the years, I have heard numerous stories of families (including my own) who left their home countries, postponed their own educational dreams, and worked long hours so their children could have opportunities they themselves never had. The implicit hope was that the next generation would “do better” and that success would eventually create stability for the family unit.

For many second-generation offspring, this unspoken contract began to shape their relationship with money, responsibility, and familial duty. As these children grow up, they may feel pressure to provide financial support to their parents by sending monthly payments, helping with housing, or covering medical costs. Others carry a quieter but deeply held expectation that success means eventually “repaying” their parents for everything that was sacrificed.

But the pressure often begins long before adulthood.

Many children of immigrants had to grow up quickly as they were tasked with calling electric companies and insurance providers because of their language abilities. They filled out forms, navigated bureaucracies, and explained systems their parents could not easily access. In many ways, they become what researchers call cultural brokers, translating language, systems, and expectations between their families and the outside world long before they were old enough to fully understand the weight of that responsibility.

In some families, children also mediated conflict between parents or took on responsibilities far beyond what a child should have to carry. Psychologists sometimes refer to this as parentification, when a child becomes responsible for adult roles before they are developmentally ready. Parents and teachers may have praised them for being mature or “so responsible.” But when those same children ask for something for themselves, such as time to play, privacy, or rest, they may be reminded of the sacrifices their parents made.

Over time, children adapt in different ways. Some internalize the message and become dutiful overachievers, the ones who seem to have everything together on paper while quietly carrying a heavy sense of responsibility for everyone around them. On the surface, everything looks fine, but underneath, there can be quiet resentment or guilt.

Take our Dementia Test

Find a therapist to help manage stress

Others push back and resist the role, sometimes earning the label of the “difficult” or “ungrateful” child. And in many families, responsibilities can fall unevenly. The eldest daughter often carries the heaviest burden. Cultural and gender expectations frequently intersect here, with daughters more likely to become emotional caretakers for the family. These early roles matter because they often reappear decades later.

When the Child Becomes the Caregiver

When parents age and begin to need (more) help, the same children who grew up managing responsibilities are often expected to step in again.

However, caregiving as an adult can be far more complicated than the cultural narrative suggests. What happens when the parent who needs care is uncooperative, struggling with untreated mental health issues, or experiencing dementia and cognitive decline?

And perhaps the harder question, the one many adult children wrestle with quietly, is this: what does a child actually owe a parent?

Caregiving can bring up a complicated mix of emotions, including love, duty, anger, grief, and exhaustion. Some adult children feel guilty for setting boundaries. Others feel resentment that caregiving responsibilities fall mainly on them while siblings remain distant.

Research shows that caregiving burnout is real. Many adult children carry grief not only for the parent who is declining, but also for the childhood they never fully had. At the same time they may find themselves stepping up once again as the responsible one, this time carrying both the emotional weight and the financial realities of caregiving.

In the United States, more than 59 million adults provide unpaid care for a family member, according to the Caregiving in the US 2025 study, a report from the National Alliance for Caregiving. This is a 40 percent increase from a decade earlier. Most caregivers are women, and many are balancing full-time jobs while caring for aging parents. For immigrant families and children of immigrants, the pressures can be even more layered.

The Financial Side of Caregiving No One Talks About

As a psychologist and Certified Financial Therapist, I often see how caregiving decisions are shaped not only by love or duty, but by deeply ingrained beliefs about money, sacrifice, and responsibility. Many people are surprised to see how their ambivalent relationship to money and care was established long before the official caregiving role ever began.

In many families, caregiving includes direct financial support. Adult children may pay for housing, medical bills, long-term care, or everyday expenses. Some go into debt to help their parents. Others delay their own milestones, such as buying homes, saving for retirement, or starting families, because caregiving costs take priority.

What we call money scripts, the beliefs we absorb about money growing up, often shape these decisions. A parent who struggled financially may have avoided planning for the future or talking about money. A child raised in that environment may develop a deep fear of scarcity. When caregiving begins, those narratives can collide.

Cultural expectations can intensify the pressure. In many communities, the idea that “you don’t have to do that” simply is not realistic. Filial responsibility has been reinforced for generations, and even when adult children intellectually know they have choices, emotionally, the expectation can still feel heavy and shame-laden. One client once told me she felt like a failure despite being professionally successful because she could not afford to place her in a nicer care facility. Another quietly accumulated credit card debt while sending money home each month. These stories rarely make headlines, but they are incredibly common.

Caregiving itself is already hard. Yet conversations about caregiving and money remain surprisingly taboo. Many people believe love should be unconditional and that caring for parents should happen naturally and without resentment. But the reality is often far more complicated.

Financial therapy creates space to talk openly about these tensions, including duty and boundaries, guilt and fairness, and how to care for others without abandoning oneself.

The Gift of Preparation

Increasingly, some parents are recognizing that one of the greatest gifts they can give their children is preparing for their own aging. This includes taking care of their physical, mental, and financial health, putting legal and medical plans in place, and communicating their wishes clearly.

One client recently shared how grateful they were that their parents planned ahead and had their paperwork in order. When one parent died unexpectedly, the family was able to grieve, mourn, and celebrate their life instead of scrambling through legal and logistical decisions.

Caregiving will never be easy. But avoiding conversations about money, expectations, and responsibility does not make the burden disappear. Sometimes, the most loving act families can offer one another is the willingness to talk openly about these realities before a crisis forces the conversation.

Caregiving is about care, but it is also about boundaries, resources, and sustainability. When families can name these realities honestly, it creates the possibility for something different across generations. Instead of silent expectations and quiet resentment, there can be more clarity, compassion, and choice about what it truly means to take care of one another.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

https://www.caregiving.org/

https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/ppi/topics/ltss/family-caregiving/caregiving-in-us-2025.doi.10.26419-2fppi.00373.001.pdf

https://crr.bc.edu/family-caregivers-how-many-and-who-are-they/

© Psychology Today