The First-Gen Paradox: Go Far, But Not Too Far

The First-Gen Paradox: Go Far, but Not Too Far

Growing up in an immigrant family, my parents often said, “We never had it this good,” or “We make so many sacrifices for you,”; I believed them because I could literally see their sacrifices with my own eyes: the calluses on my dad’s hands from working construction, the fatigue on my mom’s face at the end of the day.

Because of their efforts, I’m the first generation in my family to do many things. The first one to get a formal education, to travel to countries where we don’t have any relatives, to have the luxury of free time. To my family, I am the bridge between what was survived and what is possible.

When I say first-gen, I’m not referring only to the children of immigrants. I’m talking about anyone raised in a family where the focus was survival, not expansion, whether because of poverty, systemic barriers, migration, and/or limited access.

If you grew up as first-gen, you may have heard similar comments. They were made to motivate you, but tucked into the words was an unspoken mandate: Go further than us. Show us it was all worth it.

That unspoken mandate has propelled you forward. You work hard, trusting that if you do what is expected of you, your family will always be proud and happy to see you succeed.

It starts to pay off, causing your internal world to shift. You start dressing differently, not to impress anyone, but because you’ve been exposed to a new world. Your vocabulary expands, and you start talking about new things: that investment podcast you like, the book you’re reading, that country you want to visit, the cooking class you signed up for.

In your eyes, your new interests are not about abandoning your roots. You’ve always been proud of the soil in which you were planted. To you, going further just means growing new branches.

But to your surprise, your family doesn’t seem to see it the same way, and it blindsides you.

The Comments, the Tone, the Guilt

It starts with little comments framed as jokes, making them easy to brush off. You offer to pay for dinner and your brother says, “Look at Mister Money Bags over here picking up the tab! Must be nice!” You buy your family nice gifts for Christmas and someone mutters, “Great, way to make us all feel bad for being broke.”

But then the comments become less about what you’re doing and more about who you’re becoming, each one delivered with a tinge of resentment. “Why are you wearing that?” “You’ve changed.” “Don’t use your fancy college words on us.” You notice a pattern: whenever you start to share something you’re excited about, your mom changes the subject or turns the focus to your sibling. You try to check in with your sibling, and they respond with, “Not as good as you, apparently.”

On a rational level, you know your success doesn’t mean you’re superior, but you feel guilty and, most of all, confused. The same people who pushed you forward now seem unsettled by how far you’ve gone, and you’re left trying to reconcile two opposing messages.

Go far, but not too far.

How This Actually Affects You

Growing up, your family was your safety. You always knew you could be yourself around them, no explanations required, and they’d love you no matter what. But as you grow and evolve, that no-matter-what starts to feel less guaranteed.

No one prepares you for the emotional whiplash that follows, for the way loneliness creeps in once you realize that even in a room filled with people you’ve known your whole life, you suddenly feel alone. Misunderstood. Judged.

You start to hide parts of yourself. You hesitate before sharing good news. You say nothing about your recent promotion at work; you don’t talk about the country you just visited. You become overly self-conscious, always worried your excitement and joy will upset the balance.

You start to feel like you’re standing between two worlds. The place you grew up no longer fits you the same way, but the life you’ve built doesn’t feel fully safe either. You find yourself stuck in this quiet in-between, carrying a loneliness you didn’t expect and don’t quite know how to explain.

What makes it harder is that there’s not much room to talk about it. When you try, it’s often met with, Isn’t this what you wanted? And yes, it is—but no one tells you that getting what you worked for can also feel like losing something you’ve always had: a sense of belonging.

Why Families React This Way

Humans are layered and complicated, so there’s no one-size-fits-all explanation for why this happens. In some families, many things can be happening all at once. Below are a few possibilities:

• Your growth can stir up grief. Your success can remind your parents of the life they never got to live, or the encouragement they never received themselves. They can be proud of you and still feel a sense of loss at the same time, and that can be confusing. When they don’t know how to work through those feelings, it may come out as comments, jokes, or criticism that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own stuff.

• Your success can trigger old insecurities. Your parents were human beings when they had you, and they’re still human now, which means they may be carrying feelings of not being enough they never really dealt with. Watching you thrive can reopen those wounds. Instead of owning that insecurity, it can feel easier to place it on you, as if your success is what made them feel this way, when in truth those feelings were already there.

• They may be trying to protect the rest of the family. In close-knit families, success sometimes gets downplayed so no one else feels bad or left behind. The goal is usually to keep the peace, but it often comes at your expense, leaving you feeling minimized.

Conclusion

Maybe you carry a quiet fear that you’ve outgrown your family, that you no longer belong. That fear is common. But growth hasn’t removed you from your family; it’s just asking something of your connection.

The ask? That you allow your growth to create space, a chance for your family members to face old wounds, process old emotions, and evolve alongside you.

And maybe that was the point of all those sacrifices: not the achievements or the material gains, but the internal growth they made possible for you, and for everyone.