By Nina Huang
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Midori Heckman grew up with a powerful example of balance and self-love, thanks to her mother who arrived in the United States from the Philippines during the nursing draft of the 1980s.
From an early age, Midori learned that prioritizing self-care practices such as massages and being out in nature isn’t selfish—it’s essential.
Friends of Heckman’s mom often put themselves last, she noted, but it was modeled to her that being a supermom isn’t about self-sacrifice—it’s about showing up fully by taking care of yourself first.
“My mom was not like that, she really modeled that for me. We all go through the mom guilt and I do too, but not in this area,” she said.
“From the very beginning, she was so affectionate and really created this atmosphere where we were so comfortable touching each other. She showed me that affection creates close familial bonds. She’d stop in the middle of the day and give me a two-minute hug. She’d be like, ‘Where’s my two-minute hug?’” Heckman said.
To their family, hugs are healing and Heckman and her siblings were massaged from birth and they learned how to massage.
“She really showed me that people and relationships are more important than things. It was a value she instilled in us. She’d always say the phrase: we may not have much but we have each other. She taught us to love people and not things, and to be content with what we had,” Heckman said.
“Now that I have a family, I need to be affectionate with my kids and prioritize people over materials. I appreciate that more than ever now that I have my own kids,” she said.
Heckman said that her mom didn’t have close friends and her whole life was her family and garden.
Heckman’s mother also had a big green thumb and showed her the power of being out in nature to boost her mood.
“She spent a lot of time outside and sang to her plants. It was therapy for her and she naturally gravitated towards being outside,” she said.
Despite learning so much from her mother, Heckman felt that her mother’s lack of community may have had something to do with why she’s battling Alzheimer’s now.
“I’m very extroverted compared to her. I built community and she didn’t,” Heckman said of the differences between her and her mother.
Heckman said her mother was the breadwinner for so long and was taking anxiety and depression medicine to cope with the stress of working in the U.S.
Her mother has been battling the disease for the past 14 years and lives in the Philippines now where she receives around-the-clock care.
“They say it’s the long, slow goodbye – drawn out process of grieving. Thankfully, she has such good care. My dad is a saint and provides everything for her,” Heckman said.
Heckman shared that her mother would’ve loved to be a grandma. Her mother worked with newborn babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and knew that the power of affection would help babies develop mentally and emotionally. She would spend the most time with the babies who didn’t have a lot of visitors. She’d hold them, sing to them, and massage them.
“It was so crucial in brain development to be touched and looked in the eyes, she really did that for them; it was so sweet,” Heckman said.
As a mother now, Heckman is super affectionate with her boys, almost 7 and 9 years old, and they also reciprocate. Her sons attend a homeschool public school in Monroe that’s predominantly white, but she makes it a point to spend time in Tacoma where there are more Filipinos so they get to be amongst fellow Filipinos.
Appreciation for music and humility
“I resented a lot of what I experienced in my teens and 20’s, but now that I have my own kids, I realized it taught me perseverance and resilience,” Lynn Chen said.
Chen grew up in a traditional Chinese upbringing where her parents never said ‘I love you’ to her and physical touch was almost non-existent.
“My parents were very rigorous in a traditional tiger kind of way. I played piano and I had high expectations set on me. I had really good grades, but that was expected. By contrast, I feel like my husband was allowed to do a lot more than I was. The idea of a good grade is a B, whereas in my household, you could not get B’s,” she said.
Chen said that her husband, who is white, played piano briefly when he was 7 but lost interest and quit. Chen started when she was 9, but only because her family didn’t have the means to buy a piano before that. The piano was a generous gift from an uncle who had a better job than her parents. After a year of playing, Chen didn’t want to play anymore but her mom refused to let her quit.
As a child, Chen vowed she wouldn’t force her own children to play piano. However, now that her kids are older and do play, she’s grateful for her mother’s insistence on her musical education.
“It’s not enjoyable if you suck, but it becomes enjoyable when you get better. You start hearing the songs that you want to play and hear, but it takes a couple of years to get there,” she said.
Although Chen’s children often resist practicing their instruments, they occasionally find joy in mastering a piece of music they love.
“I give them way more encouragement than my parents ever gave me,” she said.
Chen is also able to play duets with her kids, and her parents couldn’t do that because they didn’t have the skills.
Her father passed away recently and she spent a decent amount of time talking to her mother about their immigrant experience.
“It’s really just crazy what people went through to flee where they were, I’m never going to understand that adversity. Sometimes I struggle with how well off my children are,” she said.
Chen works in tech and her and her family live in Kirkland surrounded by wealth. She was volunteering in her kids’ classroom a few months ago and the students were talking about their favorite Hawaiian island and comparing notes.
She thinks about how different life was for her grandparents and great-grandparents—like her mom’s grandmother who lived to be 100 and had bound feet.
Chen remembers her mother’s stories about their early immigration years, when international calls were a costly luxury. Her grandparents had to walk to a neighbor’s house just to receive calls, as they didn’t own a phone. Now, with FaceTime and other technologies, Chen marvels at how easily her family can connect across continents, a stark contrast to those challenging early days.
“My parents went through a lot and I want my kids to be resilient. I learned a lot from my parents. Even though they didn’t say I love you, they’d cut fruit that just shows up everyday,” she said.
Chen shared that while she was in a virtual meeting with coworkers, her mother would bring her food. Her coworkers would ask, ‘Did she just bring you a bowl of noodles?’
“I never had to think about food. Food just shows up,” Chen said.
Chen is also trying to teach her kids that they can live with less. She recently read “Braiding Sweetgrass” about the Native American mentality to take whatever you need and leave the rest for the forest.
“That resonated a lot with me because I think about our kids and how well they have it. I think it’s because of my parents and how they taught me to have a frugal mindset. I try to tell my kids, ‘You don’t need all those toys, we don’t want to create all this plastic garbage. Let’s think about need, are we going to want it tomorrow?’” she said.
The power of language and traditions
When Tina was little, she dreaded going to Vietnamese school every Friday evening. She felt like she would miss out on the American school experience like football games and school dances.
Even Tina’s father would say to her mother, ‘Why put her through Vietnamese school? It’s just going to confuse her and make it harder for her to learn English.’ But her mother persisted and Tina attended Vietnamese school from elementary through high school. She did eventually get to skip Vietnamese school on one night to attend prom.
Growing up in a predominantly white school, Tina stood out as one of the few Asian students. Despite her initial reluctance, her mother insisted she attend Vietnamese school, which became a gateway to her cultural heritage. There, Tina learned traditional Vietnamese dances, performing them during Tet celebrations and other holidays. She also forged friendships with other Vietnamese children, eagerly anticipating their weekly gatherings.
Now as an adult, Tina is grateful for her mother’s persistence in maintaining this connection to her roots, recognizing the value it has added to her identity and sense of community.
“Most importantly, I am still able to speak Vietnamese fluently today and it’s one of the best things my mom instilled in me. Now as a parent myself, I hope to pass along Vietnamese traditions to my kids and teach them the Vietnamese culture and language,” she said.
Her husband is Korean and now with their two young daughters, they try to celebrate both Vietnamese and Korean holidays. For example, one month birthdays are considered a milestone in Vietnamese culture while 100 day celebrations are big in Korean culture.
“We’ll celebrate both and make sure to have pictures to document and show them later when they’re older. They have ao dais and hanboks which they’ll wear for New Year’s. We talk about how they’re half Vietnamese and half Korean and where their grandparents are from. It’s important to us that they understand their two cultures that help shape who they are,” Tina said.
Nina can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.
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