Unpacking Cultural Envy between migrant and mainstream Australia

As a South Asian mum raising kids in Australia, I live between two parenting playbooks that rarely agree with each other.

One values independence, the other interdependence. One says, “let them learn through mistakes,” the other says, “protect them from every possible fall.”

Some days, I feel like I’m raising children on a cultural seesaw — one side pulling toward “freedom,” the other toward “family.”

And here’s what I’ve noticed: both sides — migrant and mainstream — are quietly envious of the other.

White Australian families sometimes look at migrant kids and see privilege: the safety net, the parental involvement, the financial help.

Migrant families, meanwhile, look at white Australian kids and see freedom: the choice to move out early, change degrees, chase art or travel without a family council meeting about it.

Both sides see what they don’t have.Both sides assume the other has it easier.And both sides are, in their own way, wrong — and right.

It must be nice to have it all done for you

From the outside, migrant parenting can look like overprotective micromanagement — parents who pick careers, pay bills, plan lives.

It can look like control.

But from the inside? It’s often a form of love forged in fear.

Many migrant parents came from instability, scarcity, or sacrifice. They built safety by building structure. They carried the emotional muscle memory of uncertainty and passed it down as discipline.

What looks like privilege to others often feels like pressure to those inside it.

That’s the paradox: migrant families don’t raise “entitled” kids — they raise accountable ones, just with a heavy inheritance of guilt, gratitude, and expectation.

It must be nice to do whatever you want

Let's flip the lens.

White Australian parenting often prizes self-direction. Teenagers getting jobs early, young adults moving out, parents who say, “you do you.”

To a migrant family, that can look like chaos — a lack of guidance, no safety net, kids fending for themselves.

But that’s because we measure stability differently.

In collectivist cultures, independence is something you earn once you’ve proven responsibility.

In individualist cultures, independence is how you learn responsibility.

Both believe they’re teaching resilience — they’re just using different starting points.

The cultural hierarchy of “Normal”

Here’s where it gets complicated — and a little uncomfortable.

These two systems don’t exist on equal footing.

In Australia, like most Western nations, the “normal” or “healthy” way to parent is quietly defined by whiteness. It’s a cultural benchmark that turns Western independence into empowerment — and paints migrant interdependence as control.

A white parent saying, “I trust my child to make their own decisions” is seen as progressive.
A migrant parent saying, “I want to guide my child’s choices” is seen as overbearing.

Same care, different history — but only one is validated.

That’s how cultural hierarchy works: whiteness gets to set the default for what’s “balanced,” “modern,” or “emotionally intelligent.” Everything else is measured against it.

Colonial legacy didn’t just redraw maps — it redrew the boundaries of acceptable love.

And that matters, because our parenting styles aren’t just preferences. They’re survival codes.

Collectivist families learned interdependence because that’s what kept communities alive through war, displacement, and rebuilding.

For us, love isn’t about letting go — it’s about holding on.

Whiteness taught us to worship independence. Migration taught us that independence without interdependence is just isolation.

The financial freedom paradox

Money tells the same story, just in numbers.

For many migrant families, money equals safety. You save first, spend later, plan for every crisis that might come. For many white Australian families, money equals freedom — you earn to live, not to hoard.

Different philosophies, both valid.

But when we look at each other’s habits, we misunderstand the motive.

Migrant parents might think, “Why don’t they save?” White parents might think, “Why don’t they let their kids spend?”

Because we’re all playing with inherited fear.

We’re all trying to heal our parents’ fears — just in different currencies.

For migrants, saving is safety — a hedge against unpredictability.For the mainstream, spending is self-trust — a statement that tomorrow will be okay.

Both come from stories of what’s been lost and what’s never been guaranteed again.

The gendered weight of care

Now, layer gender into that equation and the story deepens again.

In many collectivist families, daughters are raised to carry the cultural conscience — to be good, grateful, responsible, and self-sacrificing.

Sons often inherit the pride and pressure to “make it,” to succeed as proof of the family’s worth.

So when our daughters grow up in a Western context that says “be bold, be you,” it collides head-on with a home culture that whispers “be careful, don’t forget your place.”

And who mediates that conflict? The mothers. Always the mothers.

Migrant mums are the emotional translators — the ones negotiating between old values and new worlds, between “duty” and “dreams.”

We’re raising our children to belong here, but we’re also trying to protect them from what broke us back there.

That’s why it’s not just parenting — it’s healing in public.

The parent as bridge and battleground

Parenting between cultures is like running two operating systems on one device — constant updates, frequent crashes, and no manual.

You’re debugging inherited trauma while writing a new code for your kids. We carry our parents’ hopes in one hand and our children’s confusion in the other.

We question our tone, our discipline, our boundaries — not because we’re unsure, but because we’re aware of being watched through someone else’s cultural lens.

That awareness is exhausting. But it’s also powerful. Because it means we get to choose which traditions to keep — and which to retire with gratitude.

So, who’s really lucky?

Maybe neither. Maybe both.

Luck depends on what you’ve lost, what you’ve inherited, and what you’re still trying to protect.

The migrant mindset gave us endurance. The Western one gave us voice.

The next generation can have both — if we stop competing and start choosing what stays, what goes.

Because maybe the real goal isn’t to decide which culture got it “right,” but to unlearn who taught us to measure ourselves by someone else’s definition of freedom.

If you grew up between cultures — or are raising kids who are — what part of your upbringing do you want to pass on, and what part do you want to unlearn?

That’s where belonging begins. Not in sameness — but in sovereignty.