Today I found a solution for when mom drives me nuts

[EFerrari]

4. I could never do that.

The taking care of family, especially parents, Latino ethic was drilled into me so profoundly at an early age it's sort of part of my personality. It would feel like being a loose tooth.

When my cousin and I saw "Like Water for Chocolate" in our 30s -- a movie about how the oldest girl is supposed to relinquish her claim to autonomy or a love interest and take care of her mother as a career -- we laughed out loud through the whole movie because that was so true for us.

Some of our generational peers managed to escape, though, and our children were brought up in a different culture, although imo, the mainstream one goes too far in the other direction of enforcing separation from family as some kind of achievement.