I (22M) live at home with my parents, Mom (58F) and Dad (67M). While I hope I don’t think I have to explain why as a 22-year-old man I still live with my parents, my dad works as a maintenance director and my mom works as a Catholic school teacher teaching first-graders. For some background, my dad‘s education is in architectural engineering and my mom‘s education is in music. Prior to becoming a Catholic school teacher, the only job that she held for 20 years since coming to America, since the 2000’s, was being a substitute teacher for my local high school, and being a substitute teacher for a bunch of nearby schools around our school district. Basically, when the school needed a substitute teacher to rely on when teachers were out, she was the main substitute to contact. She was that substitute that everyone in school knew. Then flash-forward, post-COVID, she applied to be a real, full-time teacher at some Catholic school that were hiring after leaving public education for about four years when the Covid pandemic lockdowns happened and all schools went online, and then she got hired! In fact, this is her first time actually ever being hired for a teaching job that was not substitute-related!

My mom works at a Catholic school and was initially a teaching assistant last year, and has now been promoted to be lead teacher for all first grade. She even gets her own personal teaching assistant! That includes teaching all first graders English, science, and math. When she first told me the news, I couldn’t be even more happier because she will be getting paid more and currently right now our finances are not doing so good which means that all of us- Mom, Dad, and I- all have to get full-time jobs and save as much money to fix our financial situation (of which would be way too long of a story to get into but that’s not particularly relevant). My mom teaches from a curriculum/practice workbook where it contains all of the assignments and lessons, such as filling in the blanks, underlining stuff, circle this and that, you know typical school curriculum. It’s basically an English practice workbook that she gives out to all of her students she has that she does with her students to teach them the lesson. Stuff like “underlined which is the sentence”, “circle which of the following is a word”, “fill in the blank with the correct meaning”, etc. Basically a blank English workbook that she does with the students to teach them English that she gives out. Workbook work. You get it?

Now, here’s the spicy part and the main problem of all this and why they think I’m a bad person: both of my parents are basically, functionally illiterate in the English language. Yes, you read that right- my mom, who teaches English at the first grade level, is essentially illiterate in English. Both of my parents are immigrants from the Balkans. They came to America in the very late 90s-turn of the 2000’s from the Balkans and had a very difficult time learning English. It was very hard and to this day they still have difficulties with English. In fact, English is not even my own first language, it’s actually my third language. I am also their only American son- born and raised in FL. Now, they can definitely speak English, they can understand spoken English to them, however, they essentially cannot read or write in English for the most part.

Now, you may be wondering “OK, tf, but how are they able to even get jobs or maintain one if they can’t read or write in English?”…that’s because I do everything for them. Everything. I write ALL of my dad’s work emails, his invoices and text messages to clients, court letters and responses, and the same goes for my mom with her emails, text messages, and her cover letter. I even took my mom‘s online substitute teacher certificate because she couldn’t do it in English. That’s how she was able to get hired at her Catholic school. I’ve been doing it ever since I was in middle school. I think this is a universal experience that all or most first-gen-American children of immigrants do for their immigrant parents, where we’re the ones that usually write all their emails and text messages for them because they can’t write or do it in English.

The problem is that they never learned how to write in English on their own without my help, and that’s primarily due to two reasons: 1.) if I don’t help them, I’m a bad son who doesn’t care about them (“I’ve given you my life”, “I’ve given everything up for you, you disrespectful son” immigrant-type-shit stuff they say) 2.) because I still live under their roof, as I do not make enough money, I have to obey them and if I don’t I get kicked out. At the very least, if I ever have any minor disagreements with them, it starts a huge fight and I basically get grounded (welcome to living with immigrant parents as a grown adult). I feel like I have no choice but to cave it. Basically, I’ve had to do all of their stuff in English for them and they really never learned on their own. Now, I know it wasn’t so wise of me to always cave into their every demand, however, I am literally their only son and they’ve done a lot for me and I don’t like fighting with my parents.

When I first heard that my mom will be teaching first graders English, I kinda got a little bit scared because my mom doesn’t even know basic English herself however I thought that maybe this time she would finally get to learn English- but nope, I was wrong. Last night, she came into my room and said “Son, can you please help me do my work for me? I don’t know what this says? What does this mean ‘Circle in the sentence’?”, “Son, can you please do this lesson for me just once and I promise I will learn” type of stuff. The problem is that when she was a teaching assistant for a lead teacher prior to being promoted, when she first got hired, I would have to do all of her lab assignments, all of the homework planning, her lesson planning, all of the reading planning, and all of the materials planning for her because she couldn’t know how to do it in English by herself- or hell, even with me! “Just this once” became every single school night. Her coworkers applaud her for being able to teach so effectively because I do all of her planning work for her. Nearly all of it. Shes never learned how to do anything in English on her own. I had enough. So, I stood my ground and said “Mom, you are a first grade English teacher, you’re a lead teacher for your Catholic school, you have to do your planning on your own, I cannot be there to help you or else you will never learn” and it erupted into a huge fight.

It culminated in a huge fight, resulting in my dad screaming at me, telling me that I am “a nasty son” who hates his own mom because “she gave her life to you, you fucking piece of shit” and my mom telling me “I’m not a teacher, I needed the money because it’s the only job that I can get, you have to do all the planning for me” and how I’m a terrible son. We only stopped fighting because my mom had to remind all of us that it’s Good Friday and it’s a sin to fight on Good Friday and now we’re all just really mad at each other because I won’t do my mom her planning material for her in English.

So Reddit, am I the asshole? Am I, what my dad would call, “a nasty son”?