Context: Asian-American family, and I really really really hate how interpersonal relationships work for Asians.
Because we live in America, it makes my mother’s friends back in Asia feel entitled to give every America-related request to them. Her English isn’t good, which means I have to do whatever they need to do. Every single time. These requests are not small things, and some of them cost thousands of dollars – we don’t have to pay, but it’s just a huge responsibility to do something that could go so badly wrong. But no they feel like they start out small, so she just helps, and she doesn’t know how to say no.
I just don’t know how to tell my mother that just because she is the “friend that lives in America”, it does not mean everyone can just send all their stupid requests to her and have it done. If I can’t do that, then, well as fucked up as that is, if she wants to be a doormat to be walked over, by all means she has that right, but she has no right to force my father or me to give up our time to help her do these things. How do I get this through to her?
I get interpersonal relationships work different (for worse) in Asia, but my god there has to be some kind of boundary I can make her set, right?