June 8th, 2026 - Firstborn Immigrant Daughter
Dear TNY,
I was devastated to find out today was the fiction issue, because I didn’t want to read that much, and I started with “Firstborn Immigrant Daughter”.
And I think it’s poop.
Now, it’s not the case that I don’t get it with this piece. I do get it. It’s actually really easy to get, unlike some of your other pieces. But fucking (not “buttfucking”, although that reminds me of a time I was at a bowling alley as the DD with some friends from my Amazon job way back, but it was just one friend who had a bunch of other drunk friends and they were the cool kids, you could just tell, if you were me and not cool you could tell, and I laughed so hard I got cramps, but there was a guy who would just jump into any conversation, and I mean any conversation, strangers or otherwise, and wait until there was a lull and just say, “Um, yous guys ever see a buttfuckin’?!)…so what.
The author paid a lot of attention to ensure that we see the validation and the struggle for both the daughter and the mom. But, from my own personal experience, all the bullshit the daughter was dealing with, all this modern fucking jargon and justification of being soft pieces of shit while offering nothing to humanity, that didn’t ring all that emotionally inducing for me. I couldn’t find even an iota of empathy for her issues. What she was yearning for was to find herself, but when you look at the absolute wasteland that is the current understanding of emotionally healthy, then what outcome can you receive other than that you are the victim? That you were born perfect and you eschew all that has been done for you or otherwise in favor of a brighter, more “understood” future. Wrong. It’s just a bunch of fucking whining without any human value behind it. What do you make? What do you do? You just want to be free? Have value? Join the club. It takes learning independence from the systems you utilized to, say, flush the fucking toilet, grow food, fix your A/C, keep the server running that keeps your weekly tiktok videos up, etc. So, the daughter does not generate empathy to me because she seems to believe she has all the tools to live successfully, but doesn’t seem to have any fucking skills whatsoever that actually define living other than eating, breathing, and sleeping; and to be sure, likely some immigrants are handling her ability to be on the tail end of a long line of effort that goes into making sure she can do those three things.
The mom? I get the mom’s side. Of course. But also, give it up, dude. I don’t have empathy for you either. You push too hard. Of course she won’t listen. Of course we damage our children. But at some point you stop pushing. They move on. They do their own shit. And to not have the self-awareness to realize that you are just providing the same shit life that you didn’t want because that’s all you know how to provide? Lame. Be smarter. Teach them to actually be free.
I’m fucking tired of writing about these two. And then, there’s the narrator. Who, I found myself wondering what his or her deal was, but ultimately didn’t care. And why would I? He or she doesn’t do it for me either.
I can’t figure out what this story is for. But that’s a theme these days.
Well, three more to go.
Nick
