Life Kit

How to talk to a parent about their past

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You might not know a lot about your parent's life before they had you: their childhood dreams, their first love, their heartbreaks. If you're a child of immigrants, there might be even less you know due to language barriers or traumatic experiences. But all of these things are passed down through generations. This episode, journalist and writer Aarti Shahani interviews Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, and three other writers about how to unpack your parent's past with them — and how doing so can both bring you closer and help you better understand yourself.

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