My Mom grew up during the Vietnam war as the eldest of 10 siblings, and then she became a mom and then an elementary school teacher. So it’s fair to say that starting at the age of 2, Mom has been the caretaker of younger children, at the expense of her own childhood.

Growing up, despite our incessant pleading, Mom forbade us to have pets. I assumed she was just being the typical pet-hating, strict Asian Tiger mom depicted on TV shows and movies. So of course, I unleashed on her all the typical repugnant teenage attitude even well into my young adult years. When I was 29, I let her know that I was bringing my first puppy Lou home with me, somewhat as an act of adulthood rebellion.

She once again implored me against getting a pet. But this time she told me the REAL story behind her objection.

“You have no idea the pain when your pet dies.”

She said as she reminisced through misty eyes and trembling voice the ill-fated puppy who was her only childhood companion - the short childhood that swiftly brushed by like transient summer breeze grazing across golden rice fields, before scorching napalm odor set the kite-dotted azure sky ablaze with malignant reminders that childhood is a luxury in the crossfires of battles.

My mom is far from a unique case, as there is an entire generation of misjudged parents who still bear the unhealed wounds marred on their stunted inner child by a war that they were not responsible for. But perhaps, healing that inner child is possible when we remember that we can empathize just as quickly as we can judge and ridicule.