My parents gave up everything to bring me here and I repaid them by being ashamed of their accents in public — I've never forgiven myself for that and I don't think I'm supposed to

I was sixteen, standing in the grocery store checkout line with my mother when she asked the cashier a question about the sale price on tomatoes. Her thick Greek accent wrapped around each word like olive oil on bread, rich and unmistakable. I watched the cashier's face scrunch up, trying to understand, and before I knew it, I was stepping forward, translating my own mother's perfectly clear English into what I thought was "proper" English. The look she gave me in that moment still visits me at 3 AM sometimes.

That wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. Throughout my teenage years in Hamilton, I became the unofficial interpreter for parents who had given up their entire world to bring their children to Canada. Parents who spoke three languages fluently but happened to carry the music of their homeland in their English. Parents who had university degrees that meant nothing here, who scrubbed floors and worked factory lines so their kids could have opportunities they never would.

The weight of their sacrifice was invisible to me then

Growing up in the back of our family's souvlaki shop, doing homework between the prep table and the walk-in fridge while my parents worked their sixth consecutive fourteen-hour day, I thought everyone's life looked like this. I thought all parents came home with their feet swollen, their backs aching, speaking in hushed tones about bills and broken equipment and health inspections. It never occurred to me that they had chosen this life specifically so I wouldn't have to.

My father had run his small shop for decades. My mother kept the books and held everything together. Here, they chopped onions and mopped floors and smiled at customers who complained their souvlaki wasn't authentic enough. They did this without complaint, without bitterness, with only the quiet determination of people who had burned their boats behind them.

But teenagers are cruel in their ignorance, especially to themselves and those closest to them. When my friends came over, I'd rush to answer the door before my parents could greet them. At school events, I'd position myself strategically between my parents and my teachers, ready to smooth over any linguistic rough edges. I perfected the art of the preemptive explanation: "My parents are from Greece," I'd say with a little laugh, as if that excused something that needed excusing.

Shame is a peculiar kind of poison

The thing about being ashamed of your parents' accents is that you're not just rejecting how they speak. You're rejecting their entire journey, their courage, their love made manifest in every mispronounced word they uttered while advocating for you at parent-teacher conferences, defending you to neighbors, or bragging about you to anyone who would listen.

I spent years telling myself I was protecting them. That I was helping. That by jumping in to "translate" or explain, I was making their lives easier. But we all know what we're really doing when we craft these elaborate justifications for our worst impulses. I was protecting myself from the discomfort of being different, of being associated with difference.

The cruelest part? They knew. Of course they knew. Parents always know when their children are ashamed of them. But they loved me anyway, unconditionally, even as I conditioned my love for them on their ability to blend in, to disappear into the suburban landscape of Southern Ontario.

The moment you realize what you've done

There's no single moment of revelation that fixes everything. Instead, it's a series of small recognitions that accumulate like stones in your chest. It's hearing your college roommate mock someone's accent and feeling your stomach turn. It's working in restaurants myself and watching immigrants with PhDs wash dishes while entitled customers treat them like furniture. It's traveling abroad and struggling with languages, experiencing firsthand that vulnerable feeling of not being able to express yourself fully.

But the real awakening came when I was training a new server, a recent immigrant from Syria who apologized constantly for her English. I heard myself saying, "Your English is perfect. Anyone who can't understand you isn't listening hard enough." The words came out automatically, and I realized I was defending her in a way I had never defended my own parents.

That night, I called my mother and listened, really listened, to her voice. I heard the melody of Greece in her vowels, the rhythm of the Mediterranean in her sentences. I heard love in every mispronunciation, sacrifice in every grammatical stumble. I heard home.

Living with what cannot be undone

Some people will tell you that forgiveness is essential, that you need to forgive yourself to move forward. I disagree. Some things we're meant to carry. Some shame serves as a permanent reminder of who we don't want to be, a north star pointing away from our worst selves.

I've never forgiven myself for being ashamed of my parents' accents, and I don't think I'm supposed to. That shame is productive now. It makes me pause when I'm impatient. It makes me kinder to the delivery driver struggling to find the right words. It makes me defender of anyone brave enough to live their life in a second or third language.

My parents are older now, their accents even thicker than before, as if age has allowed their mother tongue to reclaim more territory. When we go out together, they still sometimes look to me when strangers don't understand them. But now I wait. I let them repeat themselves. I let the conversation unfold naturally, awkwardness and all. Because their words, however accented, have more value than my shame ever did.

Final words

The title of this piece suggests I've never forgiven myself, and I haven't. But I've learned that some guilt is meant to be transformative rather than punitive. Every time I hear an accent now, from anywhere in the world, I hear courage. I hear sacrifice. I hear love that transcends language itself. My parents gave up everything to bring me here. The least I can do is hold space for the music in their voices, the same music I was once so desperate to silence. They deserved better than my shame then. But perhaps what matters more is that they, and everyone like them, receive nothing but respect from me now.