Finding a balance between work and family life is a challenge for most people at some point in their career, but it can be especially tough on the children of immigrants. First-generation children often serve as their parents' guide to their new world, assisting with the management of the household and sometimes even with financial support. For many, those responsibilities don't end when the children are grown and have jobs and families of their own.  

"I'm 60 and [my parents] are 90, and I've been in this country for 54 years, so that means my mother has been here for 54 years as well," says Ginny Gong, head of OCA, director for the Montgomery County Community Use of Public Facilities in Maryland, and a first generationer of Chinese descent. "In spite of all the years I'm still first generation and there is still this dependency on me, the oldest child, to come home, read the letters and sift through to decide what can be thrown away and what needs to be responded to."

Gong grew up in the back of a Chinese laundry in New York City after arriving in this country in 1954 at the age of 6.

"As a young child … I had to cook meals when I was 10 because my parents were always busy working. Any translation, anything dealing with school, if my brother was ever in trouble, if he was ever absent, I wrote all the absentee notes. Fortunately for them we grew up okay. But we could have gone in a different direction."

Gong's story is not unique. There are more than 30 million first-generation natives in the United States whose parents were born in a foreign country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That number expands if you include people like Gong who came to this country at a young age with their families. And while many are working hard to succeed in their own lives, family responsibilities can present a major obstacle if they don't know how to find a good balance.  

"[First generationers] feel guilty that we're not there to help our parents because they needed us," adds Gong. "I think that as immigrants we have to never forget our roots but we also have to be able to have the wings carry us places where we are able to be successful in our adopted country."

If you are a first generationer struggling to balance family and career, here are five tips from others who have been there and found ways to cope.

Stay focused.

If you are fresh out of college and in search of your first career, stay focused even if you still have to contribute at home.

"My mom doesn't work; my dad is the only one who works at home," says Andrea Bedoya, a recent college grad who moved to this country from Colombia when she was 10. "[When] I graduated I felt it was time for me to go out and help him. I have four part-time jobs; I tutor a girl; I work in Newark; I work at a Vet's office. Right now that is the hardest thing for me: [keeping] my jobs."

But Bedoya is not letting her immediate work issues derail her from her ultimate goal of being a therapist.

"I want to get a doctorate in psychology," she said. "I am planning to apply to a program and if I don't get accepted, I will do my master's first and then apply again, but I definitely want to get a doctorate degree [because] I want to do private therapy and work with the Latino community."

Be upfront with your employer.

"Always be upfront with your boss, with the company, with the HR people. Be upfront with your team if you're in a position of leading people," says Ana Mollinedo Mims, managing director of The Hunting Ridge Group and former vice president of global communications, community affairs and diversity for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, no. 19 on The 2008 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® list. Mims moved to the United States with her family from Cuba when she was a little girl. "People are going to get that. There are a lot of people in that situation."

Whether you're on the job search, entering a new job or you are dealing with recent changes in your family, especially with parents who have always heavily relied on you, honesty is the best policy.

"When people are interviewing me they always ask, 'Is there something else you want us to know?' And I'm always like, 'Yeah, [my husband and I] are the primary providers for my parents and there are occasions where they're going to have needs that I have to attend to,'" says Mims. "First of all, I lay it out in the interview process because most people get that and most people are happy to assist in that. It makes bosses feel good to know that they're helping you achieve something that's important to you because they know if that's taken care of you're going to be more focused on work."

Set boundaries with your parents.

Children of immigrants are given a lot of responsibilities at an early age, especially if the parents do not speak English. Those responsibilities continue into the child's adult life and could possibly interfere with work.

"I got married when I was 40, so my whole life up until then was just … I'd call [my parents] every day and they felt like they had open access to me all the time and I had to set protocols around them," explains Mims. "I'd tell them, 'You can't just call me and expect me to be there. You can call me and leave a message, but you can't call me and tell my assistant she needs to go find me and start quizzing [her] on 'When will she be there? When will she be back?'"

Setting boundaries can be positive for everyone, even if your parents don't think so at first.

"I set parameters around the calls so that I know that if [my parents] do X, that means it's an emergency," says Mims. "If my assistant comes into a meeting or conference room that I'm sitting in and slips me a paper, 'Your parents are on the line and they need to talk to you right now,' that's going to be a signal that there's been an emergency and I need to stop because it is a matter of life or death, financial disaster or some other crisis."

If you have siblings … make it a group effort.

Sometimes, even if there are multiple children in the family, one child can find herself shouldering all the responsibilities of her parents, especially if she's the oldest. Getting your siblings involved and sharing those responsibilities can make things much more manageable. Make it a team effort. Assign specific days where each of you attend to your parents' needs.

"If you have siblings and other family members, set something up with them," Mims says. "My parents know not to call me from New York to Fort Lauderdale on some crazy thing. My brother and my sister live down there. It's like, 'You can call them for these other things, and when I get home if you still need advice I'll give you advice.' I would say the more you can it lay out like that, the better."

Focus on the task at hand, whether at work or at home.

"When I go home to be with my mother I'm the dutiful Chinese daughter," says Gong. "That means you sit and you watch Chinese opera and you knit things that have a thousand holes but it's OK because that's important to my parents."

After the family visit, when you are back in the office, the hat you are wearing should change. Your focus is now on work.

"But when I'm not home and I'm out there in mainstream society I have to be very self-reliant; I have to be assertive," says Gong. "I head an agency here in the county and I have to be able to step up to the plate and make a lot of decisions and resolve conflicts that I would never have to think about if I lived at home." 

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