EINTY- The Struggles of Communication

Every family has its problems. I think we all can relate to this statement but just how much? Celeste Ng dives into a particular families issues in her novel Everything I Never Told You. She reveals how lack of communication between parents and their kids can lead to emotional consequences.

In this novel, when Lydia, the family favourite, is found dead the rest of the family is left trying to cope. But before Lydia was found dead this family still had many problems. It all started when Marilyn and James first married and made a pact, “To let the past drift away, to stop asking questions, to look forward from then on, never back” (Ng 49). This changed the way they lived, talked to each other, and raised their kids. They never tell their kids about what they went through in school, how Marilyn experienced sexism and how James experienced racism. This causes their kids to believe their parents don’t understand what they are going through during the school day. So, instead of confiding in their parents, Nath, Lydia and Hannah close themselves off—not having a healthy outlet to talk to.

Lydia was also HEAVILY favored by her parents, while her siblings, Nath and Hannah, were ignored.

Marilyn and James focused all their time on Lydia, working extremely hard to make sure Lydia would not have the same childhood that they had. Marilyn wants for Lydia to be a successful, independent woman while James wants Lydia to be popular and have asocial life.  Parents putting pressure on their kids is normal, but Marilyn and James push Lydia an unreasonable amount. Ng communicates this weird family dynamic when she writes about James buying Lydia a book on, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (Ng 175). James does not tell Lydia how he understands what it’s like to be the only Asian at a school, or how all he wants is for Lydia to have more of a social life than he did. And because James doesn’t say any of this to Lydia, she is left offended and hurt.

All the characters in the novel have so much to say, yet they don’t know how to say it. Ng portrays this exceptionally in Everything I Never Told You. She writes from different characters perspectives showing us what each character is thinking—but not saying. Ng reveals just how much lack of communication between parents and their children can create an unhealthy environment for the kids to grow up in. Her effective writing caused me to think about family dynamics and unnecessary pressures that parents put on their kids. Everything I Never Told You relates so much to modern day families and parent-child dynamics. Her interesting storyline following a mixed race family, along with her writing style creates an engaging and eye opening story, which I really enjoyed.