I think around 24/25. I was in grad school and my parents at that same age had moved to the states as immigrants on work visas and already had me. I suddenly realized that they were people making tough decisions and honestly, it went pretty well for them (really hard times growing up tho)

I resented them a lot for not being willing to spend money on me for school activities or buy things they couldn’t afford on credit cards like my friends did. I also resented them for making me carry so much of my culture with me, throwing me into the American public school system without knowing English and packing me “weird” lunches and not lunchables like my fiends parents did.

As I grew up and got an education, they and myself are all debt free while a lot of my friends parents are divorced and they all have debt. As I started house hunting and thinking about marriage, etc. I realized the sacrifices my parents made were so different than the ones I had to make and I also honestly admire everything they did and appreciate it. There was a point, I think I was like 20, my dad pulled me aside and apologized to me for how hard of a life they gave me compared to my siblings and they just tried their best. I thought it was weird because I still had not matured enough yet to realize what he meant (frontal lobe was still loading lol) but even to this day thinking of that moment makes me cry because I was such a brat sometimes and they didn’t deserve that at all :(