TikTok user’s post about ‘weaponized incompetence’ from immigrant parents sparks discussion
By Bryan Ke
August 18, 2023
A first-generation Vietnamese American woman sparked a discussion on TikTok after she s
About her realization: Hannah Ngo (@hannynutcheerios) shares her realization in a TikTok video uploaded on Aug. 5, which has since been viewed over 175,000 times.
Weaponized incompetence is when a person acts as if they are helpless or incompetent — either consciously or unconsciously — to avoid certain tasks or responsibilities, thus making someone else do it for them.
Claudia de Llano, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told Very Well Mind that this could “create an imbalance in the relationship because one partner is over-functioning and the other is under-functioning.”
Returning home: In her video, Ngo explains that she thought she would experience the “true extent of weaponized incompetence” after getting married, but she realized that she has been subjected to it her “entire life” after she went back home to stay with her immigrant parents.
Ngo shares that after returning home, her parents suddenly “forgot how to do any basic tasks and problem-solving,” such as booking online appointments, even though they both have smartphones and computers.
She also shares that her parents always say her English is better than theirs because she was born in the U.S., which prompts her to ask, “So how are they doing things like reading the mail for the past five years before I moved back home?”
What people are saying: Many TikTok users agreed and empathized with Ngo’s situation, with one user commenting, “This is why I struggle with hyper independence and hate when people rely on me so much. If I can use my brain, so can you.”
“Mine aren’t even immigrants, they just refused to learn as they got older. I literally had to drive two hours for an ‘emergency’…sending an email,” another user shared.
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