Fresh Take: Jyoti Chand, FITTING INDIAN

0:00Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crocs store today. Hi, everybody. Today's excellent fresh take involves discussions of some difficult topics, including self-harm, suicide, and alcohol and drug use. If those are not comfortable subjects for you or things you want your children hearing, please be advised before you start listening to this episode.

0:51Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it. hello and welcome to what fresh hell laughing in the face of motherhood this is margaret and today i am talking to jothi chand jothi is an author speaker and mental health advocate with a dedicated audience of over 300 000 across social platforms where she is known as at mama jotes her work blends humor vulnerability and cultural insight shaped by stand-up comedy improv, and an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Hamline University. Today, we will be talking about her new book, Fitting Indian. This is her debut graphic novel with a second book already in development.

1:36Welcome, Jyothi. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. This book is kind of right in our strike zone. I feel like covering really serious and emotional and heavy topics with a kind of lightness and a humor blended in. Tell me about your journey to writing this book and why you decided on a graphic novel format, which I think is really interesting. So the book itself is fiction, but it was actually inspired by true events. When I was 18, I attempted to take my own life. And, you know, I'm lucky to be here today, 18 years later, to be able to like talk about it and tell the story.

2:13But the reason this book had to be written is because it was exactly that. It had to be written. Like I had to write it. It was part of my own healing process. And I knew if I had something like this as a Indian girl growing up, like maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone in my struggles. There weren't a lot of brown faces in mainstream media. There still aren't, to be honest, but we've gotten better. And so I wrote this as a graphic novel because I find graphic novels to be the least intimidating books to read. Not everybody likes to read. I am a reader. I will devour anything you put in my hand, But that's not always the case.

2:46And I didn't want this to be a book just for readers. I wanted this to be a book for anybody who felt like they haven't been seen in mainstream media. And so, yeah, the graphic format has been really good for that, especially with the heavy themes of self-harm and alcohol use and suicide. It's so much easier to digest in the cinematic format because there are full pages of just art and especially those really dark, deep pages, because nothing truly needs to be said. It has to be seen. I also love how the use of color to change perspective in the book is really beautiful. Your illustrator, incredible work in this novel.

3:22Yeah, she did amazing. We worked really well together. I wrote in a lot of the art notes in the manuscript, and she was really able to just like take it and run with it. So I'm excited to do a second book with her. Oh, great. The book is from the perspective of a 16-year-old young woman. And in your mind, I mean, it's interesting because I've talked to a lot of people about stuff that happened in childhood. And as a child, I saw those things from the child's point of view. And now as a mom, I have a 16-year-old myself. I see it so clearly from the mother's point of view. And that's been an interesting shift for me.

3:58You are a mom, but your children are younger. How did you approach this? Was it the teenage you telling the story? Were you approaching it more from the mom's point of view? I actually, because I'm able to relate to both perspectives, given that I lived a similar reality to Natasha and I had all my teenage journals to reference, which was really cool. I got to go back and see all the madness and really relive some of those moments. And then now my relationship with my mom is so different than it was when I was younger. And being a mom yourself, you know, when that transition happens, you look at your mom like they're superhuman.

4:35Because you're like, how did you do this? What? I'm so sorry for the grief that I gave you for all those years. All you were doing was your best. And so I think I had this beauty of being able to see both blends. And that's why both the mom and the daughter character and their relationship is such a focal point of the story. Yeah, it's super interesting. We recently talked to Nora Lally, who wrote the book Back to Bainbridge, and very similar, kind of telling a bit of her own story about her relationship with her mother. And I think that that is so useful for teens, because when you're a teen, your mother is this figure.

5:09It's not the most realistic relationship. You kind of see your mom as a villain, an archetype, right? Like either a supervillain or a superhero. And the idea that your mother has an internal life. And I think it's very interesting in the story that the daughter learns that maybe her mother had some similar steps along her own journey, but that mental health basically wasn't available to her. I found that part of it very compelling. Yeah, because of the stigma in South Asian culture, mental health, especially for my parents in their 30s and their 40s, they didn't really get the opportunity to focus on that.

5:48They just had to kind of survive. It was like survival mentality. You know, mental health is a weakness. Like silence is your strength. Don't talk about your problems and move forward. But as we know now, that's not a healthy approach to dealing with our problems and our feelings. And so my mom didn't really get to go through her mental health journey the same way I did. And so it's kind of something we've now as adults, as I'm an adult, bonded on and have talked about. It didn't happen in the span of one year like it did in the book for Natasha. But it did happen over the span of a decade. But I do believe that like that conversation with Natasha and her mom in the book is such a pivotal turning point for Natasha in terms of trust and community because her mom is now human.

6:31All of a sudden her mother became human. And there is a point all of us go through where we see our parents as these, like you said, either the antagonist or the superhero or this, and they're just very one-dimensional figures. And then one day you realize that they had a life before you existed, and they have a life while you're existing that you have known nothing about or understand. And now you all of a sudden, they're this three-dimensional human. And I think that opening up, I mean, it's always interesting to me, We talk to a lot of people who are coming from a particular cultural or racial or background lens, but that there's so much universality to our stories, especially, I think, motherhood.

7:10It has a universality at the center that people recognize and say, wait a minute, this is me as well. And I loved the mother in the book says, talking about having gone to therapy a long time ago. I went once a long time ago, but I was scared to say too much. That line really gave me goosebumps. Like, yeah, it's funny. My own mother was a therapist, so she came to this later in life. But certainly the generation before her would have viewed therapy as very self-indulgent. We're a very Irish family. Self-indulgent, you know, who needs to think and talk this much about yourself? Just get through it.

7:47Put your head down. Amy, my partner's grandmother, has an expression, tweet, tweet. And it's like, oh, it's all a little too much. You know, tweet, tweet. You're going to therapy. Tweet, tweet. But there's something really good about breaking the idea that, I mean, I remember my own mother once talking about a massage. She's like, oh, it was a lot. Like the idea that someone else is rubbing my back and I just lay here. Like it was uncomfortable for her. And so talk a little bit about that specifically through the South Asian lens, like the role of therapy and the resistance to it. Oh, my gosh.

8:20So we knew a lot of doctors growing up. There's a lot of people in our family in medicine and all of that. But we didn't have anyone in mental health growing up. And when I first went to therapy, my dad literally said, and I told him, it was after my attempt, I tried to go to therapy. And I told him I'm going to therapy. And he's like, well, don't tell them anything too personal. That sounds right. You're like, I don't think you're understanding the concept. Well, it wasn't until I got older, I actually married a pediatric psychiatrist. Oh, wow. And who really got what I needed. Yeah. And so it's really opened and broadened my family's eyes to mental health because now they're seeing, you know, it's not just me going through things, but we've had other family members like come out with their own forms of mental health concerns.

9:03We've had like some forms of addiction in the family, in the extended family, some forms of bipolar syndrome in the extended family. And now starting to accept it more and be like, oh, there really is science behind this. This isn't just like I'm not feeling good or I'm not happy. there's serotonin levels and medication. And it's just like you have diabetes, you take metformin. If you have anxiety and depression, you can take an SSRI. There's just options. So I think seeing mental health as health is the biggest challenge for the South Asian community. Yeah. Because we are people who believe in medicine and we are people who tell our children to become doctors and like go and pursue that field.

9:40And then it comes to mental health and everyone's like, But is that really that's like, right? I don't know if we do that. Right. And I think in general, the idea, I mean, we talk a lot about performative, you know, Internet living and all sorts of things. But the idea of Natasha says in the book, are we really the only Indian family struggling because that's the way it feels? And I think that a lot of moms might say, are we the only family struggling at all? Because everyone else on the Internet looks like they're on vacation and they're playing board games and they're hugging and they're screaming at each other.

10:19And people aren't putting that part up. And I think that that insight is also very universal. Like, why does everyone else seem happy when I feel like children have made my life much more difficult? Right. Right. And I think that there's a fine line between sharing and oversharing on social media. And as a content creator myself who puts my family out there, like I'm not sharing my child's like mental breakdown on the internet. But I do talk about it a little bit afterwards from my POV, not her POV. I'm not talking about like her punishment or how we got, you know, more so a generalized version to help other moms feel more seen.

10:57So I might pop onto my stories and be like, OK, we're in the midst of potty training right now. and this kid had a meltdown because he pooped in his diaper and you know but i'm not going to show that right because that's a private moment between me and my child and there is a really fine line between sharing that so what happens a lot of the time is we only see the highlight reel on social media and it's like we're playing games we're having fun and yes there are a lot more moms now that do show like the real real and they're filming it which is awesome to see but it's not always the case and it's really hard not to fall into a comparison of it right why can that person do it and I can't?

11:31Why can't they play a game with their kid of Monopoly? And it's not all over the floor. And how come their kids aren't fighting? I don't understand. Why is their house clean? Where are the children? Where are the children? And also being more transparent about the help that we have. I, as a creator, know that I've been in both boats. I've had zero help because I had two toddlers in COVID. And then I have had a nanny since the beginning of this year. And it is night and day, you guys, like the amount of things I get done with help. The second is better is what you're saying. It really is. Like, I don't know why I slept on it so long, but I also think being transparent about that as a creator and an influencer is super important because it may look like I'm doing a million things, but I'm not doing it alone.

12:11I got the nanny. Right. I got mom and dad who will fly in. I got my husband who's an active, active parent, even though he's a physician, he's home, he's active and everyone's doing their part, you know? Yeah. It makes a big difference. I'm talking to Jyothi Chand, and she is the author of Fitting Indian, a new graphic novel, and we will be right back. We wanted to share a terrific new children's album with you. It's called Magnificent, and it's by Lachi, a Grammy-nominated musician and author. Lachi's work focuses on inclusion and helping kids feel confident in who they are. It's one of those albums that parents can enjoy as much as their little ones.

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16:00So bring your pack together at a lodge near you. Learn more at greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack. so we just did an episode speaking about this on jealousy and talking about this idea of people are looking at each other on the internet and why is it what on summer vacation when i'm stuck in the house with the air conditioning not working and we had a really interesting conversation about jealousy and how it functions and i was thinking reading this book that i think that pressure is another side of the jealousy dice. 100%. Jealousy and pressure are very wrapped up. So this book tells the story of 16-year-old Natasha, and she is the daughter of an Indian family.

16:46Her brother is a doctor. He's dating a lawyer. They seem perfect, and she is always feeling like she's disappointing the people. So talk a little bit about pressure and where it's coming from and why I think a lot of kids are dealing with it. If we're just going back to my own story and my own childhood, but which obviously inspired Natasha's story. Right. It's the pressure of being a good Indian girl. The adjective can't change. We have to keep good, but the noun can. So it's like good Indian daughter, good Indian student, good Indian wife. Those are the things that we were conditioned to be.

17:18And we were not conditioned to be disappointments. And so if we don't fit into that very nice, finely made box, we easily feel like a disappointment. And I did growing up because I didn't want to be. I was loud. And I was, I spoke. I just said what I wanted to say. And, you know, that was considered talking back. And my dad would always tell me this one line. And he's like, and I have to preface this with my dad is one of the best fathers in the world. I love him so dearly. And he only did the best he could with what he had. But even then, for his generation, he was an anomaly of a father and treated me like a son, if that makes sense.

17:52In our culture, that's a big deal. I wasn't treated different than my brothers. Say more about that. What does it mean? Culturally, men and women are treated very differently. Men are allowed to do a lot more. Like sons are allowed to do a lot more than women are. Sons are allowed to dress the way they want to dress where women aren't and things like that. But my dad taught me how to change attire at 16. And he really like put me out into the world without any hesitation, just like I was my brothers. I had a job at 16, which a lot of people were like, why is she working? Why is she doing that?

18:21She shouldn't be working. She's a girl kind of thing. or just little things like I started dating in high school. My parents accepted that pretty openly. So they're very like non-traditional, in a traditional sense. Interesting. But even on top of that, my dad used to tell me, say less. He was telling me to like protect myself by saying less. Don't share, don't overshare. And I'm an overshare. My life's on the internet. Right. And an author and all sorts of good things have come from your oversharing, but yes. I think that because they were taught silence is strength, they pass that on to us. But that's just creating more generational trauma of us holding in this emotion and holding in these feelings and just being like, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine.

19:04And I didn't want to pass that on to my kids. Right. And that was one of those things I had to fully, fully revamp at our house. It's interesting because having a teenage daughter, now a young teenager, it is a very complicated thing to have a teenage daughter in 2025, I'm sure in 1985, in 1955, that you come from, I think, a perspective of wanting to protect. You want the best for your kid, right? But that sometimes society's best is not really what's best for your kid. Right. But like I find with having a teenage daughter that I think of myself as very open minded and I'm not going to put stuff on her.

19:42But when she goes out in a certain outfit to the mall, I'm a little bit like, whoa, whoa, whoa. The weirdos are going to come out of the woodwork when they see, you know, it's a balance of like, I don't want to put broken society on you, but I also don't want you walking into broken society unprepared. prepared. And I think people do come at it from the best of intentions, but it's quite easy to get lost in, I think. Yes, it really is. And, you know, with that, I get that. Like, I have a seven year old daughter and if her shorts are too short, I'm like, hey, why don't you go put on some pants before I go to the park or longer shorts?

20:16You could wear those in the house. That's fine. And it's hard because I catch myself and I'm like, I also need to be teaching my sons that just because somebody's wearing short shorts doesn't mean you have to look at their bum. Right. Or certainly not comment on it please gentlemen right and some of it is having trust in your child that they know what they're doing but also like do we trust society yet and that's where the question is no we definitely don't we do not not everyone's instilling this in their kids they're not like oh sons like consent and we want to wish that people we have this hope that people are doing that and there's probably more people doing it now than there was 10 years ago but it's not enough right and it still makes us nervous if my daughter's going to walk out in a tube top with her midriff showing i want to feel confident and great, but I also have to feel confident that like nothing's going to happen to her.

21:02Yeah. And I do think that that compassion that you talk about for your own parents as you write about your experience, which was not all positive. I love that perspective, both for mothers and for daughters, that we are just people trying to figure this out. We do not have answers. And there is especially reflected in this book, a lot of voices at play, which is still very true whether or not you're part of a large family or you're just a participant in the internet. I love the kind of chorus of the grandmother, who's quite harsh, the mother, who's kind of in the middle, and then the daughter.

21:39Nobody is neutral on how Natasha moves through the world. Right. Everyone has a different weight of opinion. And the matriarch of the family, the grandmother, really represents that old mindset of you will listen and you will make this family look good. And if you don't, then you are out. That's a very older mindset where the mother has struggled and felt what Natasha has felt, but didn't know how to approach it when she felt it. But she didn't want her daughter to feel the same way that she felt, which was alone. So let's talk about breaking cycles, because it's something that we talk a lot about.

22:13And I think that it's something that people write a lot about on our Facebook group. I think when people become mothers, they want to be the best. They want to do it right. And a lot of times that means defining yourself in opposition in some degrees to the way that you were raised. And so there's two parts of that. One is that we can overcorrect a little bit sometimes, right? That if you're only defining yourself in opposition, you may be still very connected to that past. So let's talk about that aspect first. Breaking a cycle without going too crazy on the pendulum swing. That's the thing is people say like our parents didn't, you know, heal our generational trauma.

22:54But I think every generation heals a little bit of it. Right. We can't do it all in one generation. Right. And I don't think we should try. It seems like a lot on us. It's enough to get dinner on the table without necessarily, you know, solving generational trauma. I always tell my husband, our kids are going to be in therapy talking about us when they're 18. And he's like, well, at least they're in therapy. I was like, what? There you go. We have solved a problem. Yes. And that's not my biggest fear. I know that I'm not going to be perfect as a parent. And yes, I think that's all of us. There's no such thing.

23:26But I do pick and choose where I focus in on. And one of those things is emotional intelligence. I feel like the thing that I lacked a lot of was naming my emotions and understanding how to cope with them. Also, being married to a pediatric psychiatrist, I have a lot of good tools at hand. I bet you do. That must be very handy. So handy to have them around. In-home resource. And so, you know, we really start working on naming those feelings really young. I started with my eldest at like two. Just really, he may not be naming him, but I'm naming it. I'm like, you're feeling really frustrated right now that I'm giving you the pink bowl and you want the blue bowl and the blue bowl is dirty.

23:59So what's our solution right now is that we have a pink bowl or you can have no bowl. Just calling it frustration. Calling it, you're angry right now because your sister took your toy out of your hand. Or like using the word disappointed. I have books with just like all these names of feelings. Because there are so many different ways to feel. And now as an eight-year-old, he can come up to me and he's like, I'm so mad at dad right now. I just feel angry. And I feel like violated. And I feel like, he gives me all these words. He's naming those emotions. And he's feelings. And I'm like, okay, great.

24:32You know, you feel this way. Now how do we feel better? and so then giving them the tools to manage those emotions all right i feel frustrated let me go take out my frustration in a healthy way so in our family we don't do timeouts we do time ins and we never did timeouts growing up because that was considered an american thing right our parents were just like listen or else right right they probably didn't throw like a sandal kind of thing it was a different time back then you could take a belt out and just snap it around like they didn't There was no right. There were no rules. Right. Never was I hurt, but I was scared.