The Healing Powers of Changing a Diaper

I just got back from the 2025 Asian Diaspora Jam and have been reflecting on my time there. Jams are always such healing and nurturing spaces, and there’s so much to integrate afterward.

This year, we were joined by our little one, Yexin (who we call Yeye), who turned 11 months the day after the Jam ended. I was on baby-care duty a lot of the time, so I ended up missing quite a few of the sessions. But honestly, I didn’t feel like I missed anything. It felt like Yeye and I had our own Jam—woven into the larger one. Our time together came with its own lessons, tears, breakdown/breakthroughs, and moments of deep intergenerational healing.

Twice, I found myself walking with them asleep on my chest in the carrier, crying my eyes out lol!

I usually have the morning shift with them, which looks like an hour of play, breakfast, and then our daily morning walk. She usually falls asleep on me within minutes of being put in the carrier, and I walk for an hour while listening to a podcast. It’s become a sweet and grounding daily ritual for me—and, I hope, for them too.

The Quaker Center, where the Jam was held, has a beautiful labyrinth. On our first morning, I decided to walk it. As I approached the entrance, I was reminded of the many deep, spiritual experiences I’ve had walking that same path. So I turned off my podcast and stepped in silently, curious about what it might offer me this time.

As I entered and calmed my spirit, my mind naturally turned to loving Yeye. I do this often—focus all my energy on sending love to this little one sleeping with their head against my chest. I try to infuse every cell of their body with the knowing that they are deeply, deeply loved. I want every ounce of her to feel it.

And as I think about how much I love this beautiful being, I’m filled with joy. But emotions are funny - joy and grief often sit side by side. They can feel like two sides of the same coin, sometimes blending into one another. As I sat with that joy, a tinge of grief began to rise.

Me and the little Yeye

Since becoming a father, I found out from my mother that my own father—who died when I was eleven—never changed a single diaper. He had three kids—six, eleven, and sixteen when he passed—and not one single diaper. For some reason, that has stuck with me, and I’ve been talking about it nonstop for the past 11 months.

I’ve realized that it’s not just about the diapers. The diapers (or lack thereof) has come to symbolize something much larger: the ways that Asian/Japanese patriarchy stripped him of the ability to nurture, to be affectionate, to be silly, to express love in the ways that are natural to all human beings. It limited his ability to love us.

Of course, I don’t doubt that he did love us. But the ways he was socialized limited how he could express that love—and maybe even how deeply he could feel it.

And I realized that this is what I grieve every time I touch the depths of my love for Yeye. I grieve the kind of relationship I never had with my father. It’s not about the diapers. It’s about the affection and nurturing that were missing.

When I sing to Yeye, when I let my silliness run wild, when I kiss them as I tell them how much I love them, when I hold them as they cry—or cry while holding them—when I send love into every cell of their body, I’m overwhelmed with joy. And in doing so, I feel more whole. I tap into something deeply human—this innate capacity for tenderness and care.

And I grieve that I never had that with my father. That his love for me was confined to what was culturally available to Asian men at the time—buying toys, taking us on vacations. And while I cherish those memories, I have very few of him holding me. I never saw him cry. Even when he told us he had cancer and only six months to live, he didn’t shed a tear.

I used to feel angry. My thoughts sounded something like: “Fuck the patriarchy—I’m going to be a better father than that.” But the labyrinth reminded me it’s not a competition. I’m not angry at him. If anything, I’m angry for him.

Angry that he never got to fully express the love I know was in him. That he never got to cry with me. That he never got to tear down the walls around his heart.

And if I slow down enough, I can see that beneath the anger is grief. A deep sadness—not just that I never received that kind of love, but that he never got to give it. I feel sad for him, because it feels so good to love unflinchingly.

Walking the labyrinth, I realized the healing I need is not in my relationship with my father because my father’s pain lives in me. His pain and my pain are intertwined. As I heal, I heal him. As his pain softens, my body can soften too.

And all it takes to begin healing that wound is the simple, joyful act of loving my child. Imagine that. Just by loving, I get to heal. Not just for myself, but for him, for his father, and for all the generations of men who couldn’t fully love.

Many people have reflected to me lately that I seem more affectionate, sillier. And I can see it in myself. When I’m with Yeye, all I want to be is silly and affectionate. I sing and dance more carelessly. I feel freer. Yeye has helped me reclaim parts of myself I had pushed away. I used to be afraid people would think I was weird if I let my silliness out. Or judge my singing if I sang too loud.

But reclaiming those parts of me makes me more whole. And wholeness isn’t just about being silly or affectionate or nurturing. It’s about reconnecting and integrating with my father—and with all my ancestors.

Full, unhindered and active expressions of love are acts of intergenerational healing.

My father died when he was 43. I was 43 when Yeye was born. That still confuses me. My memories of him stop at 43, and I’ll always remember him as my father. I remember looking up to him, literally and metaphorically.

But he was younger than I am now when he told us he was dying. He was younger than I am now when he took his last breath. I still can’t make sense of that.

But the healing I’ve received from Yeye helps me begin to make sense of it. I am my father. In this interdependent world, he lives in me. And at 43 years old, a baton was passed. From that moment on, any healing I can do is healing that he never got to.

And all I need to do is the simplest thing: to love.