I moved to the US and send money back home every month. Since becoming a parent, I've had to set more boundaries around payments.

Photo courtesy of Aissatou Guisse; Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Aissatou Guisse, a 31-year-old Microsoft employee in Atlanta about the pressure to send money home to relatives in Senegal. The following has been edited for length and clarity.