notes on motherhood

hello.

i became a mother when i was a teenager.

and before i continue with this letter, i want to say this: i know this subject isn’t easy for everyone. for some, motherhood is a source of pain, not joy. some have lost children. some are longing for them. some are estranged, grieving, or healing from mothers who could not love them well. some carry the ache of a mother who is no longer here. and some are still trying to make peace with the version of motherhood they’ve known or never had.

this essay holds space for all of that. it is not just about the beauty of mothering, but the weight of it. the absences. the fractures. the ghosts that live in the shape of a mother or child. whether you are a mother, were raised by one, lost one, or chose to walk another path entirely, you are seen here. and you are not alone…

motherhood didn’t arrive all at once for me. it came in waves: slow, relentless, sacred. it came through panic and prayer. through holding my breath while holding her tiny body. through the quiet unraveling of the girl i used to be, in a way that made space for something new. motherhood hollowed me out and planted something in its place. something fragile, yet stronger than i thought i could ever be.

it made me softer.

more tired, yes, but also more awake. it made me less certain of everything, but more rooted in the things that truly matter.
and maybe that’s the strangest part of all… how becoming a mother both broke me open and held me together in equal measure.

there are so many books and guides about pregnancy. what to eat, what to avoid, what to expect when you're expecting. people talk about baby showers and birth plans, the glow of anticipation, the rituals of preparation. but no one really tells you what comes after. no one tells you how lonely it can be in the aftermath, in the quiet stretch of days that follow when everything changes but no one checks in. no one tells you what it’s like to become a mother, especially when you’re still a teenager.

as a single teen mom, i existed in between. i wasn’t like the other mothers i met, many of them twice my age and in entirely different life stages. but i also couldn’t relate to the people my age who were still figuring themselves out, untethered and free in a way i couldn’t afford to be. my life was marked by urgency. by decisions that mattered. it felt impossible to find people who understood what it meant to love someone so much your body ached from it, while also navigating the isolation that comes with doing everything alone.

even in university, the disconnect followed me. while my classmates were going out, staying up late, falling in and out of love, i was in lecture halls during the day and folding laundry at night. i worked multiple jobs. i lived in a different rhythm. one that required stamina, sacrifice, and softness all at once.

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i’ve walked through motherhood alone. no co-parent. no built-in village. just me, showing up day after day, building a life from scratch and holding both of us together with whatever i had left. and still, despite everything, i would do it again. every sleepless night. every sacrifice. every stretch of uncertainty. because of all the roles i’ve taken on: student, worker, friend, daughter, writer, etc, the one i’m most proud of is mother. not because it was expected of me, but because it is the one i choose, over and over again, even when no one sees it. even when it’s hard. even when it costs me things i can’t get back.

no one claps for you when you’re doing the quiet, invisible work.
no one applauds when you show up to every pediatric appointment, when you memorize every shoe size, every rash, every cry, every feeling she didn’t yet have language for. no one notices how you become a translator of emotions, a clock that never stops ticking, a mirror for someone else’s needs.

motherhood is made up of these small, unglamorous things. things that go unmentioned and unnoticed, but still shape a whole life.
her life. and yours.

and they say it takes a village, but no one tells you how hard it is to build one from scratch. especially when you’re young and alone and it feels like the world around you is more interested in judging your motherhood than supporting it. sometimes there is no village. sometimes it’s just you showing up anyway.

and somewhere in all of this, i’ve had to mother myself too. in all the places i wasn’t mothered well. i’ve had to figure out how to be gentle with myself, even when all i’ve ever known is survival. i’ve had to learn how to give her the kind of softness i never received. the kind of safety i used to dream about.

some days, it feels like redemption. like every kind word, every patient gesture, every time i choose tenderness instead of silence or shame becomes its own quiet revolution. a way of saying: it ends with me.

and then there are days when it feels like a wound that never fully heals. when every time i care for her gently, i come face to face with the part of me that was never cared for in the same way. every soft moment opens something raw. it stirs up the girl i used to be, the one who had to grow up quickly, the one who learned to survive without softness. and i have had to learn how to hold both truths at once. the healing and the hurt. the mother i am and the daughter i was. all of it lives inside the same body.

still, she is the most extraordinary thing i have ever created. not because of how she looks, though there is a quiet kind of beauty in her presence, but because of how she is and how she moves through the world with a softness that does not shrink. she is bright in the way that sunlight is: unassuming, consistent, quietly transformative. she is perceptive, quick witted, and endlessly curious. her humor is sharp, her heart expansive. being near her feels like standing at the edge of something sacred.

this love has no condition. no boundary. no expiration.
it is not something she has to earn.
it is something i give freely. something i will always give.
and something i will always carry.

loving her is the most natural thing i’ve ever done.

being her mother is the hardest.

there’s a false narrative embedded into motherhood that to be a mother is to disappear. that real love is selfless, that the highest form of devotion is silence, sacrifice, and surrender. but i have learned that the opposite is true. to love her well, i must remain visible and i must remain whole. i cannot teach her to honor herself if i abandon myself in the process.

so i stay. not just as her mother, but as a woman with a mind, a voice, a life of her own. i protect my joy and preserve my softness. not only for me, but so she can see what it looks like when a woman does not let the world hollow her out. i want her to grow up knowing that motherhood did not consume me. it returned me to something sacred. it called me back to the center of myself. and these are lessons that have taken me almost 14 years to learn (the hard way) and i’m still learning and failing everyday.

there are still hard days. there are days when i want to disappear into a quiet room and scream and moments when i fall short, when i lose my patience, when i am not the mother i meant to be. but i always return and apologize and take accountability. i communicate and i repair what i can. and try again and again. not because i am perfect, but because i am committed.

and despite it all, i hope she remembers the way i looked at her and really saw her. and the ways i made time, even when there was none. slower mornings making belgian waffles and eating breakfast in bed. and the chotic mornings when i brushed her hair with gentleness and braided her hair into french braids, despite running late. the afternoons filled with music and motion, with car rides and music blasting with our favorite songs. the smell of homemade pumpkin bread in the kitchen. i hope she remembers the way we decorate our home for every single holiday, no matter how small. how the seasons shape our routines, not just the big things, but the quiet ones too. the way we make a celebration out of ordinary days. how there were always twinkle lights in the winter, fresh flowers in the spring, something warm baking in the fall. how we live seasonally, intentionally, like time itself was something to honor.
i hope she remembers that home isn’t just a place, it’s a rhythm we create together.

i hope she remembers that she is loved with a fullness that holds nothing back. that my love does not depend on behavior or outcome. that it lives in the quiet gestures and the ordinary days. the simple, but significant moments that build a fuller, richer life

and if one day she becomes a mother, i hope she knows there is no single way to do it right. i hope she knows she can chart her own course and break patterns that need breaking. that her wholeness is not a threat to her love, but an offering. i hope she knows that she never has to disappear to be good.

because motherhood, when it’s rooted in presence, not performance, is not the end of who you are.
it’s the beginning of who you were always meant to become.

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if you’re looking for books that hold motherhood at the center, not as backdrop, but as a reckoning, a transformation, a truth, these are the ones i return to. they are full of clarity and ache, softness and rupture. each one carries a piece of what it means to mother and to be mothered, in all its wonder and weight.

beloved by toni morrison
the most searing, profound literary novel about motherhood ever written. this is a book about a mother’s impossible choice, about the ghosts of motherhood, the hauntings of history, and the love that persists beyond logic. the prose is devastating. it is sacred. it is literature at its fullest expression of what a mother is willing to bear.

operating instructions by anne lamott
a single motherhood memoir full of faith, fear, and joy. lamott is warm, neurotic, hilarious, but never tries to be perfect. she writes about her son’s first year with equal parts reverence and exhaustion. if you want something that feels like a friend telling you the truth, this is it.

letter to my daughter by maya angelou
not a conventional motherhood book, but it reads like one. a series of letters from angelou to a daughter she never had, full of wisdom, story, grit, and grace. it feels maternal in the deepest sense: protective, honest, rooted in love.

the lost daughter by elena ferrante
intellectual, emotionally complex, slightly unhinged. ferrante’s narrator reflects on her decision to leave her children and live freely. motherhood here is not romantic, it’s identity fracturing. perfect if you’re interested in maternal ambivalence and selfhood.

the summer book by tove jansson
a gentle, quiet novel that glows with maternal energy, but through a grandmother and granddaughter. it’s about presence, seasons, memory, and care. poetic and precise. ideal if you believe mothering can exist in many forms, including through time and space.

scenes from a childhood by sylvia townsend warner
deeply overlooked classic. literary stories centered on mothers and daughters, marked by emotional precision and quiet strangeness. incredibly written. has clarice lispector energy in its stillness.

the days of abandonment by elena ferrante
another ferrante because no one writes maternal rage like her. a mother is left by her husband and descends into a full psychological spiral, anchored in her identity as a mother. raw, visceral, no detours. motherhood is the axis around which everything shatters.

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as i close out this letter, i want to mention a fragrance that i’ve been enjoying…

lately, i’ve been thinking about the small, beautiful things that remind us we’re still women in the midst of mothering. not just caregivers or calendars or keepers of everyone else’s needs, but people with our own rhythms. our own softness. sometimes, it’s something as simple as scent.

chance eau splendide by chanel came into my life like a gentle reminder. it smells like how i want to feel: luminous, tender, quietly strong. there’s raspberry and rose, peach and violet, layered with geranium and iris, and grounded in this warm, subtle trail of cedar and white musk. it’s bright, but not loud. soft, but not forgettable. it lingers, like memory. like devotion. like the kind of beauty you carry for yourself, even when no one’s looking.

for me, it feels like a small act of reclamation. a way to stay connected to the woman i am, not just the mother i’ve become. and for the mother in your life, whether she’s in the thick of it or quietly holding it all together, this scent is more than a gift. it’s a moment and a love note.

okay, that’s all for today,

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i love you.

bye.

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