I really loved reading this. I especially loved the mention of your resentment of your mom and then your realization of what that really was: "it wasn’t until much later—only recently, really—that i began to understand her silence differently. i came to the startling realization that before she was my mother, she was someone’s daughter. she was shaped by her own history, by wounds and constraints that i had never fully acknowledged. her decisions, or lack thereof, weren’t born of indifference or malice but of her own complex survival mechanisms—mechanisms forged long before i ever entered the picture. this understanding didn’t erase the hurt, but it reframed it. it allowed me to see her as a person navigating her own fears, her own limitations. and in that shift, i found a way to let go of the bitterness, to forgive her for the enabling behaviors i had held against her for so long. forgiveness didn’t come as a dramatic epiphany but as a quiet acknowledgment of her humanity—and, by extension, my own." -- How you quietly came to understand that she was also a woman navigating her own path. As we get further away from adolescence and even early adulthood, we do begin to have a better understanding or realization of our parents as people. xxoo
thank you so much for reading and for your thoughtful response. it means so much that this part resonated with you. i think you're absolutely right—there’s something about moving further away from adolescence and early adulthood that allows us to see our parents in a new light. it’s not an easy realization, but it’s such a transformative one, to begin to understand them as individuals with their own stories, struggles, and complexities. i’m grateful for that shift, even if it came quietly, because it’s brought a sense of peace i didn’t think was possible.🤎
I deeply resonate with this. I’m 20 and still struggling with the fact that my mother has flaws and weaknesses, her own stories, just like any other human but I think it is that gripping effect of my inner child that still looks up to her as almost a God-like figure.
Also feel like a quote from Steinbeck’s East of Eden encapsulate this mirrored idea of this Substack so well:
‘When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.’
I found this riveting reading. I’m now 70 and still grappling with seeing my mother’s journey separately to my own. Forgiving her and understanding her and figuring out how I can avoid doing to my daughters what she did to me and what her mother did to her - are almost daily thoughts. And she died seven years ago. But, in a way, I am grateful for the challenge as it keeps her with me - so complicated this growing up.
I’m 34, with a beautiful 3 year old daughter. These thoughts circle in my head daily also. Such a tightrope act. I forgive my mother. Her life was tough. Her mother was difficult, to say the least. And yet, I struggle with the acknowledgment that even though I, too, endured abuse, I could never do the same to my sweet little girl. So how did she do so much to me? And yet, I circle back to forgiveness and understanding.
Good for you - it sounds like you have reached a place of real strength. Wonderful to know we don't have to just repeat and repeat and repeat. We can break the cycle. Enjoy your baby!
Not until I was a mother did I barely scratch the surface of comprehending all my own mother did. She would get up at 4 am to go to work, then after work would take a bus to get to my house to help me care for my newborn. Many years later when my family grew she paid for someone to help me clean my home. She worked so hard her entire life. I think I’ll start a Substack of my own to put down in print a tribute to her. I understand not all had a mother like her, she truly was selfless and it brought her joy to help her children out however she could. Thank you for the opportunity to remember all she did for me and my siblings. I’m still learning from her and just had my 7th grandchild.
“womanhood, then, is not a destination but a dialogue. a conversation between who you are and who your mother was, between the expectations placed upon you and the choices you make to either fulfill or resist them.”
This is so beautifully written. It put me in a deep state of reflection. Thank you for this🤍
Amazing 👏 I particularly loved how you connected the metaphor of stepping into the room to the looking back at the end. The room is the future: that which our individual identity has been able to create. The looking back is the realization that you have made of understanding we are a part of a historical whole.
This was a recent discovery for me but a healing one as I didn't always love my mother (hmm maybe a future substack article there) and feared turning into her. However, seeing the other side along with becoming a mother myself I have seen the complexities, the sacrifices and the personal challenges that had been there for her too. They say empathy breeds sympathy -and now although I still do not condone everything that was done I am able to forgive let go and finally heal myself. https://substack.com/@aweinspiringaura
For me, it took becoming a mother to fully hold empathy for my own mother. I’m certain that you can find it without a path into motherhood, but that is what propelled me personally. Watching myself failing in aspects of being a mother and not being able to stop myself- and realizing oh… this is what my mom went through. She didn’t intend to become the monster I perceived her as, she was just a human dealing with her own trauma and cycles she was forced into. Just like I am.
I really loved reading this. I especially loved the mention of your resentment of your mom and then your realization of what that really was: "it wasn’t until much later—only recently, really—that i began to understand her silence differently. i came to the startling realization that before she was my mother, she was someone’s daughter. she was shaped by her own history, by wounds and constraints that i had never fully acknowledged. her decisions, or lack thereof, weren’t born of indifference or malice but of her own complex survival mechanisms—mechanisms forged long before i ever entered the picture. this understanding didn’t erase the hurt, but it reframed it. it allowed me to see her as a person navigating her own fears, her own limitations. and in that shift, i found a way to let go of the bitterness, to forgive her for the enabling behaviors i had held against her for so long. forgiveness didn’t come as a dramatic epiphany but as a quiet acknowledgment of her humanity—and, by extension, my own." -- How you quietly came to understand that she was also a woman navigating her own path. As we get further away from adolescence and even early adulthood, we do begin to have a better understanding or realization of our parents as people. xxoo
thank you so much for reading and for your thoughtful response. it means so much that this part resonated with you. i think you're absolutely right—there’s something about moving further away from adolescence and early adulthood that allows us to see our parents in a new light. it’s not an easy realization, but it’s such a transformative one, to begin to understand them as individuals with their own stories, struggles, and complexities. i’m grateful for that shift, even if it came quietly, because it’s brought a sense of peace i didn’t think was possible.🤎
whenever i read about motherhood, i cant help thinking about abba's song slipping through my fingers. it always brings me to tears.
i kid you not. exact song playing through my head while reading this
I deeply resonate with this. I’m 20 and still struggling with the fact that my mother has flaws and weaknesses, her own stories, just like any other human but I think it is that gripping effect of my inner child that still looks up to her as almost a God-like figure.
Also feel like a quote from Steinbeck’s East of Eden encapsulate this mirrored idea of this Substack so well:
‘When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.’
I found this riveting reading. I’m now 70 and still grappling with seeing my mother’s journey separately to my own. Forgiving her and understanding her and figuring out how I can avoid doing to my daughters what she did to me and what her mother did to her - are almost daily thoughts. And she died seven years ago. But, in a way, I am grateful for the challenge as it keeps her with me - so complicated this growing up.
I’m 34, with a beautiful 3 year old daughter. These thoughts circle in my head daily also. Such a tightrope act. I forgive my mother. Her life was tough. Her mother was difficult, to say the least. And yet, I struggle with the acknowledgment that even though I, too, endured abuse, I could never do the same to my sweet little girl. So how did she do so much to me? And yet, I circle back to forgiveness and understanding.
Good for you - it sounds like you have reached a place of real strength. Wonderful to know we don't have to just repeat and repeat and repeat. We can break the cycle. Enjoy your baby!
woah!!!! beautiful writing!!!!
i always think about the sentiment that our parents are living for the first time too. i can't remember where i first read it, but i carry it with me
just so you know, this essay means everything to me
Not until I was a mother did I barely scratch the surface of comprehending all my own mother did. She would get up at 4 am to go to work, then after work would take a bus to get to my house to help me care for my newborn. Many years later when my family grew she paid for someone to help me clean my home. She worked so hard her entire life. I think I’ll start a Substack of my own to put down in print a tribute to her. I understand not all had a mother like her, she truly was selfless and it brought her joy to help her children out however she could. Thank you for the opportunity to remember all she did for me and my siblings. I’m still learning from her and just had my 7th grandchild.
“womanhood, then, is not a destination but a dialogue. a conversation between who you are and who your mother was, between the expectations placed upon you and the choices you make to either fulfill or resist them.”
This is so beautifully written. It put me in a deep state of reflection. Thank you for this🤍
beautifully written!
Amazing 👏 I particularly loved how you connected the metaphor of stepping into the room to the looking back at the end. The room is the future: that which our individual identity has been able to create. The looking back is the realization that you have made of understanding we are a part of a historical whole.
I believe in understanding, but not all can be forgiven, some people should never have become mothers. That’s also womanhood.
This was a recent discovery for me but a healing one as I didn't always love my mother (hmm maybe a future substack article there) and feared turning into her. However, seeing the other side along with becoming a mother myself I have seen the complexities, the sacrifices and the personal challenges that had been there for her too. They say empathy breeds sympathy -and now although I still do not condone everything that was done I am able to forgive let go and finally heal myself. https://substack.com/@aweinspiringaura
I loved this, it made me extremely emotional as i reflected on how i view my own mother.
For me, it took becoming a mother to fully hold empathy for my own mother. I’m certain that you can find it without a path into motherhood, but that is what propelled me personally. Watching myself failing in aspects of being a mother and not being able to stop myself- and realizing oh… this is what my mom went through. She didn’t intend to become the monster I perceived her as, she was just a human dealing with her own trauma and cycles she was forced into. Just like I am.
your vocabulary range inspires me
absolutely beautiful and I really resonated with this✨