We are a generation that remembers everything. We remember the wrongs. We remember the moments that didn’t land the way they should have. We remember the good that still somehow wasn’t good enough. And sometimes, we refuse to release any of it.
But motherhood has a way of pulling you forward whether you’re ready or not.
My mother has lived a long life. She is a mother to six children and a grandmother to fifteen. She lost her father when she was young. She has carried responsibility for most of her life.
And she is not just my mom.
She is a woman shaped by loss, by time, by responsibility, by survival. By dreams she carried quietly. By pipelines that were interrupted, rerouted, or never fully explored. By choices she had to make in real time, without language, without rest, without the luxury of reflection.
My mom has made mistakes.
My mom has made good decisions.
My mom has lived.
The greatest gift motherhood has given me isn’t just love for my children — it’s the ability to understand my own mother with intention.
It comes in moments I never expected. On nights when my kids are sick. When sleep disappears. When exhaustion presses so deeply into your body that it feels like it’s part of you. When you’re overwhelmed and still required to show up with patience, steadiness, and tenderness.
That’s when I see her.
I see the long nights.
I see the sacrifice.
I see how joy and depletion can exist in the same breath.
Being a mom is a lot. It is beautiful and consuming and relentless. And once you’re in it, you realize how much of motherhood is invisible to the people receiving it.
My childhood wasn’t terrible. I was blessed in a lot of ways. I was loved. I was provided for. And still — understanding my mother doesn’t require me to pretend everything was perfect. That isn’t the point.
Mothers don’t get everything right. None of them do. But what we forget — what we rarely make space for — is that this was our mother’s first time living too.
She didn’t get a rehearsal.
She didn’t get a pause.
She didn’t get to wait until she healed.
She showed up anyway.
Motherhood didn’t rewrite my past. It reframed it. It taught me that growing up isn’t about tallying “harm” — it’s about graduating from the role of child and learning to see your mother as a whole person.
We don’t need perfect mothers.
We need honest ones — and grown children willing to see them.
And maybe that’s part of maturity. Not erasing the past. Not rewriting it. But learning how to hold it with compassion, context, and clarity.
Leave a Reply