I received a call from my daughter in college last week that hit my heart to the core. She is a freshman, and after a week of homesickness and adjusting to her new normal, was diving deep into her classes and college life. One of her first assignments for the Honors College was to write a short essay on what the true meaning of home and belonging meant to her. She wanted to read it to me before turning it in…little did she know that her words healed a part of my heart that I didn’t know was still broken.
You see, I didn’t enter motherhood with an example of what the title of “Mama” was supposed to entail. My own mother battled mental health issues throughout my childhood that didn’t allow her to mother me in the way I, or any child, needed to be. I was charged with being her emotional support from my earliest years and my very first steps were taken on the thinnest of eggshells. While she made sure I was fed, clothed, and had a roof over my head, I endured eighteen years of dysfunction, belittling, and the expectation that I remain firmly planted in her shadow. I was not allowed to have my own dreams, my own voice, or any form of self-esteem. While every award I won she proudly announced to friends and family, behind closed doors I was reminded that I was still not enough and never would be. There’s more, but I still don’t feel like I can openly share about all of it…maybe there’s still a touch of co-dependence keeping me from doing so, or maybe I don’t want to upset any family or family friends that may read this. Suffice it to say, that when I graduated from high school, I couldn’t get away from home fast enough.
Throughout all of that, I remember making myself the promise that when I grew up and had kids, I would be a very different type of mother. I didn’t know how I was going to rewire motherhood, but I was bound and determined to do so, and I did. This despite many monkey wrenches that practical joker called “life” decided to throw at me post-partum. The first few years of motherhood came with a husband in early sobriety and a son who had a frightening adverse reaction to a commonly prescribed medication for young children which took years of research and thousands of dollars and sleepless hours to reverse. I had no village to rely on for help, and didn’t have the privilege so many of my friends had of being able to call up their moms for advice or just an ear to lend. When my daughter was born, I was already two and half years into motherhood winging it as best I could off of sheer intuition and caffeine. I stumbled, and fell, and picked myself back up much in the same way my kids learned how to walk….and I rewired my version of motherhood with nothing much more than self-help books and raw determination.
I am not a perfect mother. I am not a perfect human. I am, however eternally enrolled in the school of How Can I Do Better. My daughter’s essay made me realize that generational curses can be broken. That my childhood did not become hers. My daughter said in her beautifully written words that her true sense of belonging and home can be found in her mother’s heart. My heart. A heart she healed without even knowing it…..because her essay and her sentiments let me know that the promise I made myself and my yet-to-be-born children, when I was nothing but a child myself, had been kept.
She was homesick her first week at college because she missed me. She loves hanging out with me. She missed home. She loves the home I created for her and her brother. These are foreign concepts for me because I never knew what it felt like to love being with my mother or love being at home. Both were things to be feared for me. I feel the same mom guilt all mothers do because I know that there were still things I could have done better, maybe even ways I could’ve slowed down time a little between the years of 0 and 18, I could’ve been softer, less worried, more cool or whatever….but I know that someday, when my last day arrives…I’ll go knowing that I really tried my best, that the cycle that plagued my mother and her mother before her (and possibly much further back) stopped with me.
Having a troubled childhood does not have to follow you into your chapter of life as a parent. It can make parenting far more overwhelming and difficult, but making the decision to break generational curses can be done…..and the result is the most priceless gift you can give your kids….and yourself. Whatever path it takes to get there…take it. Whether it’s therapy, self-help books, twelve step programs, or that raw determination I had burning inside of me since I was a kid….do it. Do one, do them all….because one day you’ll get a call from one of your kids that lets you know that whatever your mother (or whichever parent hurt you) did to you finally gets to be buried because you made the decision to say “Stop. This ends with me.”
Now, today, I am learning to rewire motherhood again. My kids are both out of the nest, and I am learning how to be a mother on the sidelines of their lives. Learning to navigate the often more difficult landscape of parenting adult children…hoping, trusting, praying that the world is kind to them and that the decisions they make keep them happy, safe, and blessed. I am still reading parenting self-help books and drinking too much coffee. I still push them to follow their dreams, to treat life as a happy adventure, to stand by their values and individualism, and to love their independence. I am here for advice and my ear is always ready to be lent. I also still worry too much, but I think that might be most of us. Most of all, I am so happy that my heart is home to my kids. I may have never accomplished fame, or a large income, or impressive work titles….but I achieved this, and that’s all that really matters.
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