When you factor in all of the social expectations of motherhood, types of motherhood, women who have lost children due to miscarriage or other reasons, and those women who do not wish to have children (and who are sometimes made to feel “less than” for that choice), Mother’s Day can represent an emotional series of land mines.

In one of the first pictures taken of me at the hospital, you can see my mother: a 22-year-old woman, peering into a swaddled bundle containing me, probably still in shock at the realization that she is now a mother.

There’s another photograph taken around the time of my baptism, where she appears as an inexperienced young woman, sitting on a sofa with what appears to be a potato wearing a christening dress plopped on her lap. Mom’s eyes are focused off to the side, shoulders clenched and hands braced to anticipate my rolling off her lap. Looking at this image, I can almost imagine the thoughts running through her head: “Now what do I do?”

In a little over three years from when this picture was taken, my mother will have given birth to my two younger brothers and will end up living with her own mother after a divorce from my father. She had fallen in love with a charming dreamer, a man who had run off with a nurse who worked at the hospital where he was a contractor.

From my perspective as an adult, I can now see that my mother reverted to being her mother’s daughter again once we moved in with grandma. Mom didn’t retain a sense of being an adult—serving as a parent to her own children. My grandma was the ruler of our roost, and my mother regressed to being a derivation of a child.

It’s disorienting to be a kid with a kid as a parent.

As a result of this, my solution was to focus on being in control. I was driven, stubborn, manipulative, relentless and unflinching in the way I thought things should be. When my grandmother died, my mom went completely off the rails. She had never learned how to become herself, and so was poorly equipped to handle the loss of the ballast my grandmother provided.

When my own daughters arrived, I vowed to make different choices than my mother had made. Of course, some of them, I repeated. For a long time, like my mother, I assumed that others would take care of me. I was pretty. I was charming. It was easy for people to want to spoil me and provide for me.

Ultimately, I recognized that person as a false self. Living that way wasn’t tenable, wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t fulfilling.

Thinking back, within literal minutes of my oldest daughter’s birth, I had what I can only describe as an epiphany right there in the delivery room. It reminds me of the scene from the movie The Matrix, where Trinity learns how to fly a helicopter — her eyelids flutter as the instructions sent from Tank are processed by her brain; her eyes snapping open once the material has been downloaded.

In a similar fashion upon Phoenix’s arrival, I understood my mother in a way that I could never previously comprehend. But there were differences, too.

Even before Phoenix arrived, I can remember sitting in my mom’s farmhouse in the living room while pregnant with her. About four months along at that point, I wasn’t sure if I would give the baby up for adoption or keep it. My musings interrupted, there was a stirring and flutter as I felt the baby kick. In that moment, I knew that there was no way I could allow anyone else to raise my child. This isn’t an indictment of women who adopt. On the contrary, it gives me even more reason to respect and stand in awe of their sacrifice. I know of no more difficult decision than to give your child to another person to raise.

But I chose to keep Phoenix. I even named her thusly because her birth represented a pivot for me—a rebirth and focus on what I needed to do in order to become myself.

When Phoenix was about six months old, my friends were going to clubs, listening to bands featuring their boyfriends. Meanwhile, I was sitting in a farmhouse with a baby in a crib. One particular weekend, my friends had asked me to join them, but I couldn’t find a sitter. With every fiber of my being, I wanted to be young and partying with my friends.

Frustration and anger threatened to emerge. But within a few minutes, that same epiphany-like sensation present at her birth came over me, and I admonished myself, “Nope. Snap out of it. You chose this. Phoenix did not ask to be born. You chose to give birth to her and keep her. Grow up.”

Being her mother gave me a resolve and willingness to sacrifice that I had never possessed prior to her arrival. While I had always been energetic and ambitious, I never had the focus being a mother provided.

I remember one of my uncles visiting us while we still lived with my mother. He and my mom sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee while I was in the living room folding laundry. He said to her, “You know, Linda; you lived with our mom. How do you see this turning out with Molly?”

I couldn’t see her face, but I’ll never forget how she answered flatly, “She’s not me, Joe. She won’t be here much longer.”

I‘ve got a lot of sifting to do about my relationship with my mother, who died a little over four years ago. There were many things that I created through the nonprofit and for my children that represented things that were missing in my upbringing.

In another post, I’ll share with you some of the lessons my mom taught me that allowed me to leapfrog past her progress. That‘s a bit of an esoteric statement, but I believe that each generation has the opportunity to recognize and dismantle trauma so that it’s released from family patterns. I can recognize in my own children things that they have done differently than me.

If we’re mindful, paying attention and willing to let go of what no longer serves us, we can develop into the highest versions of ourselves. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

Thanks for listening to me ramble today.

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