You’re a Different Parent Now

For the mother who shaped me—and the girl healing inside

EDITION NO. 027

Becoming a mother has a way of reopening old wounds — especially the ones we thought we’d buried. I never expected that feeding my children or seeing their bodies grow would unearth so many memories of my own girlhood, or the complicated ways I learned about food, shame, and love.

This is a letter I wrote to my mom — to reflect, to grieve, and to offer compassion for all the things we both carried. It’s about what I inherited, what I’m trying to release, and what I hope to pass on instead.

If you’ve ever felt caught between missing the mother you needed and becoming the one you wish you had, I hope this helps you feel a little less alone.

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I always thought you were beautiful.

I remember watching you put on your makeup so carefully, spraying your floral perfume onto your wrists, and garlanding your ears with long, pearl earrings.

I remember sneaking into your closet to try on your high heels, waddling down the carpeted hallway in shoes far too big for my little feet.

But it didn’t matter what I thought. You already carried an engraved belief about yourself, one scarred by trauma and hurt.

Your body wasn’t safe. You couldn’t see the beauty in it even if you wanted to.

Even though your body grew and birthed five babies, including me.

Even though it held miracles, you only saw the damage.

I remember how excited I was for beach days, how I’d sprint toward the water with abandon.

I didn’t understand why you stayed on the sidelines, fully clothed, watching.

For years, I thought you didn’t know how to swim. I thought you were embarrassed to admit it.

Later, I understood: it wasn’t the water you feared — it was your body.

Shame kept you covered up. It stitched itself into the rules you passed down to us.

One-piece bathing suits only.

“Suck it in. Don’t show your skin.”

I began absorbing your body shame as my own.

I saw you hide sweets in stowaway spots — the M&M’s tucked behind sweaters, the secret candy stash.

You never sat down to eat with us. You skipped dessert, declaring, “No sugar for me!” with a note of self-righteousness, even though I knew you’d find your hidden treats later.

Maybe martyrdom in motherhood was a smokescreen for restriction.

At mealtimes, I don’t remember you sitting beside us much.

You were usually bustling around the kitchen, insisting we clean our plates.

You came from poverty, where food was scarce, so wasting food felt like a moral failing.

Our rejection of a dish wasn’t seen as a preference — it was taken as a rejection of you.

And because I loved you, I learned to bend my body to your needs.

If you were happy when I cleaned my plate, I cleaned it.

If you smiled when I skipped dessert, I skipped it.

I learned that acceptance came through compliance — even at the expense of my own body’s cues.

I took responsibility for your emotions. I internalized them as my own.

When I became a teenager, my changing body made you uncomfortable.

Now, I understand why. You had been taught that bodies changing — growing, softening, becoming visible — were dangerous.

You wanted to protect me the only way you knew how:

"Don’t draw attention to yourself."

"Don’t shave your legs."

"Don’t wear lip gloss."

At the same time:

"Bleach your upper lip."

"Fix your face."

"Keep your hair brushed and pulled back."

It was dizzying.

You were afraid — afraid for me, and of me.

I looked for your guidance.

What kind of bra should I wear?

What do I do about the blood I found in my underwear?

But you weren’t there — hidden by your own pain.

And I mistook your absence for rejection.

So I learned to hide.

I hid makeup in my backpack, put it on at school, wiped it off before coming home.

I hid candy wrappers in the trash where you wouldn’t find them.

I learned to live in the dark, trying to fit into a world I wasn’t equipped for.

I was suffocating, but I didn’t know how to breathe differently.

College felt like freedom.

For the first time, I could choose my clothes, my food, my life without your voice echoing in my ear.

But the chaos inside me didn’t disappear just because I left home.

I ran toward straight A’s and marathons, chasing a version of myself that might finally feel lovable.

I tried to outrun the shame I had carried for so long.

But no grade, no trophy, no smaller jeans size could ever silence the voice that said, “You’re still not enough.”

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I cried when we found out we were having a girl.

Not tears of joy, but of fear.

Fear that she would struggle the way we had.

Fear that she would carry the same shame, the same self-loathing, the same quiet suffering tucked into her bones.

Fear that I wouldn’t be able to stop the cycle — that another generation of women would be handed the same heavy inheritance.

Our mother-daughter relationship felt fragile, like a spiderweb stretched too tight.

Would I hurt her the way I had been hurt?

Would I know how to give her what I had needed and never received?

Becoming a mother cracked me wide open.

In the haze of sleepless nights and aching tenderness, I found myself reaching for you — craving the comfort only a mother can give.

But each time, my hands came back empty, and the grief I thought I had long buried flooded back in.

Mothers need mothering too.

And I realized I was still waiting for the mother I never really had.

The early days of feeding my daughter triggered deep, hidden pains.

Her cries awakened the parts of me that were taught that needs were "too much," "too inconvenient," "too burdensome."

Every time I fed her, every time I comforted her, every time I chose connection over control, I was confronting my own unmet needs.

And yet... I didn’t always get it right.
At first, I found myself slipping into the very patterns I swore I wouldn’t repeat.
I stayed wrapped in my towel instead of stepping into the pool with her.
I waited to eat until everyone else was fed, convincing myself it was more “selfless” that way.
I kept dessert tucked away in drawers — not to share, but to eat secretly later.

I was becoming you.
Not because I wanted to, but because I had never been shown another way.
And that terrified me.
Because even though I understood the pain behind your choices, I didn’t want to pass it on.

That was the wake-up moment.
The moment I realized that healing meant not just understanding where the patterns came from — but actively, courageously choosing to break them.

I started seeing the invisible inheritance I carried — the legacy of shame, control, fear — and I knew I couldn’t pass it down.

I used to be angry at you.

Angry for what you couldn’t give, angry for what I had to learn the hard way.

But now —

Now I see you with softer eyes.

I see the little girl inside you who also longed to be held, accepted, and nurtured.

I see how hard you tried to protect me in the only ways you knew.

I see your wounds, and I see your love tangled up in them.

I’m not parenting differently because I’m rejecting you.

I’m parenting in a new way because I’m healing for both of us.

These days, I hear the echoes of your voice when comments are made about my kids — about how they’re "too picky," "eating too much sugar," "showing too much skin."

I still wince.

The little girl inside me flinches, remembering the rules and shame.

But then I breathe.

And I trust my children instead of controlling them.

I let them listen to their bodies, even when it's messy.

I let them dress for comfort and self-expression, not modesty dictated by fear.

I let them experience food as joyful, not something to be earned or punished.

And with every small choice, I lay down a new brick on a path toward freedom — for them, and for me.

I know it might seem strange.

It might feel foreign or even hurtful to watch me do things you don’t understand — letting my child leave food on her plate, letting her emotions spill out without shame, letting her body be her own.

But please know:

Every time I do, I’m walking a new path for us.

One toward freedom.

One toward healing.

One toward the slow, patient work of forgiveness, for you, and me.

And as I keep choosing this path — with all its discomfort and doubt — I’m learning to shift away from the shame.
I’m not just trying to break the patterns that harmed me.
I’m trying to preserve the parts of you that made me who I am.

Your courage.
Your resilience.
Your boundless generosity.
Your deep love for your children, even when it was tangled up in pain.

These are the things that always mattered. Not your weight. Not your dress size. Not how flat your stomach was.

I hope my children grow up knowing that, too.
That their worth will never be found in a mirror, but in how they love and how they live.
And I hope, in some small way, they’ll carry a piece of your strength with them — the strength you passed down, even if you never knew you were doing it.

Maybe — if we’re both lucky — we’ll find what we’ve been searching for all along:

A way home to ourselves.