I will probably never forget that time my mother burst into my childhood bedroom, screamed at the top of her lungs, grabbed two laundry baskets full of my clean clothes, and threw them into the air. The baskets banged against the wall, tumbling all my unfolded laundry onto the ground. She was probably frustrated that I hadn’t put my clothes away in a timely manner. But that probably could have been a conversation.
This type of behavior from my mother wasn’t new or surprising. Rather it was part of a long pattern of dysregulation that my siblings and I lived around for years. Our home never truly felt safe. Many children, in trying to understand and navigate trauma, blame themselves for their abusers’ behavior. Similarly, I assumed that the basis of my mother’s toxic behavior was motherhood. That I had somehow created this.
Before I became a mother, I was afraid I was incapable of an uncomplicated relationship with a future child. But when I finally became a mother, I realized that with a lot of work and conscious rejection of the kind of parenting I had experienced, I could redefine motherhood for myself and build a nurturing relationship with my daughter.
Before I became a mother, I was afraid I was incapable of an uncomplicated relationship with a future child.
I was pretty ambivalent about motherhood for most of my life. I was afraid that pregnancy hormones or the stress of parenting would turn me (or my partner) into someone unkind and unrecognizable. If asked, I always said I would leave the decision of whether or not to have children up to my future partner. Which is, in retrospect, a pretty silly way to make a life-altering decision.
A couple of years into our marriage, my wife suggested that we begin to seriously consider expanding our family. I was silently terrified. Leaning on my long-held belief that I would let my partner decide, I agreed to let my wife begin the process to make our baby. And it was a long process.
There were many painful and frustrating moments in her fertility journey: multiple early miscarriages and a six-month delay after the fourth unsuccessful insemination due to the pandemic. However, the advantage of the longer wait—not just nine months of pregnancy but also the one and a half years beforehand of sperm donation and IUI cycles—was extra time I had to transform into a mother-in-waiting.
At first, it was hard for me to envision an openhearted, loving relationship with my future daughter. The mother-daughter relationship I knew best was always one of complexity: conflict, avoidance, and yearning for something more. I hoped that my daughter and I would learn to love each other over an extended period of time. But I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task.
Yes, I needed a lot of therapy. And to all other mamas and mamas-to-be in the same boat, I can only say: Reach out for help. It will change your life. After months of therapy and reflection, I finally began to realize that most of the assumptions I had about motherhood were based on my relationship with my own toxic mother, who throughout my childhood regularly disregarded my needs and emotions.
I hoped that my daughter and I would learn to love each other over an extended period of time. But I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task.
I also realized that I needed to be a different type of mother from the get-go. Like a typical child of toxic parenting, I have depression. The problem is that depression is often one of the causes of toxic behavior. In the past, I have struggled with accepting and managing my diagnosis. I didn’t want to accept that my mother’s behavior left me with a life-long, often debilitating mental illness. But it was almost too easy to make a change for my future child. As a mother-in-waiting I committed to owning my mental health and taking antidepressants consistently. This was the only way to ensure that I would never enact the type of abuse I experienced as a child.
One of my mother’s parenting aphorisms was that she didn’t believe in teaching infants baby sign language because she didn’t want a baby bossing her around. This odd belief reflects multiple misunderstandings of early childhood development. Babies only know how to ask for their basic needs. They are not developmentally able to mislead or manipulate. And anything that eases communication with your infant is not an opening for disrespect but an opportunity to nurture your little one.
As my daughter claps and giggles when I enter the room, I wonder how my mother and I got to the point where I’m never really happy to see her.
My daughter is not a proficient or consistent signer. She pretty much only knows “milk.” But I rejoice in interpreting all of her subtle and less subtle cues. Figuring out her needs to either fulfill them or gently explain why I can’t do something in the moment—like unbuckling her car seat in the middle of the highway—is just one of the ways that I’m building a loving, safe relationship with her for years to come. I’m constantly tickled by how openly she shares her needs and feelings with me. And I’m proud to be fully present, mentally, to help her navigate her baby world.
That’s not to say that my experience of motherhood is never overshadowed by loss. The surprise and ecstatic joy I felt as my daughter and I fell in love at first sight was tempered by sadness. How had my mother messed this up so spectacularly for us? As my daughter claps and giggles when I enter the room, I wonder how my mother and I got to the point where I’m never really happy to see her. This awareness always reminds me to be present with my own emotions, needs, and boundaries to avoid empathy burnout.
When the intimacy between mother and child is consistently challenged and broken, it makes future relationships really hard. It’s hard for me to open up and let people in when I know how painful that can be if it goes wrong. In discovering my boundless, easily given love for my daughter, I’ve realized that I’m not broken. Difficult things happened in the past, but I can be a different mother and build a different life. Rather than seeing my daughter as needy, I know that she has needs. I’m wholeheartedly here for her.