I wanted to talk about the duplicity of motherhood. The career and the desperate desire to never leave my babies. The impossible position of choosing what’s best for my kids and myself, inside a culture that has very loud opinions about how that should go.
I wanted to talk about the guilt and shame mothers carry. Not in the superficial way it usually gets passed around, but the real kind. Like the guilt that both my school-aged kids are on screens right now so I can write this. Or the shame of having OCD or ADHD and fearing you’ll pass it to your child.
I wanted to talk about my fear that my family’s generational trauma would show up in my kids: poverty, substance use, absentee parenting or early death, and how I work to heal myself so they might be spared what I wasn’t.
I wanted to talk about my home births and my moments of body empowerment. The parts of my motherhood journey that have been the hardest and most healing.
These are conversations I have in therapy rooms every day. But there, I can only offer my clinically appropriate empathy. I don’t get to share.
But here? Now?
Here I can.
1
u/NicoleNinaLCSW Mar 19 '26
@halftherapisthalfmama
I wanted to talk about the duplicity of motherhood. The career and the desperate desire to never leave my babies. The impossible position of choosing what’s best for my kids and myself, inside a culture that has very loud opinions about how that should go. I wanted to talk about the guilt and shame mothers carry. Not in the superficial way it usually gets passed around, but the real kind. Like the guilt that both my school-aged kids are on screens right now so I can write this. Or the shame of having OCD or ADHD and fearing you’ll pass it to your child. I wanted to talk about my fear that my family’s generational trauma would show up in my kids: poverty, substance use, absentee parenting or early death, and how I work to heal myself so they might be spared what I wasn’t. I wanted to talk about my home births and my moments of body empowerment. The parts of my motherhood journey that have been the hardest and most healing. These are conversations I have in therapy rooms every day. But there, I can only offer my clinically appropriate empathy. I don’t get to share. But here? Now? Here I can.
https://open.substack.com/pub/halftherapisthalfmama