Have you thought about how the mothering you received affects your own mothering? If so, who have you been able to talk to about it? Have you been able to process some of that material in community? If not, why or why not? Is it just too painful, frightening, overwhelming, to think about?
Well, in case you hadn’t thought about it, of course the way mothering was modeled to you (not just by your own mother or caregiver, but by others, in the culture at large) makes a difference as to how you are going to show up as a mother yourself.
I know from working with clients, this can be a scary thought—even preventing some women from walking down the road of motherhood, for fear of turning out “just like mom” and repeating some of the same patterns that occurred in her childhood. How painful it is, when it prevents some women who would like to have children from having them, and some women who had them wishing they had not because they feel unfit to be mothers. It does not sound very free, in fact, very repressive and constricting. Some women talk about it in some empowering way, like they are free to make the choice of having children or not, and they are happy to not have any because they do not want to be like their own parents. But, that in fact, is not a very empowering discourse, because if you feel like you do not have the freedom to be how you choose to be, you are still carrying the wounds & scars from your infancy, you are not in fact feeling very empowered or very free. So, facing these issues, whether it is to have children, you already have them and wish to shift some of the ways you treat your kids, OR, you don’t know whether you want them or not, but still, regardless, wish to be FREE of all of these issues, this is something amazing to face, yet which we don’t talk much about in our society.
If you would like to break free of some of these patterns & more, sign up for a free, no-obligation Motherhood Empowerment Assessment call with Tanya here.
