Content note: This post includes discussion of childhood trauma, family relationships, grief, and parental loss.

Being a mom means kissing boo boos and chasing monsters away. By taking our children into our arms when they are hurt or afraid, we become their safe space. The children then know, even as they grow, we are the place where they can be themselves and share what hurts or frightens them. We do not always have those experiences growing up. Sometimes we did not have that safe space due to generational trauma and circumstances outside of our control. Sometimes we break the cycles and give our children what we may not have received ourselves. As we grow, and watch our children grow, we see our childhood in a different light. We begin to see adversity and experiences through a parent’s lens. We take these experiences that molded us, changed us, that made or broke us, and decided what to leave behind and what to take with us. Through healing our children, sometimes we heal ourselves. We give our babies the parts of ourselves that we may not have been given by our parents, the parts they may never had from their own parents. This isn’t to say that I had bad parents, my dad and I are close to this day. He is a wonderful father and someone I ask advice from often. My mother’s relationship with me was complicated, she died when I was thirteen, I can honestly say I do not know what our relationship would have been like now if she would have lived. She had her own trauma and past, today that is something that is more accepted to talk about. Today, we are more willing to talk about mental health and to break down the walls of trauma and want to raise our children differently. I am not making excuses for anyone, I do not know what my reader’s parents were like, but I understand my own mother better now that I am older. My dad always says that we want our children to be better than we are, each generation should improve. I am not a perfect mother, but I would like to think there are changes that I made, and I know there are changes that my dad made with us. I am proud of the dad I have, and I am grateful for his guidance, I hope one day my children will come to me for help when they need it (or just to talk). God heals all wounds, emotional or physical, and I am proof of that. God is always there for us; he is the parent that we all want. He is the father that we can model our parenting styles from. He is patient, kind, loving, wants what is best for his children but will punish us accordingly. I hope to model God’s parenting by having my arms always open for my children and never turning them away because no matter what I have done in my life, he has not turned me away.