hey, it’s me again…

I don’t think this gets talked about very often.

Or maybe it does, just not plainly.

What doesn’t get said enough is how our own children reaching the age we were when we experienced trauma can quietly undo us. How watching them move through that year, that stage, that sweetness can stir something deep and devastating in a mother.

I experienced a lot of trauma early in life. The kind that doesn’t fit neatly into a sentence. For a long time, I didn’t think about it the way I do now. I carried it quietly. Tucked it somewhere in the background of my life, like something heavy you get used to holding.

Then I had my daughter.

From the beginning, I made a quiet vow. I would protect her from every way I was hurt. I would be different. I would make sure she was safe in all the ways I wasn’t.

And then she turned three.

Watching her move through that age cracked something open in me. Not all at once, but slowly. Gently. And then all at once. Looking at her, I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t reconcile how a parent could hurt a child, or treat them as anything other than someone to protect.

That realization didn’t just bring clarity. It brought fear.

Now I carry this deep, persistent worry that I’m going to hurt her too. Not in the same ways, but in different ones. That I’ll miss something. That I’ll say the wrong thing. That I’ll unknowingly leave marks that follow her long after childhood.

I’m so afraid of hurting my kids that sometimes I hold myself back from them. From fully connecting. From showing up without reservation. And the irony isn’t lost on me. I know connection is what they need most.

So instead, I end up in this strange cycle.

Fear turns into distance.

Distance turns into shame.

Shame convinces me I’m already failing.

All the while, I’m standing here wanting one very simple thing.

I just want to be a good mom.

Not a perfect one. Not a healed-enough one. Just a mom who loves her kids well and doesn’t let her own past quietly dictate their future.

I don’t have a lesson here. Or a neat ending. I’m still very much in the middle of it. Still learning how to hold my story without letting it harden me. Still figuring out how to trust myself with the people I love most.

But I’m here. I’m noticing it. I’m naming it.

And maybe that’s not nothing.

I trust God is still working here, even when it feels unfinished.