How did motherhood heal my childhood shock and create my ideal team

In the newly podcast, Jin Volwell – an author, comedy, and a six -year mother – performed something that stopped me in my paths.

“Oh my God, I love to be my mother,” she said with a kind of non -self -joy that you do not hear much in our culture. “I was alone throughout my life. I finally I have my friends. Finally, I have my community I hadn’t. They are my friends and my very wonderful team.”

This line – the team part – raises me like a wave. Because I knew exactly what it means.

Jane has always been an inspiration for me. I was Carrier When I got the sixth place, so in many ways, she was already on the way I had started thinking about. It made her look possible, and even more, made her look fun. She was not presenting herself as a kind of mother who always dreamed of a large family, who grew up in children or crochet. It was practical, funny, honest and cheerful. That was the joy that was stuck with me.

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I did not come to motherhood, I expect healing. In fact, I came to him cautious about what might arouse. My childhood was not full of stability or warmth. My mother, who raised me on my own, was sick throughout my life. After a long battle with autoimmune disorder, I died when I was sixteen years old. My father died due to suicide when I was nineteen. Just like this, both my father went. Without brothers, I was alone (although I had an incredible cousin who entered the violation).

When you lose your original family very small, you learn to build your scaffolding. I had to know how to survive, how to make decisions, and how to be an adult in the world without a safety net. The feeling of loneliness in this type of loss does not come in the waves – it settles. It becomes the background of your life background. For a long time, I did not imagine that this would change at all.

Then I had children.

This did not happen at once, but there is something inside me in the transformation. Where there was a hole, there was something new to grow. warmth. rhythm. house.

There is something that is almost a sabotage about saying “I love to be my mother” in 2025. We live at a time when motherhood is often framing as martyrdom or misery.

I do not put a healing burden on my children; This is not their job. But the truth is, they have looked. Only by being who are. Just by allowing me to love them. Just by allowing me to try.

I am thinking of Jin’s words, “I finally I have my friends, my community and my team” and I smile because I have this now too.

It is not that I am still parents. I am guided. I set the border. I say “no” (a lot). I am not trying to be “my wonderful mother”, and I do not want to be the best friend of my children the way we sometimes consume on the comic play. But I really want people to enjoy. People who want to be in the vicinity. And most days, this feeling is mutual.

Laugh together. We go walking. We participate inside jokes and read books loudly and an explosion music in the car. I have a house full of life, energy and communication. I used to dread to return home to an empty apartment. Now, I sometimes stay in the car before I walk in a loud house just to absorb peace, but I am not afraid of what is inside. Because what is inside is love.

Our culture talks a lot about the extent of exhaustion Motherhood He is. That is. There are days when the dishes do not end, and the entertainment never stops and feels that all that I did is judge the judgment and sweep Cheerios. But this is only part of the story. The other part, the part that does not make it on social media often, is the extent of deep pleasure. How life aims. How to recover.

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There is something that is almost a sabotage about saying “I love to be my mother” in 2025. We live at a time when motherhood is often framing as martyrdom or misery. You are supposed to talk about your development, the amount of wine you need only to survive a routine at bedtime, and the extent of suffocation of mental pregnancy. And yes, all this can be real. But it is not the whole truth.

The truth is also: I love to be around my children. I look forward to returning home from the camp. I rely on the end of the summer – not because I hate their camps, but because I miss them. Come, go home with me, and home education.

I really love them. And I love who I am around them.

Motherhood gave me more than a new identity. This type of family, which I have long believed, gave me that I hadn’t got it again. One did not know that I wanted or needed. He gave me the opportunity to build something that does not exist in my past: a house where love is stable, safety is given, not hope. Providing this loved and stable house for my children, which I never had, is also a recovery

It is strange how many times we give up. How many times we whispered from the joys of fatherhood and motherhood as if they were secrets that we are not supposed to recognize in the polite company. But I think it is time to say loudly. Not to drill difficult things, but to honor good. To allow women to know that motherhood is not just a series of sacrifices, it can also be a source of strength. It can be … fun.

Jane Volveler’s words reminded me that I am not alone in feeling this way. For those of us who came to motherhood with some bruises and battle scars, there can be an unexpected salvation. Perhaps, like Jin, we have been alone for a long time. We may have found, in our children, not only the next chapter, but our people.

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My team.

They not only recover old wounds, but they help me write a new story. One does not start with the loss, but with laughter.

This column was first published on Stemband’s My mother’s wars: Meditation on paternity, motherhood, marriage and relationships from Bethani Mandel and Kara Kennedy.

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