Mothering Without a Mother.

I have multiple strong women in my life that I can turn to for anything: an older sister, aunts, a mother-in-law, best friends. I’m good. Resources and support? Got them covered. However, there’s a unique kind of loneliness in becoming a mother without having one of your own around. If you’re part of this club, you know EXACTLY what I mean. It’s a quiet ache, a feeling that sneaks up on you in the most unexpected moments—the first time you hold your baby, the first time you truly don’t know what to do, the first time you’re faced with a situation with your own kids that triggers a memory from your childhood.

This very topic is what inspired me to start writing about motherhood and wanting to be a support system for other moms.

I always knew motherhood would be hard—it was presented to me that way from the start. I heard about the sleepless nights, the endless diaper changes, and the sacrifices moms make. And I wasn’t naïve to it—I had plenty of hands-on experience. I changed diapers, rocked babies to sleep, and spent countless hours babysitting. I had a niece and nephew before becoming a mom, and I was completely obsessed with them (still am). I loved them fiercely, but at the end of the day, they weren’t mine. What I didn’t expect was how different it would feel when I became a mother myself. How much I would grieve my own mother in the process.

Because when you don’t have a mother to guide you, to reassure you, to remind you that yes, you’re doing this right, you are left to navigate the unknown without a map, and in my case, a lot of questions and a nice therapy bill.

While there is pain in the absence of a mother, there is also a quiet strength that comes with it. A strength I’ve watched my sister show for the past 13 years and that I have attempted to replicate. Our situation has forced us both to trust ourselves when we desperately wished for guidance. It has taught us that while we can’t turn to our mother, we can create a new kind of support—a chosen village, a sisterhood of women who show up for us the way she should have.

Nothing motivates me more than when I am given the opportunity as a mom to build up my young daughters. To tell them how worthy they are of love, how strong, smart and beautiful they are. Creating a safe environment for them to be whatever and whoever they want. I want them to know that I will always be their cheerleader and biggest champion, especially if and when they become mothers in the future. Being able to support them in motherhood would be my honor.

So, if you are mothering without a mother—whether you lost her too soon, never had the relationship you needed, or are carrying the weight of generational wounds—please know this: You are not alone. There’s a lot of us out here going through this process.

Maybe you grew up in a home where love felt conditional, where emotions were something to be swallowed, not shared. Maybe you never had a mother who showed up for you the way you needed, or maybe she was there but left wounds she didn’t know how to heal. And now, here you are—raising your own child, determined to do things differently.

Breaking cycles isn’t easy. It’s exhausting, emotional, and sometimes isolating. It means unlearning patterns while teaching new ones and giving a kind of love you weren’t always given. But even on the days when you fall short, when you snap, when you wonder if you’re getting it right—you are. Because awareness itself is the change. The work you’re doing, the love you’re pouring in, the healing you’re prioritizing—it all matters.

You are proof that cycles can end, and that motherhood doesn’t have to look the way it always has.

And that? That is enough. You are enough.