To Name It for Her

An offering to my daughters, and the truth I never meant to leave unsaid

I was spending time with my daughter the other day. She just graduated from college and is now heading off to New York for her first job. We sat in my kitchen talking about life—her trip to Southeast Asia, meeting new people, all the things unfolding in her world.

I’m not sure how we got on the topic of my father—it just came naturally. I spoke about how he abandoned our family… abandoned me. And how, as a way to cope, I rejected him in return. I told myself I didn’t want him, didn’t need him. That I was better off without him. That I could walk away untouched. I told her how that same coping mechanism had followed me into other relationships—romantic ones, friendships, and even, in quiet ways, into motherhood.

It’s hard to admit, but I did.

Even though I never felt those things toward my kids—never wanted them to feel they had to earn my love—I can see now how my tone, the way I spoke, may have created that atmosphere. I know there were times when I was caught in my own inner chaos, when I wasn’t fully present. And that created a kind of unspoken distance—a silence that was felt, even if it wasn’t named.

I apologized—not to seek comfort or forgiveness, but to let her know I see it now. I wanted to name it for her. To honor what she felt. She never should have had to carry that weight. I felt the pain of it as I spoke and couldn’t help but cry—sadness for her, and for myself.

Because I tried so hard to shield them from becoming emotional caretakers—as I had been—I didn’t share things that might have helped them understand what they were sensing. I just didn’t have the emotional maturity at the time to recognize it myself, let alone name it for them. How my wounds echoed into my love—subtly, quietly, unintentionally.

I did all the things a “good mom” is supposed to do. But I see now that I may have made my kids feel like they had to work for connection.

That night, I had a dream about my own mother.

She was lying on a bed above me—on the soft, comfortable part—while I lay below, on a cramped mattress surrounded by laundry. I sensed she was sad, so I made space for her to come down with me. I tried to make her more comfortable. Even in the dream, I was the one tending to her.

It wasn’t a dramatic dream. But it said everything. It mirrored the truth I’ve always known but rarely spoken aloud: that I’ve been the emotional support in my family since I was small. That I didn’t get to be a child in the way I needed. That my tenderness, my ability to care, formed early out of necessity. I tried so hard not to pass that burden on to my children… but the echoes were still there.

I’ve been circling these truths for a while now. The quiet loops we walk, trying to undo what was done. When I wrote about my mother, I was trying to feel into the shape of what was never given, the roles I took on too soon. I didn’t realize then that I was still carrying it in my body, and in how I loved.

And now, as my daughter prepares to embark on her own journey, I feel something surfacing. Not panic, not loss exactly—something quieter. An ache I can’t name. A shifting.

Maybe it’s the mother in me changing shape.
Maybe it’s the daughter in me, still waiting to be held.

I know this: I want to speak the truth even if it is not pretty. I want to shed light in my own darkness. To let my daughters know that I see them, and I see myself more clearly now too.

Somewhere between the daughter I was and the mother I am, I am finally awake enough to close the loop. Not a wound—but a loop. Not with blame, but with truth. And in that naming, something new was allowed to begin.

This is how we break the cycle.
Not by erasing the past.
But by naming it, gently, so something new can be born.

“The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.”
— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching