Let’s not ease into this gently—let’s get straight to it. The Worst Mother isn’t a title you casually decide to take on one day. No, this so-called “honour” has roots that run far deeper than the birth of my children. It is a story that reaches back to my own beginning, and maybe even to my mother’s before me. So before you assume this is just another story about parenting disasters and rebellious teenagers, let me take you back to where it truly began. Because the truth is, this journey didn’t start with the first diaper change or the first time I had to say “no.” It began long before that, in a time when I was still a child—completely unaware that I would one day carry the name The Worst Mother.
Scientifically speaking, I was already there when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother. Apparently, women carry all the eggs they will ever have from birth. So yes—there I was, a microscopic possibility, tucked inside my mother’s ovaries while she herself was still safely held in my grandmother’s womb. That’s where this story really begins: three generations of mothers in the making, already intertwined before any of us even took our first breath.
Generation after generation, parenting and pain are passed down like family traditions. You might think you’re the first to discover that raising children sometimes feels like trying to steer a runaway rollercoaster—but you’re not. This runs deep. My grandmother passed her own version of motherhood on to my mother, complete with its strengths, its blind spots, and its quiet traces of trauma. My mother, in turn, passed the baton to me—with love, with imperfection, and with everything she carried that she perhaps never fully understood herself.
That’s how I learned that trauma doesn’t announce itself at birthdays or family dinners. It slips quietly through generations, hiding in well-meant advice and in the smallest, almost invisible gestures. My mother had her struggles, just as I have mine, and for a long time I told myself I would do things differently. That I would not repeat the same mistakes. But who was I trying to convince? It turns out that becoming a mother comes with an unspoken subscription to the same patterns, the same pitfalls, the same impossible expectations. And so, while I tried to become the “perfect” mother, I slowly began to realise that I was part of a long lineage of women—each of them carrying their own battles, their own silent weight.
Years later, the father of my children entered my life. I used to look up to him. He seemed to have everything I felt I lacked: an education, a sharp command of language, and a kind of confidence I could only dream of. He corrected my sentences constantly, as if he were the grammar police. At first, it felt attentive—almost caring. But over time, it became suffocating. My voice began to shrink. My thoughts would disappear halfway through a sentence, lost in the shadow of his perfectly structured words.
His influence reached far beyond our conversations. It seeped into our relationship, into our marriage, and into the way we raised our children. He carried his own generational wounds, and they shaped his way of parenting just as much as mine shaped me. While I tried to find my place as a mother, he held the reins tightly. My attempts to make my own choices were often overshadowed by his dominant presence, leaving little room for my instincts, my voice, or my way of doing things.
That pattern didn’t just exist in conversation—it followed us into pregnancy itself. I still remember the moment he compared pregnancy to a vending machine: “You put money in and get cigarettes out. So whose cigarettes are they?” It was a strange, almost absurd comparison, but it landed harder than I expected. It made me painfully aware of how, at times, he seemed to see me less as the mother of his children and more as a vessel. Small remarks like that, combined with his controlling role in our relationship and in raising our children, slowly planted a feeling in me that I didn’t quite matter.
And that’s where the seed of The Worst Mother truly began to take root. Not in one dramatic failure, but in a long chain of small moments—moments where I felt like I was falling short, as a partner and especially as a mother.
But maybe that’s also where our strength lies. We learn. We fail. We get back up and try again. Because in the end, no matter how messy it gets, it is all driven by love—and by the stubborn, relentless desire to do what’s best for our children. Even if that means, at times, passing on something we wish we could have left behind.
And that, dear reader, is where The Worst Mother begins.
Because it was only when I allowed myself to fail…
that I finally began to find who I really am. ❤️
So take off your shoes. Make yourself a cup of tea—or coffee (or pour a glass of wine, I won’t judge). And step into this story with me. The story of a woman who slowly begins to take off her mask.
☕️ a small cup of comfort
For those who believed mothers had to be perfect.
For those who broke in silence.
For those who shouted in helplessness, and stayed out of love.
For the mother with empty hands and a heart full of questions.
For the woman who lost herself in the tight mold of being the “right” example.
For those who were called “bad”—or worse, began to believe it themselves.
For those who were given a name before they could name themselves.
For you.
Reading.
With an open gaze—and perhaps a crack,
right where the light finds its way in.
May this confession not be a plea for forgiveness, but a bridge.
Not an excuse, but an acknowledgment.
This is where the story begins.
Of falling and staying down—
and then, suddenly, finding the strength to rise again.
Welcome to THE WORST MOTHER.
In capital letters, because it no longer needs to be whispered.
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