2024 Made Me a Better Mother

Growth, bonding, healing, and so much Taylor Swift

People told me I was in for a rude awakening when my daughter became a teenager. If you would have asked me two years ago I probably would have reaffirmed that by telling you I was absolutely fucked. Knowing the way I butted heads constantly with my mother during my teenage years… my hopes were not high.

And then 2024 happened. Don’t get me wrong, over the years I’ve done a lot of work in therapy on my own issues which I always felt impacted my abilities as a mother. Or maybe they were just my own insecurities. It wouldn’t be until I reflected on this year that I would understand it was a journey of healing that I was on.

Late in life ADHD diagnosis, therapy, reflecting on generational divides and curses that I would have to overcome after realizing they did in fact impact me and working to break the actual cycle. Not that there was anything wrong with the way I was raised. It was what my parents knew. Recognizing that I could in fact do things differently took me a decade, but slowly became revolutionary.

I wish I could apologize to my kids in their younger years for being in mere survival mode most of the time. Having three kids, three and under for 6 months before Camden turned 4 seemed like living in a slow motion hell. Had I had the postpartum depression I had after my middle son, with my daughter… I wouldn’t have been able to function during the chaos life was back then.

I’ve also had to learn and understand that parents show up for their children in different ways. It’s not a competition it’s a community. It takes a village really does mean that and it isn’t until your kids are almost adults that we make these realizations. Looking back on the nearly two decades of being a parent I credit my daughter with my continued desire to evolve, grow, and become a better human on this parenting journey as well.

It sounds bad, I know. But there is a distinct difference I’ve found in parenting a daughter as opposed to sons. I love my children all equally but they’ve given me unique lessons in life. My daughter, I feel as though I am parenting a small version of myself because she’s come away with some of my best qualities I never loved until I saw them in her.

I parent her with a kind heart and the emotional intelligence I wished I had when I became a mother way back in 2007. But life is a lesson, and that is why when people say… you changed… you should always feel as though that is a compliment. We are supposed to grow and evolve based on everything we learn on our journey. It just takes some of us a little bit longer to get there.

When 2024 started I had grand ideas of what our trip to Norway & Amsterdam would look like. The idea any of it was actually a reality was far fetched to me… but the journey was more than I could have planned. I went out of my way to make some moments more special than most. Even in the lack of glamorous travel as she melted down finding out her cheeseburger was really in fact reindeer meat… because Norway.

Amsterdam July 2024

The night before the Taylor Swift concert I sat down and wrote her a note on the hotel stationary. So cliche and 90’s movie-esque but whatever. I’m an emotional Cancer, so fault me. I wanted it to be perfect. Magical. Special. Far beyond anything she could have imagined in her head leading up to it. Why? Because those moments mean more than any concert ticket or material item. It’s the lesson of loving life and living the experiences and outwardly always telling those you love just how much you love them.

Being your unapologetic self. Loving yourself in those moments. The most important lessons that maybe some of us grown women needed a couple decades ago. But I will be fucking damned if my daughter doesn’t get that on the first round in life. I will walk to the ends of the earth to raise a little girl that will love herself, protect her peace, and continue to be a kind soul in the world to those she passes by.

And to the people who say Taylor Swift only writes about boys and break ups would benefit from a relationship with my daughter who has showcased the wide array of emotions, loss, stories, and everything that Taylor’s musical catalog has to offer. It is so much more. I guess that is just too hard for some people to understand at the end of the day. I can assure you though, her music definitely improves the quality of your life when added into your daily rotation.

But, the best thing that 2024 brought me was confidence in knowing my skills as a mother are something I very much should be proud of. And I know through this evolution as a human I’ve done better for my kids than I could have imagined when I started this journey in December of 2007.

That is what gives me hope for the future.

So to every mother out there who is just treading water, know that sometimes the only thing you need to do is show up and show your children you love them. It’s hard, and as women we are already so much harder on ourselves than we should be. This is what society has preprogrammed us to do. But it is time we take the power back, for us, for our daughters, for their daughters and the generations that come after us.

Let us be that change for a generation. We have the chance to keep shaping them into kind humans.

It’ll never be too late.

---