#identity-beyond-motherhood
#identity-beyond-motherhood
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#parenting #mental-health #personal-growth #identity #motherhood #relationships #authenticity #work-life-balance
Careers
fromSilicon Canals
13 hours agoI was always the reliable one - the one who showed up, remembered, rearranged, and absorbed - and it took me until 58 to wonder whether anyone would have come looking if I'd stopped - Silicon Canals
Being the reliable one can lead to personal neglect and invisibility in relationships.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoThere is a specific kind of pride that belongs to people who grew up being told to figure it out. It looks like strength from the outside. From the inside it feels like a locked door they built so well they lost the key. - Silicon Canals
Self-reliance is a socially rewarded trauma response, often masking deeper emotional needs and issues within modern work culture.
Writing
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoI'm 66 and the most important relationship of my adult life has been with solitude - not as a consolation for the company I didn't have, but as the place where I have always been most honest, most creative, and most recognizably myself, and I spent too many years being embarrassed about that before I understood it was simply how I was built - Silicon Canals
Solitude allows for self-discovery and personal reflection, free from societal expectations and external pressures.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 hours agoThere's a specific kind of guilt that belongs to people who left difficult families and built better lives. It's not survivor's guilt exactly. It's the knowledge that your peace required a distance that someone who raised you experiences as abandonment, and there is no version of the story where everyone is okay. - Silicon Canals
Family estrangement often leads to complex guilt that doesn't fit traditional narratives of victimhood or ingratitude.
Careers
fromSilicon Canals
20 hours agoI watched my boomer mother give unsolicited opinions about my parenting, my marriage, my weight, and my career for fifteen years with the certainty of someone who had never once been wrong about anything - and the day I finally said something back was the day I understood that her certainty was not about me at all, it was the one thing she had that still made her feel like she mattered - Silicon Canals
Unsolicited advice from the boomer generation reflects deeper fears of irrelevance and a need to maintain authority.
Mindfulness
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoI'm 37 and I realized I wasn't actually a good person the day my wife said "you're kind to strangers and cruel to the people closest to you" - and the worst part wasn't the accusation, it was that I couldn't argue because I'd been using up all my patience on people who didn't matter and coming home empty - Silicon Canals
Kindness should be abundant at home, not rationed for public interactions, to foster authentic connections with loved ones.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
21 hours agoMost families have one person everyone loves but nobody genuinely listens to - and psychology says that person almost always knows exactly who they are, has known for decades, and long ago stopped hoping anyone else would figure it out - Silicon Canals
Family dynamics often lead to certain voices being unheard, creating an invisible hierarchy that affects communication and connection.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoThere was a moment in my late twenties when I realized every close friendship I'd lost wasn't a relationship that ended. It was a version of myself that could only exist around those specific people, and the grief was never about them leaving. It was about that version of me having nowhere left to live. - Silicon Canals
Friendship dissolution often signifies the loss of a version of oneself rather than just the loss of a relationship.
#happiness
Writing
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoI'm 66 and I spent four decades chasing the version of happiness I saw in other people's living rooms - and the day I stopped, I noticed I'd been happy in my own kitchen all along - Silicon Canals
Measuring happiness against others' lives leads to perpetual dissatisfaction and obscures personal contentment.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
18 hours agoPsychology suggests the adults most likely to spend their 60s and 70s in genuine contentment aren't the ones who achieved the most - they're the ones who stopped the earliest needing their life to mean something to anyone else, and that stopping, whenever it happened and for whatever reason, was the first day the actual life began - Silicon Canals
Happiness comes from being true to oneself rather than seeking validation from others.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoI'm 73 and my husband asked me what makes me happy and I gave him the answer I thought he wanted to hear - our kids, our grandkids, our home - but the real answer is I genuinely don't know anymore because I've spent forty years editing my joy to fit other people's expectations - Silicon Canals
Editing joy to fit others' expectations can lead to losing sight of what truly makes one happy.
#parenting
Parenting
fromSlate Magazine
1 day agoI Once Thought Parents Were to Blame for What My Family Is Going Through. Now I Realize How Wrong I Was.
Focusing on one small change at a time can help manage chaos in a busy household.
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoI'm 66 and I recently told my son that I was proud of him for the first time in his adult life, and the look on his face told me everything about the cost of assuming that providing for someone communicates the same thing as telling them they matter - Silicon Canals
Verbal expressions of pride are crucial for emotional connection between parents and children.
Parenting
fromScary Mommy
6 days agoOK, So Work Becomes Less Of A Priority For *Everyone* After Having Kids, Right?
Having children often shifts priorities from career advancement to family time and financial security.
Parenting
fromwww.businessinsider.com
2 weeks agoI resented my parents for killing my creative career goals. I swore I'd never do the same to my kids then I became a parent.
Parents often prioritize practical career paths over creative ambitions, leading to generational misunderstandings about the value of pursuing passions.
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoI'm 66 and I recently told my son that I was proud of him for the first time in his adult life, and the look on his face told me everything about the cost of assuming that providing for someone communicates the same thing as telling them they matter - Silicon Canals
Verbal expressions of pride are crucial for emotional connection between parents and children.
Parenting
fromwww.businessinsider.com
2 weeks agoI resented my parents for killing my creative career goals. I swore I'd never do the same to my kids then I became a parent.
Parents often prioritize practical career paths over creative ambitions, leading to generational misunderstandings about the value of pursuing passions.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoYou know a woman has lost her joy in life when she describes her days accurately and without feeling - when the words are all correct and the tone is completely flat and the account of her own life sounds like something being reported rather than lived, and she doesn't notice the flatness because she has been inside it long enough that it just sounds like how things are - Silicon Canals
Emotional flatness can creep in, making life feel like a series of tasks rather than meaningful experiences.
fromLGBTQ Nation
2 days agoOut WNBA star pens moving letter to her toddler on his 2nd birthday: "It kind of blows my mind" - LGBTQ Nation
On one of the most important nights of my career, the night of the WNBA draft, I wasn't able to have your mom standing by my side. I called her when I was in the green room, when I finally got a moment to sneak away, and she was so excited for me. She's screaming on the phone, like, 'LET'S GOOOOO!!!' She had already been a part of so many highs and lows. She understood how much this meant to me.
Women
Careers
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoI'm 66 and I spent forty years being extremely good at my job and last spring I realized I had optimized my entire existence for the approval of people I didn't particularly like - Silicon Canals
Professional dedication can sometimes mask a deeper need for approval from others, leading to personal sacrifices and a loss of self-identity.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoNobody teaches children how to know their own worth - we teach them to perform, to achieve, and to behave, and then wonder why so many adults reach fifty still measuring themselves against someone else's ruler - Silicon Canals
Self-worth is inherent and not based on achievements or external validation.
Boston
fromSilicon Canals
2 weeks agoI'm 66 and I finally understand that my mother wasn't cold - she was rationing. She had a finite amount of emotional energy and five people drawing from it every day, and the distance I interpreted as indifference was a woman trying to make it to bedtime without disappearing completely. - Silicon Canals
A child's misinterpretation of a parent's emotional reserve as indifference reveals how exhaustion and finite emotional capacity shape parental behavior across decades.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoThere's a specific kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with sleep. It comes from years of translating yourself into a version that other people could handle, and the exhaustion lives in the gap between who you are and who you've been performing so consistently that even you forgot there was a difference. - Silicon Canals
Workplace burnout often stems from the exhaustion of pretending to be someone you're not, rather than from overwork itself.
#identity
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says people who feel like they've been living someone else's life aren't confused or ungrateful - they're often the ones who were so good at adapting in childhood that they never stopped adapting long enough to find out who they actually were - Silicon Canals
Adapting to others' needs in childhood can lead to feeling disconnected and lost in adulthood.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says people who feel like they've been living someone else's life aren't confused or ungrateful - they're often the ones who were so good at adapting in childhood that they never stopped adapting long enough to find out who they actually were - Silicon Canals
Adapting to others' needs in childhood can lead to feeling disconnected and lost in adulthood.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoPsychology says the most emotionally strong people aren't the ones who never fall apart - they're the ones who fall apart privately, reassemble without fanfare, and never use their recovery as a reason for anyone else to feel guilty - Silicon Canals
Emotional strength involves acknowledging feelings and recovering privately, not denying vulnerability or pretending to be unbreakable.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoI'm 66 and I woke up last Thursday and realized I couldn't name a single thing I was looking forward to - not because nothing good was happening but because I'd trained myself to find meaning in being needed and nobody needs me anymore - Silicon Canals
Finding purpose in being needed can lead to a loss of personal desires and identity after retirement.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoThere's a generation of men who were taught that providing was the same as loving. And there's a generation of their children who spent years in therapy learning that those aren't the same thing, only to reach an age where they finally understand that for their fathers, inside the architecture they were given, it was. - Silicon Canals
Emotional estrangement between fathers and children stems from generational differences in expressing love and vulnerability.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoThere is a particular loneliness in being a man whose body never matched the archetype he was taught to aspire to. Not because anyone was cruel about it, but because the world built its furniture, its expectations, and its respect around a size he would never reach. - Silicon Canals
Body image issues in men stem from societal expectations and architectural norms, leading to a profound, often unacknowledged loneliness.
fromNature
1 week agoMotherhood derails women's academic careers - these data reveal how and why
The latest study published in March by the Centre for Economic Performance indicates that although the career trajectories of men and women are similar before becoming parents, their paths diverge starkly after the birth of their first child.
Women
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoThe most painful version of not belonging isn't being rejected by strangers. It's sitting at your own family's dinner table, surrounded by people who share your last name, and feeling like you're watching the evening through glass. - Silicon Canals
Belonging can exist alongside profound loneliness, where one feels unseen even in the presence of family and friends.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoI recently understood that the tiredness I had been blaming on everything else - the job, the age, the schedule, the season - was not tiredness at all, it was the specific and sustained effort of living a life that wasn't quite mine, and the moment I understood that the exhaustion had a name it became possible, for the first time, to do something about it - Silicon Canals
Exhaustion often stems from emotional labor and the effort to maintain a false persona rather than physical demands of work.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoThere's a specific exhaustion that belongs to people who spent decades being exactly what everyone needed them to be - and then one day realized they couldn't remember what they needed - Silicon Canals
People-pleasing leads to losing one's identity and can result in profound exhaustion and disconnection from self.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoI'm 66 and I finally learned the hardest lesson isn't that people will disappoint you - it's that you'll disappoint yourself by pretending you don't need what you need until you forget what that even was - Silicon Canals
Neglecting emotional needs leads to a profound sense of loss and disconnection from oneself and others.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoThere's a particular kind of strength that belongs to people who rebuilt their entire personality after 40 - not because something broke them, but because they finally had enough distance from their childhood to see what was never theirs to carry - Silicon Canals
Personality changes after forty often reflect a deeper honesty about one's true self rather than a crisis or breakdown.
Women in technology
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoWomen over 60 who say they've never been more confident didn't suddenly find self-esteem-they all stopped performing these 7 things that most women are taught to maintain from adolescence onward - Silicon Canals
Women who develop confidence later in life unlearn ingrained behaviors of self-diminishment, particularly excessive apologizing, seeking permission, and minimizing their presence and opinions.
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
1 week agoI'm 37 and my daughter just said sorry for laughing too loud and I recognized the exact moment a child starts editing herself because I remember the day I did it too, and I remember who taught me. - Silicon Canals
Children often self-regulate their joy, but this can lead to unnecessary apologies for natural expressions of happiness.
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoI used to be embarrassed that my mother cleaned other people's houses for a living - and it took me 30 years to realize she understood dignity better than anyone I've met since - Silicon Canals
She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. 'Because I said I'd clean their house, so I clean their house. What's so hard to understand about that?' I thought she was missing the point. Turns out, she was the only one who got it.
Careers
Left-wing politics
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months agoThe right has won the family': why are there so few lefty momfluencers?
Polished mommy-influencer content soothes with domestic routines but sparks anxiety about creators' politics, driving a desire for algorithmic feeds that confirm progressive values.
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoI watched my wife stop explaining herself to everyone after she turned 50, and what happened next changed how I see every woman in my life - Silicon Canals
For thirty years, I watched this woman explain every decision she made. Why she worked part-time when the kids were young. Why she went back full-time when they were older. Why she didn't want to join the PTA. Why she did want to take that art class. Always explaining, always justifying, always making sure everyone understood her reasons. Then she turned fifty, and it all stopped.
Women
Parenting
fromBusiness Insider
3 weeks agoI found making friends as a new mom so hard. A stranger on the street changed everything.
A stranger's act of kindness in offering a stroller sparked a lasting friendship that evolved into a close-knit group of mother friends who support each other through motherhood.
fromBuzzFeed
1 month ago26 Social Burdens Women Shoulder That Are Completely Exhausting
Putting on makeup. Like, we're supposed to disguise ourselves; otherwise, people think we didn't take this outing seriously, didn't care enough, or didn't act professionally. In some ways, beauty standards are social obligations. Keeping up with nails, clothes, hair, etc., that's almost an expectation in some relationships.
Women
Parenting
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 weeks agoI went into motherhood an oblivious idiot - and I don't regret it | Emma Beddington
Excessive knowledge about motherhood's challenges creates ambivalence about having children, while insufficient knowledge leaves parents unprepared for the reality of parenthood.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month agoMy grandmother raised 6 children alone with no money and no help - and she carried a quiet philosophy about hardship that psychologists are only now putting into words - Silicon Canals
Resilience develops through focusing on controllable factors, maintaining a growth mindset, and finding meaning in adversity rather than viewing hardship as defining.
fromPsychology Today
1 month agoWho Gets to Be a Mother?
We'd been working together for years to make my medication regimen-treatment for schizoaffective disorder-safe for potential pregnancy. Under her care, I was tapering off an antidepressant known to cause respiratory distress and hypertension in a newborn. I'd been experiencing wild mood swings, even suicidal thoughts. My beloved doctor's eyes were sad. "I'm saying no to a pregnancy, Meg." Even in the moment, I understood her priority as a physician was to keep me safe. Still, part of me hated her.
Mental health
fromScary Mommy
2 months agoThis Mom Says That The Woman With The Happiest Relationships Are "Useless"
"The smartest women with the happiest relationships are the useless women," Dianna Lee begins in her video. "As you can probably tell, I'm a highly capable woman. I'm capable throughout all areas of my life, through my schooling days, to my career, and I attacked my marriage life in exactly the same way. I just executed. I was fast, efficient, and I knew exactly what needed to get done. And in retrospect, it was so wrong."
Relationships
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