Motherhood did not arrive in my life with fireworks or slogans or a sudden revelation about who I was supposed to become. It arrived quietly and then stayed, altering my internal weather in ways I am still learning to name. Being a mother has taught me that children do not listen as much as they observe. They watch how we move through rooms, how we react to small frustrations, how we inhabit joy or avoid it. They absorb tone, posture, silence. I learned very early that whatever example I set would settle into my daughter without asking permission. That awareness can feel heavy, but it is also clarifying. It strips away excuses. I cannot outsource warmth or presence or emotional courage. If I want her to grow up knowing how to celebrate life, I have to do it myself, openly, imperfectly, without irony. That is not performative happiness. It is a conscious choice to let joy be visible, especially in moments that used to pass unnoticed in my own childhood.
Somewhere in my memory lives a version of me as a child during the nineties, surrounded by Christmas lights and end of year rituals that looked correct from the outside and felt oddly muted from within. I knew my parents were content in their own way, responsible and present, but affection rarely took shape through touch or overt celebration. There were no spontaneous hugs, no laughter that spilled into photographs, no instinct to freeze moments into keepsakes. I do not tell this story to accuse them. They did the best they could with what they had learned. Still, there was a gap between the beauty of the season and the emotional temperature at home. As a child, I felt that gap without language. As an adult, I recognize it as absence of demonstrated joy. Not cruelty, not neglect, just restraint. That quiet distance followed me longer than I expected, resurfacing when I became a mother and realized how much freedom I had to do things differently.
Recognizing patterns does not automatically break them, but it gives them a shape, and once something has a shape it can be confronted. I see now how emotional habits travel across generations with stubborn persistence. My parents likely grew up with even less permission to show affection than they gave me. Love existed, but it stayed contained, expressed through duty and sacrifice rather than enthusiasm or tenderness. That is how circles begin. They are not malicious. They are efficient. I decided, slowly and without drama, that this circle would end with me. Not because I am superior or enlightened, but because I have access to a wider emotional vocabulary. I know that love can be loud without being shallow, that celebration can be sincere, that children do not need perfection but they do need evidence. Evidence that joy is safe. Evidence that affection does not need a reason.
Through my daughter I have learned how radical it can be to show up fully during moments that seem ordinary. Celebrating holidays with her is not about spectacle or excess. It is about presence that has weight. Sitting on the floor, clapping for her small achievements, letting her see my face soften when she laughs. I want her to remember not just that we were there, but how it felt to be with us. No stiff dinners, no emotional minimalism disguised as discipline. Loving her means participating in her happiness without embarrassment. It means allowing myself to feel joy openly, even when that openness feels unfamiliar or slightly uncomfortable. There is courage in that. There is repair. Each shared smile rewrites something old inside me while building something steadier for her.
Loving our children is not only about protecting them from harm. It is about modeling a way of being alive that includes warmth, curiosity, and visible care. Traditions deserve respect only when they serve growth. Some traditions need to be questioned, even dismantled, especially when they teach emotional scarcity. I do not want my daughter to grow up wondering whether joy should be hidden or rationed. I want her to know that love shows itself, that celebration is not frivolous, that presence matters more than formality. If she learns that by watching me, then I am doing something right. I do not aspire to be flawless. I aspire to be braver than the silence I inherited. Closing the circle is not an act of rebellion. It is an act of responsibility. And I hope, sincerely, to remain worthy of that choice as she grows and continues to watch me, always watching, learning what love looks like in practice.
