My mum and grandma both grew up poor. Neither finished school as they had to start working as early as possible to make ends meet.

I grew up not worrying about either of those things, because they made sure of it.

For a long time I also held a quiet list of grievances alongside all of that. Why were they so controlling? Why so critical? Why couldn’t they have just been a bit easier on me in certain ways?

It took years of my own inner work to really internalize a different question: what tools did they actually have? They didn’t have therapy, education, or the luxury of examining their patterns. They were too busy surviving and putting food on the table.

My grandma raised four kids alone while working as a cleaner. My mum carried mum guilt every day while trying to give me a life she never had.

That emotional load (including the identity shift that starts during pregnancy, the constant negotiation between having to work and spending quality time with your child) people don’t talk about that enough.

I hear it often now from clients who had to start navigating that tension between who they are at work and who they’re becoming at home. The identity doesn’t stay intact through that transition. It changes fundamentally and has to be rebuilt, usually while everyone around you is focused on the child.

The emotional vocabulary I have access to, the frameworks I use, the capacity to pause and reflect – none of that was available to them.

What they did pass on, they passed on the hard way. Standing up for yourself. Using your voice. Not shrinking when the room gets uncomfortable.

I learned those things because they modelled them, loudly and imperfectly (yes, I am loud too!).

I think about this a lot now in my work with clients navigating the gap between who they are becoming and the environments that shaped them. The critical parent. The high-pressure household. The relationships that left particular marks.

The people who raised you did it with what they had. Recognising the ceiling of their tools is not about excusing the impact. It’s about being able to look clearly – at them, and at yourself. I’m still doing that and probably always will be as growth has many layers.

This one’s for the women who raised us and built something out of very little – happy Mother’s Day!