as women, why do we fear being our mothers?

5 min readNov 4, 2026

TW: trauma dump

So, I recently graduated. When the topic of inviting my parents, or rather, my parent, comes up, I shy away. The distance between my mother and me does not permit me to invite her.

Perhaps the distance is best understood through what happened when I visited my hometown after fifteen years. No one called me a whore, contrary to what I had expected.

Maybe my relatives didn’t care. Maybe the town had become more progressive over the years. Maybe it was simply because I had become an adult.

It wasn’t as though they couldn’t see me for the free woman I was. I had my flaws, and I exercised them sometimes.

The truth is, I will never know why they didn’t call me a whore.

But one thing I know for sure is where the idea originated. It came directly from my father but was reinforced by my mother. She actively helped make it a part of my life.

The idea of perceived perfection.

Over time, I’ve realised that this is a shared experience. Many of us share close relationships with our mothers, yet carry a silent burden: the fear and shame of being called a whore.

The idea that women were lesser and meant to be kept behind curtains. That women were supposed to be quiet, restrained, and never give in to their desires. This idea originally came from my father.

Otherwise, women were ‘whores’.

Now imagine the weight of that statement. Imagine being a girl, being called a whore, and then spending your formative years trying very hard not to become the person that word supposedly describes.

You did everything perfectly. You monitored your choices, your clothes, your conduct, and perhaps even your thoughts.

You tried to be the opposite of an accusation.

Imagine carrying the weight of that statement for fifteen years, especially when it was repeatedly reinforced over the years.

And it certainly isn’t easy. If my father was the perpetrator, my mother was the person who helped make his accusations a lived experience.

Some things are hard to forget. Sometimes, you try to forgive and rebuild a relationship from what remains. But it falls apart when the other person is too invested in their own image to acknowledge the hurt they’ve caused.

Immature mothers and the inheritance of shame.

There is something particularly complicated about being hurt by the woman you are expected to look up to.

We often see motherhood as an instinct to protect. We imagine mothers as women who understand, nurture, and shield their daughters from the world. But mothers are individuals too, shaped by their own conditioning, insecurities, prejudices, and unresolved pasts.

Some mothers, however, do not break the cycle.

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Perhaps they have absorbed the same patriarchal values they once suffered under. Perhaps, to them, being a good mother means raising a daughter who is socially acceptable, modest, and always mindful of what others might think.

But knowing where this behaviour comes from doesn’t make the hurt any less real.

I sometimes wonder if my mother ever saw the contradiction. How do you raise a daughter to be strong and independent while also teaching her to be ashamed of her freedom?

Grief, guilt, and the cost of distance.

I think I’ve realised that some of my relationships will always remain strained.

I may not be the daughter of my mother’s dreams, but my identity cannot remain suspended in the pursuit of becoming the daughter she dreamed of.

As a single, independent woman, there are so many milestones ahead of me that I cannot afford to overlook simply because I am still trying to come to terms with my relationship with my mother.

Since turning fifteen, I cannot remember a time when I haven’t been called a whore. Eventually, you become desensitised to the word. But studying sociology has made me realise that it is more than an insult.

It is a way of policing women’s bodies, sexuality, and choices. You begin to wonder why a woman’s autonomy is treated as something shameful.

And perhaps that is where the personal becomes political.

I know my mother had her own struggles. She grew up with little support, limited independence, and few choices in a deeply patriarchal world. I have seen the compromises she made and understand she was learning, too.

But acknowledging what she went through doesn’t take away from what she put me through. I can understand her struggles without inheriting her conditioning.

If you’re still reading this, let me ask you a question.

Why is it so difficult to distance ourselves from people who hurt us? Consider this: if your partner called you a whore, would you still want to build a life with them?

If the answer is no, why should your mother be an exception? The guilt may be overwhelming, but choosing distance doesn’t make you a bad daughter. It means choosing yourself.

The mother I hope to become.

Sometimes, I imagine what it would be like to have a daughter, if the economy permits.

I imagine never calling her a whore or making her feel that her body, desires, or choices are things she must apologise for. I want her to grow up knowing that love doesn’t come with conditions.

Perhaps that’s what motherhood means to me: breaking a cycle rather than passing it on.

I don’t know if I’ll be a good mother, but I know I don’t want my daughter to spend fifteen years trying to disprove an accusation made by the very people meant to protect her.

Maybe that’s just me trying not to repeat the same mistakes.

I hope I make different ones. Very different ones.