Mommy Finger, Baby Finger

For a long time, I thought survival was strength.

I thought being strong meant enduring, sticking it out, holding it together no matter what. That’s what the women before me did. That’s what I saw. But one day I realized: survival is not the same as peace, and I wanted peace—for me and for my daughter. I didn’t have this realization all at once, though. It came in layers.

Like the other day, in a quiet, honest moment with a friend at the park. We were both talking about motherhood, and she said something that stopped me cold: “Being a mom has made me grieve my childhood.”

That landed deep. Because I knew exactly what she meant. When you become a mother, you start noticing all the gaps—all the things you didn’t get, all the words you never heard, all the protection you didn’t feel, and all the ways you had to grow up too fast. And you realize: I want something different for my child. But that “different” starts with you.

That’s the hard truth about generational trauma: It lives in the silence. In the ways we shut down. In the ways we cope. In how we react. In what we tolerate. In what we believe we deserve. In the way we love—or struggle to love. But the moment we choose to do things differently, even if we don’t do it perfectly, we begin to undo that inheritance.

The truth is, I’ve walked away from more than a crappy apartment with inconsiderate tenants. I’ve walked away from people I loved who didn’t love me well. From jobs that left me drained. From relationships that gaslit me and shamed me for voicing my feelings. I’ve spent years unlearning that definition of strength.

And I’ve walked through layers of healing. Some of those wounds weren’t even mine to begin with. They belonged to the women who came before me. To mothers who did the best they could with what they had. To girls who were never allowed to cry. To boys who learned early that softness was a threat. And somewhere in between, I was born. 

Healing generational trauma isn’t glamorous. It looks like therapy and late-night prayers. Like crying in the car before picking your kid up from school. Like learning to breathe instead of blowing up. Like holding your own hand through the parts no one taught you how to feel.

And yes—I’m still learning to say the word therapy out loud. That word still feels strange in a Latino household. We don’t talk about mental health. We don’t process. We push. We pray. Give it to God. We get over it.

I’m still learning gentleness over anger, because I don’t want to be the stereotype. I’m learning to sit with my feelings when my body screams to run. I’m teaching my daughter what love really looks and sounds like, even while I’m still learning myself.

And lately, I’ve been practicing saying things like:
“This isn’t serving my mental health.”

The other day, my uncle started opening up about his childhood—stories full of pain and shame. Things I’d never heard him admit out loud.
And then, just as quickly, he laughed and said, “Why would I want to sit in therapy and talk about the past? Get over it.”

I didn’t say anything right away. But I felt it deep in my gut and I got a headache thinking about how that mindset has shaped generations. How silence became a survival tool.

I’ve learned to see myself not as a victim of my past, but as the author of my story. I’ve had to trust my gut. Hear my own voice. Set boundaries I was never taught. Find a safe community. Speak truth, even when it shakes me.

I want to heal. I want to look at my wounds instead of pretending they are not there. And maybe, just maybe, help my family see that healing isn’t weakness.