The motherhood debt: Providing a safety I never owned

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People ask why I’m not "glowing". They ask, "How can you not be excited?" as if joy is a default setting I’ve simply forgotten to turn on. But the truth is: I have been an adult since my childhood, and I am simply out of breath now.

​I grew up grey before my time. In my house, I wasn’t protected; I was the protector. As the designated ‘understanding’ child, I spent my days acting as a mediator, navigating the volatile tantrums of parents who were as emotionally unavailable as immature (especially the mother). While other children were allowed to be messy, I was learning to read the air for unpredictability, catching family drama and chaos before it shattered. I didn't grow up; I just moved into a larger skin. Because I spent my childhood parenting my parents, starting a family doesn't feel like a beginning; it feels like the second shift of a job I’ve been doing for ages.

​The closer I get to my due date, the more I realise I am heading into a future without a blueprint. When you don’t have a role model to look up to, nothing feels "natural". I worry that basic instincts will fail me, leaving me overtly conscious of every hypothetical move. Without a healthy example to mirror, I am scared that I will unconsciously repeat the pattern, second-guessing every moment and haunted by the question of "how much is enough?"—how much love, how much discipline, how much presence.

I had food on my plate, a roof over my head, clothes, and an education—all the markers of a stable life. Yet, while my physical needs were met, I remained psychologically homeless. A child requires a peaceful environment to thrive, yet I have never known peace.

​When you grow up in survival mode, silence feels like a trap. This is why I remain perpetually on edge, reacting to minor triggers with a flash of anger or a surge of panic. My nervous system is still braced for a crisis that hasn’t arrived. Productivity and perfection have become my only defence—a way to outrun the void. It is infinitely easier to buy a crib than it is to provide the emotional safety I never received.

​How do I learn to value a child when I spent my life feeling like a burden myself? I was never allowed to just be; I had to be useful. Now, with two months left, I am terrified. I am scared that my hands, so used to bracing for impact, will forget how to simply hold. I am scared that I have no energy left to be a "real" parent because I’ve already spent my soul’s currency on the adults who came before me.

​Healing is a slow, heavy process, and I have tried, and am still trying. But life doesn't stop for the weary. It pushes you forward even when you aren't ready. I am unsure if I can ever heal completely, but I know the cycle must end with me.

​So yeah, I am not "unhappy" — I am just depleted. I am a well that was run dry before it could ever replenish. And as I count down these final sixty days, I am realising my greatest task isn't the nursery; it is learning how to stop being the "fixer" for a moment, so that my child never has to start being one too soon.

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