I Am Not My Mother – Or Am I?

© Afternoon Clouds. (2017). [Short Film]. Dir. Payal Kapadia.

Some would say I was a mirror image of my mother. I would so quickly refute this claim: “Oh, wait till you see my dad.” I say dad, of course, because South Asian mothers have often been both mother and father rolled into one. For generations, they’ve carried every parental role without so much as a sound. Yet, there are moments. Moments where I catch myself being my mother. Maybe it’s the way I scold my younger sibling for refusing to wear a coat in the middle of winter. Or the way I complain about poor health but never take it seriously enough to change — until I’m forced to. Or maybe…it’s just how relentless my love is; even in moments of anger, my love is unwavering, just like my mother’s.

We spend our lives trying not to be carbon copies of our mothers, only to realise we are versions of them. We are not only their fears, but we are their dreams. We are loud, we are unfiltered, we don’t say “Log Kya Kahenge?” (“what will people say?”). We dance in understanding our mothers, resisting the patriarchal stereotypes that have been embedded in them, while also learning to embrace the parts of them that we hold dear to us, all whilst carving our own identities.

Growing up, most of us are lucky enough to have a mother, whether in the biological sense or an auntie ji from down the street, the mosque, the lunch lady who saved you an extra piece of sprinkle cake, who treated you like her very own. Motherhood isn’t always who gave birth to us, sometimes it’s the ones who choose us. Time and time again.

Edit your page, don’t rewrite your book.

Weirdly, though, as I reflect, I have a newfound peace in being my mother’s daughter; from our shared mannerisms to our unflinching tendencies to become obsessed with certain foods till we are sick of them. There is something incredibly comforting in knowing there will always be small memorials of her love scattered within me. I no longer fear being my mother’s daughter; I feel an instinctive need to try to emulate the best parts of my mother.

There is something quite revolutionary in realising we aren’t at war with our mothers. We absorb so much from our mothers, from their laughter to their language. But we also receive their wounds. Not from choosing to, but from watching our mothers’ acceptance of pain, their closeness to suffering and their silence in settling for less than they deserve.

So yes, I received my mother’s power, but I also inherited her tiredness. I always adored my mother’s endless generosity, but I also witnessed how often it went unappreciated. She emphasised endurance: to wipe away tears and keep moving forward, but never to sit long enough with my emotions to truly understand them. Some of the habits she taught me were born of love, others of pain. I’m learning to accept the contributions I’ve gained from my mother, but also to acknowledge the aspects of her that didn’t work well for her. In allowing myself to do this, I am choosing freedom to propel myself forward toward becoming the most authentic version of me.

I am not removing my mother, rather, I am redefining her. I honour her strength, but I can also take time for myself. I can emulate her kindness, without burning my own candle out completely. I can take pride in bouncing back, but I also allow myself to sit with my emotions and ask for help when I’m struggling. This isn’t about becoming my mother or rejecting her entirely; it’s about integrating the best parts of her while choosing not to repeat the harmful patterns that plagued her.

So, to answer the age-old question: we aren’t our mothers, and we aren’t their shadows, either. But we do carry fragments of them, and it’s those very parts that help shape who we are.