I Don’t Want My Kids to Just Know “Mom.” I Want Them to Know Me.
There’s a version of motherhood where you disappear into the role so completely that even your children don’t know who you actually are.
They know Mom.
They know the one who fed them and worried about them and showed up.
But they don’t know the woman.
And I realized recently — that scares me more than almost anything.
The Hats We’re Required to Wear
Being a parent in the early years is physically demanding in a way that nothing prepared me for.
You are needed at a cellular level. You are someone’s entire world before they even have the language to tell you so.
And you wear so many hats. Caretaker. Protector. Scheduler. Soother. Safe place.
I wore all of them (and continue to).
But underneath every single one of those hats… there’s me.
Amber. Not just Mom.
A woman who thinks too deeply and laughs too fucking loudly and has hella interests and fears and a whole interior world that has nothing to do with school drop-offs.
And I want my children to know her. 💕
Why This Matters More Than I Can Explain
Part of this is selfish and I will own that completely.
I want to feel less alone.
I want to be seen — truly, specifically seen — by the people I love most in this world.
Not as a role. Not as a function. As a human being.
But it’s also not just about me.
I need my children to want to know themselves!!!
And they will only learn how to do that if they watch me do it first.
If they grow up knowing a mother who was curious about herself, honest about her evolution, unafraid to be a full human in front of them — that becomes their template.
That’s the inheritance I actually want to leave them.
Not just a mom who sacrificed everything.
A woman who chose herself — and showed them it was possible.
What Grows When They Can Talk Back
Once they’re aware. Once they’re communicating.
Something extraordinary happens.
The bond stops being entirely physical and becomes imaginative. It becomes verbal. It becomes two people genuinely delighting in each other’s minds.
And it only evolves with the years.
I get to watch my kids become people. Real, specific, hilarious, complicated yet UNIQUE individuals.
And they get to watch me be one too!!!
That reciprocity — that mutual becoming — is something I didn’t fully understand I was signing up for when I became a mother.
But it might be the best part.
A Love Letter to Who I’m Becoming (In Front of Them)
I’m excited for them to know my real laugh. My actual opinions. My bad jokes and my deep thoughts at 11pm (as well as 3PM) and the things I believe in that have nothing to do with them.
I want them to love me — not the performance of me.
Not the hats. Not the roles. Me!!!!
And the only way that happens is if I stay committed to knowing myself first.
For myself. For them. For whoever I’m still in the process of becoming.
You come here. You see me. And that makes me feel like all of this is worth it!
Keep reading ↓
If this one landed — I Want To Be Good At Co-Parenting is the honest next piece. It’s about what love for your kids actually looks like when the family structure shifts.
And if the idea of knowing yourself — truly, for the first time — feels both terrifying and necessary right now, start with I Spent Years Pouring Into Everyone But Myself. It’s the companion piece to everything I said here.
For the mornings before they wake up — when it’s just you — Uninterrupted Me Time: Why Waking Up at 5AM Changed My Life is where the real self-knowing starts.
muah muahhhhhh,
AMBER LINDSAY MAR
