Who protects the mothers?

Motherhood, patriarchy, and finding support within broken systems.

I had another very hard weekend with my son.

This painful cycle has been repeating itself every day, every weekend, for more than six years.

I’ve learned to minimize the reality of what I have been living through simply because I have had to survive it.

He chose to leave my home early and go to his dad’s yesterday afternoon.

It is such a paradox to run toward the people whose wounds are surging through you.

To run toward what keeps you from feeling.

To run toward what keeps you from healing.

To run toward the people who validate your wounding.

It’s not you. It’s her.

No matter what happens, it is always her.

She is both the cause and the impossible solution for all the wrongs in this world.

The whole truth is never expressed or understood.

Only one very limited side of the story is shared.

No reciprocity.

No accountability.

Seeing others as wrong if they do not align with our limited perspective of what is.

No space or respect for differences.

Black or white.

Right or wrong.

I have been cast as the villain by many people over the past few years.

Holding a bright flashlight to illusion, shadow, and unhealed pain tends to do that.

My son is no exception.

So much of his definition of safety is rooted in not being asked to feel.

My home, however, oozes an invitation to be fully present with what is.

For myself, my daughter, my partner, and the friends I invite in, it is a very calming, peaceful sacred space.

For my son, the energy of my home is incredibly overwhelming.

True safety invites us to feel.

And feeling can be terrifying.

I could feel my entire body closing in protection after the time with my son.

The manipulation, the games, the familiar experience of being blamed for all that is by people unwilling to look at what is theirs.

I cuddled on the couch with my daughter after dinner as we watched a show we love.

I keep reminding myself that I am showing her how women and girls deserve to be treated.

My dog curled up on my legs, his favorite place.

Safety.

My partner came over as I put my daughter to bed.

He could sense all that I had inevitably become entangled in when my son was here.

Patriarchy, misogyny, sexism.

Disrespect and dehumanization of girls and women.

Conditioning that is not authentic to him, energy that is not truly his, but that he absorbs through the environments he inhabits, through the poisonous air he breathes.

I have left many spaces and relationships that breed these energies, only to have them continue to enter my home through the trojan horse that is my son’s vessel.

My partner sat behind me on the couch after my daughter went to sleep.

Holding my rigid body, wrapped in ice and armor, still pierced by broken arrows.

He simply breathed and held me.

Breath by breath, I allowed myself to soften.

It is getting easier with him, but it is never easy.

Tears began to flow.

Warmth, openness, and love slowly spread through my body.

More tears.

More holding throughout the night.

Words needing to be spoken about all that I have experienced with my son over the last several years.

Consistently being told what is true for me by people who are not present.

Consistently being minimized, invalidated, mocked, judged, and shamed.

Frequently being asked to prove what I know in my bones.

This is not unique to me.

How often do we ask women to prove their experiences?

How often do we demand evidence before offering care or support?

How often do we question, minimize, or dismiss what is true for another?

We see it everywhere.

In conversations about gender inequality and sexism.

In conversations about sexual violence.

In our systems, families, and communities.

Women are expected to thrive inside the systems that continue to wound them.

Who protects the mothers?

Who stands with them in the arena?

Who helps carry what was never theirs to hold alone?

Shame tells mothers to stay silent.

Shame tells us to push away support.

Shame tells us we will always be alone in this.

Mothers need more support.

Women need more support.

Humans need more support.

Many of our systems are broken and this needs to change.

I will keep going.

I will do my best every single day.

I will continue to choose love, truth, justice, and equality.

That will always upset those who have built their lives choosing otherwise.

And still, I choose it like the badass villain I am.

Because when mothers and women are truly seen, supported, and protected, everything will change.

Families will heal.

Damaging cycles will be broken.

And that powerful healing will create miracles in our world.

With a cape, a witchy cackle, and absolutely no plans to stay silent,

Melissa