Unmothering.
It's Mother's Day. I am choosing to unmother.
It’s Mother’s Day today.
Twenty-one years. I have mothered children who were not born out of my body, but grew in my heart. I fed them, taught them, fought for them, and folded them into the fabric of my every day. I loved them as fiercely as I knew how, not with a need to replace anyone, but simply because love asks nothing in return but simply to be given.
Now, I recognize that they are growing away from me. Not for extraordinary reasons but only because it is what it is. The circle of life.
They do what they want. They are making choices I don’t agree with. They are carving out lives that no longer include me in the same way. Some days, I wonder if they see me at all. Some days, it feels like I gave everything and somehow still came up short. Sometimes, they question me as they disagree with me. Yes, it is painful somehow.
But they are doing exactly what we raised them to do: to live their own lives.
I have been thinking about this for a long time. Today, on this day meant for mothers, I am quietly learning how to unmother — not to stop loving, but to stop holding on too tightly. Not to erase my presence, but to release the expectation of being needed. I feel it is a positive way to respond how they are growing up. I also feel it is something I need to do to protect myself.
Unmothering is not bitter. Nor angry. It is, if anything, a soft surrender.
Yes. A soft surrender.
A reclaiming of the self I put aside for a long time. It is realizing that my worth is not measured by how often I am called or remembered. It is realizing that the seasons of life have so much more to offer than what I already know now.
I surrender and open up myself to a new chapter of the journey.
I have one child still with me, my own by blood. She still needs me. She still reaches for my hand. And she deserves a mother who is whole — not one quietly aching over what feels lost. It is time to be wholly hers.
So I choose, lovingly and with peace, to shift. To build my own life again. To find joy that does not rely on being central to theirs. To stand tall in the quiet, knowing that mothering doesn’t have to look like it used to in order to still be real.
Maybe this is the hidden chapter of motherhood — the one I don’t find in mother’s day cards — when love stays but lets go, when presence fades into the background, and when peace comes not from closeness, but from having done the work of love well.
Today, I honor that work. I honor every version of myself who mothered. And I honor the woman I’m becoming now — not less of a mother, but something freer, wiser, and still full of affection.
Happy (step)mother’s day — especially to those of us learning how to unmother with grace.
Amy Dickinson writes about how it is normal that stepmoms dread Mother’s Day and how the little things in step mothering will mean more to a stepmom than a mother’s day bouquet.
Here’s another great read for a stepmom.
