Kitija Ozolina · Awareness Mentor for Mothers
How to Start Choosing Yourself Without Feeling Selfish
That belief that good mothers disappear into the role. I carried it for years. Here is what I think is actually true.
What happened to you was not your fault. You did not choose the patterns that were passed to you.
But you are here now. And you have something the women before you did not. This is about that.
You are not a better mother for disappearing. I think that is the thing nobody told us.
Wanting something for yourself does not mean you love your children less. It does not make you selfish. It does not mean you are failing the role.
You are allowed to still be a person.
Where this belief came from
We watched our mothers do it. Put food on the table last. Take the smallest piece. Never say what they needed. Work while sick. Rest only when everyone else was settled.
We watched them and we learned: this is what love looks like. Love looks like absence of self.
And then we became mothers and we did the same thing. Not because we chose it. Because it was the only model we had.
What it actually costs them
Not guilt. just what children absorb when a mother has no self left.
They learn to erase themselves too.
Children absorb what they see. If mum never says what she needs, they learn that needs are not allowed. That asking is too much. That love means shrinking. And they carry that into their own lives, their own relationships, their own mothering one day.
They carry the weight of your sacrifice.
Even when you say nothing, they feel it. The tiredness. The quiet resentment. The way you smile through gritted teeth. Children are not fooled. They register what you feel even when you have learned to hide it. And somewhere in them, they know they cost you something.
They lose access to who you actually are.
A mother who has completely disappeared into the role is not fully present. she is managing. There is a difference. Managing is efficient. Presence is alive. Children do not need you perfect. They need you real. A mother who has something of herself left is easier to reach.
They learn that love requires self-abandonment.
And they take this into every close relationship they ever have. They give too much. They attract people who take too much. They feel guilty when they want something for themselves. The pattern you are carrying has a next generation waiting to receive it.
Choosing yourself is not the end of love. It might be the beginning of it.
Not because you deserve it. you do, but that is not the point. Because what you model is what they learn. And you can model something different.
What is one small thing you could choose for yourself this week that isn't about anyone else?
With love, Kitija 🤍
If saying no is the part that is hard, The Quiet No goes into it properly.
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