I think it’s 2 things:

1. Motherhood is hard and if you learned it early on you can cope better (especially depending on the coping skills you saw)

2. If what you saw gave you the emotional intelligence to do motherhood well, you’ll do it well. https://twitter.com/__bhb__/status/1252575559726620672

Race and socioeconomics play really heavily into what kind of mothering you were exposed to, but how you saw your mother react to the task itself shapes ... almost everything

Some experiences with motherhood are universal and the question you should ask is, “How did my mother handle this?” “How did she handle the life she was given?”

It will determine your worldview for a very long time.

In parenting conversations we are questioning the task and that’s not the issue, it generally doesn’t change. It’s how you react to the task.

Does mothering make you feel like shit and does it show?

Does your child think that taking care of them is:
- burdensome
- fun and exciting
- neutral
- unimportant

I don’t think there’s a gene because everyone gets a biological “mother.” Mother is also a gendered term anyway. So. Can’t really connect it to a gene in the way we’re talking about it.

Because then you might also have to ask yourself if it was your mother’s inability to play into her gendered role that caused me harm? And the answer might be yes and she’ll still be on the hook.

Your practice can only be as well as you are, so if your coping skills for life are trash then your mothering is going to reflect that. Humanize, humanize, humanize.