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My Mother Raised a Monster. Her Words, Not Mine.
She gave me dreams, a cricket bat, and zero tolerance for patriarchal nonsense
Our generation loves throwing around the phrase generational trauma — and fair. Some of it is inherited like bad real estate: overpriced, crumbling, and impossible to offload. But not all of it was cruelty wrapped in tradition. Some of it was love — loud, unfiltered, occasionally yelled in public — but love all the same.
Take my mother.
She grew up in a traditional household and wanted big things. Huge things. Things that didn’t involve getting married early and being everyone’s emotional support animal. But life got in the way, as it often does. So she made a silent promise: her daughters would never be told to shrink. We would take up space — on roads, in boardrooms, and if needed, at police stations.
Mission very much accomplished.
One of us is a surgeon. The other (hi) is a feminist with a management degree, a loud mouth, and very organised thoughts about everything from gender equality to the correct placement of Tupperware lids. But the real legacy isn’t the education. It’s the small, radical choices she made that rewired how we saw the world — and ourselves.
