There is a stage in life where every little girl wants to be just like her mom. Then the little girl turns into a teen and goes through a phase of hating her mom! After a few years through the teen phase comes the time when a daughter realizes how thankful she is for all the things she never knew all moms did or went through. Yet, as the stages continue, so many things are unintentionally taught and picked up to be passed on from mom to daughter. Some of these traits are extremely beneficial and some the daughters fight to not repeat as their mother did.
This Mother’s Day I asked 20 millennial females to answer two questions.
- ‘What is one trait you got from your mom that you are thankful for?’
- ‘What is one trait that you saw in your mom that you wish she didn’t unintentionally teach you?’
Some of the responses I got made me speechless. My heart broke from the one who responded that said she could not participate because of bad choices her mom was currently making. No response was exactly the same, but I was shocked by the common themes that showed up in the responses.
To all of the moms of millennial daughters, this one is for you!
Mom, thank you so much for teaching us how to be strong. ‘She taught me how to be strong and keep pushing through the bad times because there was always a greater purpose.’ Because of the strength that was passed down to so many daughters there is now a generation of independent females paving the way because of you! ‘I will forever be thankful for my Mother’s strength. While raising 3 kids on her own, she was able to wake up every day & continue to move mountains.’
Mom, you taught us to keep going no matter what. That nothing is too big to get in the way of our dreams. ‘She taught me to be a strong independent woman and to always reach for the stars no matter the obstacles.’ You created a life for us to truly live and a safe environment for us to learn and grow. ‘She allowed me to set my own expectations and goals for myself and reach them accordingly.’ There is a whole force of females in the world because they watched mom’s show us how to go with the flow of life, ‘She taught me that life will not always be easy, therefore you should prepare that. Work hard, be intentional with your time, and love hard (even if that’s not in the most sensitive or emotional way).’
Mom, you showed us how to have ‘responsibility and independence from a young age’. Not only to be responsible but to ‘stick out your commitments and stay true to your word, a simple lesson in integrity.’ Most importantly, mom, you created a generation of females that are proud to say that their mom is their best friend. ‘I am forever thankful that my mom has always been my best friend and someone I could talk to! Whether about good or bad things, I could rely in her for support, encouragement, excitement, and wisdom.’
You have taught us so many lessons but the ones that we are most thankful for are for teaching us independence with strength, being our best friend with unending support, and for given us determination to never give up. Mom, because of you loving on us, the world will be a better place! You have made us who we are, and we are forever thankful. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for showing us what it is like to be a strong independent female. Thank you for walking through hard times to teach us to never give up. Thank you for believing in us when we didn’t believe in ourselves. Thank you for building trust, never letting anything get in the way of our relationship and for being our best friends.
Mom, we are forever thankful and celebrate the habits and traits we picked up from you! There are little moments when we realize we are turning into you and it brings us so much joy. Yet, even though there are moments we embrace being like you, there are habits and traits that we watched and so desperately knew you deserve better. These habits and traits we have seen for years and know that you did your best. We understand that these traits came because you were putting yourself last to put your kids first. These are by no means complaints. These are traits that were unintentionally taught to us that we have picked up and noticed we do not want to copy.
Mom, you worked so hard! Sometimes too hard and it made us feel second best because work seemed more important. ‘My mom worked A LOT, and still does. She worked to the point where she would miss family dinners and sporting events to make sure work was happy over anything else. When I was younger, it upset me, but now that I have a job of my own, I sometimes find myself overworking myself and missing out on fun things and family times. I didn’t realize then what it was teaching me, but now I feel like it’s imbedded in me to put work a little too high on the priority list.’
Mom, there are things that didn’t matter to you but mean the world to us. ‘I wish my mom wouldn’t have always had a cleaning service come to our house each week when I was growing up. As I have gotten older, I struggle to keep up with laundry, dishes, and lack organization a lot in my life because it was always done for me.’ We understand that you did your best, but we pick up and learned so many things from you. How you treat us, and others is such a big part of our everyday lives. ‘My mom never apologized. So, I never learned how to apologize to others. It’s something I have been actively working on the last few years.’ No matter what day of the week, or what the topic we were watching and learning. ‘I wish my mom had a stronger faith and taught me and my siblings more about God.’ The way you lived was taught to us in every day we were with you.
Mom, you did so much for us that we noticed you so often forgot about you. Your mental health as a mom is what seem to have affected every millennial daughter the most. It seems to affect us the most because we love you and know you deserve the absolute best, but you give us your best over and over again before you give it to yourself. ‘I wish my mom did more for herself. I appreciate all she did for us but wish she would have taken more time to preserve herself for the sake of her spirit and us.’ It is actually really amazing to see how incredible you raised us all while never really focusing on taking care of you. You did so much to care, love and protect us. ‘I wish my mom wouldn’t have bottled her emotions up about life happenings like death, money troubles, being human and needing a good cry. Mental health is real and emotions shouldn’t be hidden from the ones you love just to always be that “strong hold” of the family.’
Mom, you are a rock star in so many ways. Yet, you taught us that we could conquer the world yet ended the day being disappointed. ‘I wish my Mom wouldn’t let things get her down as much as they do. She always taught me how important it is to seize the day and make your own path in life and it kills me to see her waste days on the couch.’ You taught us to be ourselves and to not care what others think but didn’t always live it out. ‘I wish my mom didn’t give way to social standards. She was always worried about what others would think and it created a schism in our relationship.’ We always knew, and we still do, that you are just as much capable of anything you set your mind to just how you taught us. But it breaks our heart when you ‘…complained without making strides to address the root problem’.
Mom, we think you are beautiful! From the inside and out we are so thankful you are who you are. We would not be the same incredible young adult changing the world without you! It breaks our hearts to hear you tell us how beautiful you think we are, but you have lost seeing your own beauty. ‘I wish my mom had more confidence in herself. From her body to her abilities, she neglected herself for us kids a long time ago and never recovered. I wish my mom knew herself better and was confident in who God made her to be.’ Mom, most of all. Every little ‘flaw’ that you pointed out about your own body, taught us that it was okay to be unhappy with our own body. ‘Due to hearing her constant body complaints growing up, it is hard to ever accept and love myself. Instead, I just see my flaws when looking in a mirror.’
Mom, you are beautiful. You are inspiring, you are encouraging, motivating, determined, strong, caring, kind, fearless, smart, amazing, and hardworking. Mom, you are our best friend! We spend the first part of our life wanting to be just like you! Now we are spending the rest of our lives trying to make you proud! We look at our lives and see how blessed we are to have a mom who put us first so much that you forgot who you are. If you take anything away from this Mother’s Day letter, please take away that we want you to take care of you! We want you to love yourself how you love us. We want you to believe and support yourself and your dream, how you constantly support us. And last, we want you to see yourself how we see you, as an incredible woman, and most importantly how God sees you.
We love you so much mom! Because you gave us the world, you deserve the world.
Happy Mothers Day, your millennial daughter.
Keep your head up high and your words filled with love,
Colleen Howard
(Disclaimer, these are all real quotes from millennial daughters.)
p.s. Huge thank you to each and every one who responded to help me create this post!