My parents were loving, but they were also strict. Discipline was their language of care—measured, sometimes harsh, but always purposeful. I grew up with clearly defined rules, expectations, and a sense of duty to family that came before most things. That framework shaped me, but when I became a mother, I realized I didn’t want to simply repeat it.

Yes, I raise my voice sometimes I’m human but I rarely scold or punish. I try to listen, to explain. I don't always succeed. Still, I'm parenting with more softness than I was raised with. Not out of defiance, but because something in me shifted when I became a mother. I wanted to do things differently, even if that meant doing them alone.

In Indian culture, motherhood often carries the weight of complete self-sacrifice. Mothers are expected to be on call around the clock - spoon-feeding their children long past infancy, sharing beds, and anticipating needs before they're voiced. I chose a different path. I sleep-trained my daughter early, and she's never slept in our bed. She feeds herself, has space, has structure. It works for us. And yet, that decision sometimes sits heavy on me not because I doubt it, but because it sets me apart from the cultural blueprint I grew up with.

Motherhood has brought with it not just transformation, but a quiet kind of isolation. Part of it is logistical. We live in a neighborhood with few children, and many of our longtime friends don’t have kids. The parents we’ve connected with are all people we've met through our daughter.

They know the “new” us, the responsible, slightly sleep-deprived, more scheduled versions. They don’t know the people we were before the spontaneous dinners, the late-night conversations, the unstructured weekends. I miss that version of us sometimes. I miss being known in that way.

Because so much of parenting, especially in a culture that expects mothers to do it all is invisible work. It's decision after decision, many of which feel at odds with the way we were raised or the life we once imagined. It’s loving deeply while quietly grieving the independence we once had. It’s constantly calibrating between who we were, who we are, and who we’re still becoming.

I’m not raising my daughter exactly how my culture tells me to. I’m not the mother my own mother was. But I’m trying to be the mother my daughter needs—and the one I can live with. That might mean breaking a few expectations. It might mean standing apart. But it also means standing firmly in something that is mine: a motherhood shaped by intention, love, and the quiet courage to do it differently.