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It’s no secret that women are redefining gender roles that have been rigid for centuries. Independence is the new keyword for this generation of women who are financially stable, confident, traveling the world alone, affording their own homes, living in other countries and building a career they always dreamed of.
I am one of these women – I studied hard, aimed high, and built a career across borders despite what my environment told me I could or couldn’t do. It was a weight I chose to carry, but when I look back I realize something painful: I had no one to ask when I needed guidance the most.
The most important person in my life, my mother, wasn’t there for me. Not because she didn’t want to be, but because she couldn’t be.
This life I chose came with a price of not being understood. I am living a life her generation could only dream of due to the lack of tools and opportunities.
My mother and I speak the same language, yet she does not seem to understand me. Instead of cheering me on, she tends to criticize or withdraw. There was no map for me to follow, only silence and an inner sense that I had to figure it out on my own.
Our mothers and grandmothers came from a generation where a woman’s value was defined by how well she maintained a household and stayed agreeable. There was a predictable script most followed, one that prioritized marriage, motherhood and domesticity. Defiance against this came with consequences that extinguished ambition before it could spark action. This rigid path put them in vulnerable positions that were difficult to escape.
For the following generation, without that maternal guidance, many of us stepped into womanhood fluent in ambition but illiterate in power dynamics. I wasn’t just entering new territory professionally, I was stepping into a life my mother couldn’t recognize. Part of her, I think, even feared, envied and maybe resented it on some level.
There was no one to turn to for advice on how to negotiate salary, navigate male egos, handle competing women or maintain dignity in an environment that rewards toughness over compassion. Needless to say, these things were never taught in schools.
When I fell into toxic relationships, both at work and in love, I realized I had no inner reference point. I didn’t know what “healthy” looked like. My mother never modeled it, and I never saw her challenge it.
No one taught us how to detect manipulation, how to say no without guilt, or how to claim space without dimming our lights just to be more “likeable.” We learned these lessons the hard way through burnouts and breakdowns. I learned through late-night online searches, therapy sessions, and long talks with girlfriends who were just as lost.
Even worse, we often blamed ourselves for not knowing better, for trusting the wrong people, for feeling too much or demanding too little. That’s what happens when you grow up without emotional mentorship – you mistake survival for shame.
This isn’t just a mother-daughter issue, it is a generational wound and a longstanding split between the feminine and power. A legacy of emotional exile, and it continues today, not because of malice, but because we’ve never really talked about it.
A mother can deeply love her daughter, and still help in society’s suppression of her potential and ambition.
But if we don’t name this pattern, we can’t heal it, and we’ll keep walking into boardrooms, marriages, and identities half-armored, half-lost. We will keep wondering why we feel so alone, and how to make our voices heard.
We are the daughters of a generational divide, raised by women who weren’t given what they needed, and navigating lives for which we were never property prepared. Yes, this truth can be painful, but it’s also powerful because it means we are the ones who can begin again.
We can become the women we needed.
We can speak what was once unspoken.
We can mentor without envy.
Celebrate without comparison.
Hold space without judgment.
We can show younger women that feminine strength is not a contradiction, it is a force.