Raising a Child Is a Reconciliation with My Own Childhood

That night I was lost in a shopping app, my phone glowing in the dark. Screens full of lace and bows had my heart racing — playful polka-dot dresses, artsy floral sets, fresh little rompers. I kept tapping “Buy now!” It wasn’t until I heard my husband telling me to get some rest that I realized it was already 2 a.m. I closed my eyes and turned over and over, unable to sleep, while the past came drifting back: What am I chasing here? Am I meeting my baby’s needs, or making up for something missing from my own childhood?

When I was small, everything I wore was a hand-me-down my mother had asked relatives for — clothes other children had already outgrown. To save money, she almost never bought me anything new. Standing in front of the wardrobe, looking at all that faded, yellowing fabric, I always felt helpless. Why couldn’t I have one pretty new thing that was mine?

I remember once, my father came back from a work trip and, on a whim, brought me a beautiful dress and a pair of little sandals. I was thrilled. But while I was happily trying them on, I heard my mother complaining from the side: “Wasting money again. She can’t even wear these — look, you got the size too big. What a waste.” You can guess how it ended. I watched them being returned, right in front of me. I was crushed, but I knew there was no fighting it. This had happened too many times; no amount of crying or kicking made any difference. In the end, I could only accept it in silence.

Thrift was my mother’s lifelong habit, and I got used to not having pretty new dresses. Then one day my godmother’s family sent over a brand-new outfit: goose-yellow, soft as cream, a top and a skirt. The skirt had layer upon layer of gauze, each layer edged with fluttering lace. My mother hung it at the very front of the wardrobe, where you’d see it the moment you looked up. Every time I passed by, I stared at it, imagining how I’d look wearing it, feeling a small sweetness inside. I asked her, “When can I wear it?” She always said, “At the holiday.” So I waited. And waited. Then one day I noticed it was no longer at the front of the wardrobe. I searched the whole thing and couldn’t find it anywhere, and a bad feeling rose in me. I ran to ask her: “Mom, where’s my outfit?” Without even turning around she said, “Oh, I gave it to your aunt’s daughter.”

Those few cold words dropped me straight into an ice cellar. Why was something so precious to me so easy for her to give away? Why did she deceive me with a whole season of “waiting”? Why did she never see how I felt? I began to doubt whether my feelings had ever mattered at all. That night I cried under the covers for a long time, and nobody noticed, and nobody cared. Maybe too much disappointment had piled up, because after that I had no warmth left for her, and no trust either.

The path I grew up on was like a silent script: my parents were the writers, and I could only perform what was written. My mother’s nagging and my father’s absence turned a childhood that should have been full of color into a stage of loss and argument. Those returned dresses, that holiday outfit given away — they weren’t only clothes changing hands. They were my longing to be noticed and to be loved.

Every time I pick out clothes for my baby, I seem to see myself back in front of that mirror:

• When my mother returned the dress, all I could do was watch a beloved gift disappear;
• On the holiday I’d waited for, my anticipation turned out to be a lie;
• Loss after loss planted a seed of unease deep inside me.

And now a voice echoes in me:

Is that overlooked little girl still waiting, somewhere inside, to be comforted?

If that old disappointment had been filled, would I still be scrolling for baby clothes at midnight?

Is my love for my daughter giving her room to grow — or holding onto a fantasy from my own childhood?

The shadow of the family I came from moves like an undercurrent, shaping my choices as a parent every hour of the day. It formed my childhood, and it quietly shapes the mother I am right now. Only by seeing its outline clearly can I find my own balance between love and compensation.

It wasn’t until that night that I suddenly understood: so often the thing we can’t let go of isn’t for our child at all. It’s for the child we used to be. That overlooked, misunderstood, refused little one has been hiding inside all along, quietly waiting to be seen.

Back then I never got to wear the dress my father bought, and the holiday outfit I longed for never came. Now I buy my daughter one little dress after another, wanting to give her all the tenderness and beauty — and to give it back to the girl I was.

But I’ve finally realized that no amount of pretty clothing can fill an expectation that fell through. The only thing that heals is this: in the quiet of the night, listening to my own heart, and saying to that little girl, “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

I’m learning to be gentler with myself, to let myself be fragile, anxious, imperfect, to let myself go slowly. Learning to say to the girl inside me every day: “You are already good enough. And now, at last, you get to decide what you like, what you wear, what you love.”

If you’re in the middle of something similar, maybe tonight you could give yourself one small ritual. A tight hug. Or a cup of hot tea, sitting quietly for a while, asking the person you used to be: “How are you doing today?”

We all deserve a warm embrace of our own. For our children — and for the child still growing up inside us.