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There is something I have never felt comfortable saying out loud.
I never wanted to be a mother.
I knew that long before I ever became one.
When I was younger, I remember telling friends I didn’t want children. They thought I was joking. They told me I would change my mind.
I didn’t.
In university, when I started getting serious with my first boyfriend, he told me he couldn’t have children. He said it as if he was disappointing me.
I remember letting him believe that.
Not because it was true, but because I thought saying I didn’t want children at all might make him think less of me.
So I stayed quiet.
And eventually, I followed the same path most people do.
You date.
You get married.
You have children.
My husband and I did the same.
Years later, we talked about it and realised something neither of us had said at the time.
Neither of us had strongly wanted children.
If we had been honest with each other then, we likely would not have had them.
But we weren’t.
So we did what we thought we were supposed to do.
When I became pregnant, I wasn’t excited.
There was no emotional moment, no overwhelming sense of anticipation.
Even then, I knew.
After she was born, I took care of her. I did everything I was supposed to do.
But the role itself never changed for me.
I didn’t enjoy the “mother” parts of life.
I’m not a hugger.
I was the one who thought, if you’re not bleeding, you’re fine.
I avoided field trips whenever I could.
I didn’t take photos at every event or occasion.
I didn’t get emotional when she started school, went to camps, or left for university.
Those moments never felt like losses to me.
They felt like things moving forward.
That never changed.
Recently, she was home for about a week and a half over spring break. She had surgery while she was here, so I was taking care of her — making sure she was eating, taking her medication, and that she was comfortable.
And I did all of it.
But it was exhausting.
By the end of that time, I was ready for her to leave and go back to university.
Not because I don’t love her.
But because being needed in that way has always felt like work to me.
Now that she is grown, I enjoy our relationship more than I did when she was younger.
I like talking with her. I like hearing about her life.
I like the parts that feel more like friendship.
But there is still something added to it because I am her mother.
And that part has never felt natural to me.
For a long time, I thought something must be wrong with me.
Because no one says this.
No one admits they never wanted to be a mother.
But loving your child and wanting motherhood are not the same thing.
I love my daughter.
But I never wanted to be a mum.
And that has always been true.
— Kate
The first time I realised I might be different from other mothers, we were standing in a driveway on prom night.
Our children were dressed up, awkward and beautiful, posing for photographs before heading off to dinner. I was chatting with another mum about university plans — where her son was looking, where my daughter was considering.
She mentioned a school in Florida her son was thinking about. A local community college her daughter might attend. Then she said, almost wistfully, “Honestly, I hope they both decide to stay here. I’d be perfectly happy if they never left home.”
I remember nodding politely.
And thinking, Why wouldn’t they leave?
I love my daughter. Fiercely. I am proud of her independence, her ambition, her willingness to move eight hours away and build a life of her own.
But I have never understood the desire to keep her close simply because it makes me feel better.
When her final year of school approached, other mothers spoke about the coming emptiness as though it were a tragedy. They asked if I was ready. If I would cry. If I would miss her terribly.
I smiled and said I would miss her.
Which is true.
But I did not feel devastation. I felt readiness.
I have always believed children are meant to leave.
Not because we want rid of them.
But because we have raised them to stand.
When she chose to stay at university for the summer, some were surprised I wasn’t heartbroken. I shrugged. She is building her life. That is the point.
Perhaps I am odd.
I did not build my entire identity around motherhood. I did not centre my world solely on her schedule. Even when she was young, I encouraged sleep-away camps and independence. She thrived. So did we.
Loving your child and longing for an empty nest are not opposites.
They can exist side by side.
Pride does not always look like tears.
Sometimes it looks like stepping back and saying, Go on then. Live.
– Kate
I used to assume that if I ever had a daughter, she would be like me.
Quiet. Independent. Capable of sorting through her own problems without much fuss.
Instead, I was given a girl who feels everything.
She cries at sad films. At kind gestures. At disappointment. At things I would have simply swallowed and moved on from. She talks through her worries. Replays conversations. Questions herself in ways that leave me tired simply listening.
For years, if I’m honest, I mistook our differences for weaknesses — hers, not mine.
I didn’t understand the drama of secondary school friendships. I didn’t understand the tears over boys who hadn’t earned them. I didn’t understand the anxiety over grades when she was already doing well.
At her age, my friendships were uncomplicated. Mostly boys. Very little emotion. I made good grades without much effort — and when I got bored, I simply disengaged. Life felt rather straightforward.
Hers does not.
She sets impossibly high standards for herself. All A’s or nothing. Certainty or failure. Love or rejection. There is very little middle ground.
I encourage. I reassure. I tell her she is capable. Sometimes she believes me. Often she doesn’t.
And I have had to learn something uncomfortable:
Just because I do not experience the world the way she does does not mean her experience is wrong.
It is simply different.
She is in her second year at university now, eight hours away. Brave enough to build a life far from home. Strong enough to navigate things I never had to. Sensitive enough to care deeply when others might not.
I am proud of her — not because she is like me.
But because she isn’t.
Perhaps part of motherhood — even for those of us who never quite felt the instinct the way others seem to — is learning to raise someone without trying to remake them in your own image.
She is emotional. I am measured.
She is social. I am reserved.
She doubts herself. I rarely have.
And yet, somehow, we fit.
I am still learning her.
And perhaps she is still learning me.
Maybe that is the quiet work of raising a daughter — not shaping her into who you would have been, but standing steady while she becomes who she already is.
– Kate
Kate Alderwick 