Generational Trauma & Motherhood

A generational trauma is an unhealthy behavior pattern that gets passed down from primary adult caregivers to children.  Behavior patterns are modeled by the adult caregiver to the child in the ways they interact, provide care and respond to emotional distress. Examples of unhealthy behavior patterns include:

·       emotional neglect (lack of responsiveness to or inability to hold space for big emotions such as frustration, sadness, or anger)

·       sexual abuse (early exposure to sexuality, oversexualization or sexual assault on children)

·       substance abuse (observation of the use of substance as a means to cope,the overindulgence of substances in social settings or the introduction of substance consumption to a child at an early age)

These are only a few examples of generational trauma. When an adult caregiver lacks self-awareness and healthy coping skills, they are likely to teach their children similar maladaptive behaviors.

New mothers are often challenged by the pressure of shouldering generational trauma. You may fear that you will enact the same harm onto your children or are still experiencing the same harm from your caregivers despite being an adult. 

You may try your hardest to “not turn out like your mother” or shield your children from your father’s drinking habits by telling little white lies: “Oh, honey he’s just not feeling well.”

Not all generational trauma gets passed down the same. Often children will surpass the emotional maturity of their adult caregivers by developing their own individual defense mechanisms to protect themselves from toxic caregiving. However, these defense mechanisms do not heal the trauma. They only shift into new behavior patterns that remain unhealthy.

But there is hope. With intention and care, we can work to undue the harm of generational trauma to build a brighter, softer future for ourselves and our children.

In the next five days, I will share mini lessons on how to heal family dysfunction through awareness, boundary setting and cultivating courageous communication skills. Each lesson will include reflective questions that I encourage you to write down and read over a few times.

This way you will engage all your self-awareness and feel confident doing the hard work

Cause mama, it’s hard. You got this. <3 Lauren