I Quit (An Essay-like Piece)

"I want to be a mother like my own mother."
Eight years have passed since I made that vow in my heart, and two years and a few months ago, my daughter was born.
I received the best gift on Christmas Eve.
My child, who arrived after I stopped taking restricted medication and underwent fertility treatment.

Time has flown by since then, and my two-year-old daughter, well, she talks so much! (laughs)
She's in the 'no, no' phase, and she really screams without mercy (laughs).

Lately, my heart has been heavy, and I've distanced myself from my daughter a little.
At dinner last night, I learned that she had been struggling with something in her own little heart that I hadn't even noticed.

With curry, she only eats the rice at our house.
I felt relieved when I fed her and she ate it.
In the middle of it, my daughter started ruffling my hair.
I said with a smile,
"We're eating now."
My daughter replied immediately.

"There, there."
I was caught off guard and leaned my head toward her.

My daughter said it again.
"There, there."

I wonder how I looked in my daughter's eyes.

Even with such a disappointing parent, she had found kindness.

I had really been thinking about so many things.
A child with a handicap.
Would something be done to her? Would someone say something to her?

Seeing my daughter's satisfied face, I almost burst into tears.
No parent is perfect, no matter who they are.
No matter where they are born, children live their lives with resilience.
I was worrying too much.

I cannot be a mother like my mother.
Because I am not my mother.
My personality and the way my mother raised me were a match.
Even if I use the same parenting methods, or read every child development book, there is no answer there.

There are days when I get lost in parenting and wish my mother were still alive.
But it's okay to be lost.
It's okay to worry.
It's okay to cry.
It's okay to scold.

I am my daughter's mother.
No one else.
Even if I point in the right direction, sometimes she goes the other way.
Sometimes she doesn't listen when I warn her of danger.

My daughter is my daughter.
And she is an individual.

How she changes based on what words or actions she receives is up to her.
Even if they receive the same teachings, everyone gains something different.

Yes, I am an individual too.
A weak creature with no power, authority, or weapons.

Everyone is a person.
Before being the child of someone with a disability, they are a person.
How they live their life is not something a parent decides or something a parent should decide for them.

Happiness and unhappiness are things you have to grab for yourself.

I realized it, and I quit being a perfect mother.
I realized it, accepted myself, and decided to tell my daughter someday.

I am going to be a bad parent.
I am plotting what kind of strange things I will teach my daughter from now on.
And I am practicing my smile so that I can laugh beside her when I do something strange.

Today, when I told her about how I was feeling down and my father patted my head, she said in a surprised voice,
"Isn't that what Yuki usually does?"

I hadn't even thought about it.
Looking back, I certainly did do that.

My daughter opens the door with her foot, and I was the one who started doing that first.
Oh my, I am defeated.

By my daughter's insight and memory.
I thought I hadn't given her anything, but it seems a piece of me is inside my daughter.

I cried and laughed by myself.

When she gets back from daycare, I'll hug her a lot again.

Today, I was freed from everything that had been binding me and everything I had been binding myself with.

The birth of a new me.
Congratulations to me.
Congratulations to my daughter.
Congratulations to my mother.