I was raised by a fiercely independent mother, and I still want a traditional life
I feel guilty for wanting a life my mom sees as “less.”
This is long, but I genuinely don’t know how to explain this feeling without context.
First off: I am not judging anyone else’s choices or lifestyle. I genuinely think different things make different people happy. This is just about the weird guilt I personally feel.
Ever since I was little, I loved the idea of marriage and motherhood. I was obsessed with dolls, playing house, weddings, babies, all of it. One of my older cousins got married when I was around 5, and I was the youngest flower girl. The older girls wore matching white dresses with black bows, and I got put in a literal mini wedding dress with a veil and train. My cousin gave me a pink unicorn Build-A-Bear in a wedding dress afterward. Around the same time I was obsessed with Barbie Princess and the Pauper, especially the double wedding ending. I just always romanticized that kind of life.
The thing is, I wasn’t raised by a woman who valued those things much.
My mom is one of the most independent people I’ve ever met, and honestly, it makes sense why. Growing up, my grandfather could apparently be pretty cruel and explosive. My grandmother is one of the sweetest people alive, but she relied on him financially, and my mom hated watching that dynamic. She would beg my grandma to leave him, but she couldn’t really afford to.
So my mom basically built her entire life around never needing a man.
She climbed the career ladder young, became the breadwinner, made six figures, bought the house I grew up in, and never financially relied on my dad. My dad was 13 years older than her, wanted marriage much earlier, and she resisted it for years because she was focused on herself and her career. She eventually decided in her mid-30s that she wanted a child, got pregnant with me immediately, and still maintained complete independence from my dad. They divorced when I was around 4, mostly by her choice, because she had the financial stability to leave.
Growing up, she constantly told me things like:
“Never rely on a man.”
“Be the rich man in the relationship.”
“A woman can always do it better.”
And I understand why she thinks that way.
But I’ve always felt…different from her.
I was boy-crazy embarrassingly young. I couldn’t wait to become a teenager because I associated it with eventually falling in love, getting married, having kids, building a family. Even now, I’m 21 and all I really care about is eventually having a marriage, a home, and children. I’m in school for business because I know I need a career and financial independence too, but emotionally? I spend my free time looking at home decor, weddings, motherhood content, family routines, etc.
And it makes me feel weak. Or regressive. Or like I’m somehow betraying what my mom worked so hard to become.
What’s frustrating is that I’m not naive about relationships. I’ve seen bad marriages firsthand. I know divorce statistics. I know how ugly relationships can become. I know women often end up carrying more emotional labor, childcare, domestic labor, etc. I know all of it. But despite fully understanding the risks, I still deeply want those things.
I’m also in a relationship right now with probably the least delusional man possible. We’ve been together almost a year, and he’s very grounded in reality. He doesn’t fantasize about marriage after six months. He doesn’t make grand forever promises. We didn’t even say “I love you” until 7 months in. He believes in staying present and not pretending you know the future.
Part of me respects that a lot because I see couples constantly projecting fantasies onto relationships that ultimately fail. But another part of me feels almost…deprived of the fantasy? Like I don’t even get to be romantically naive because he’s always gently reminding me that we’re still early into this and nobody truly knows what will happen.
I guess my question is: does anyone else feel this weird guilt around wanting a “traditional” life as a woman? Especially if you were raised by a very independent mother who almost sees those desires as limiting?
Because sometimes I genuinely feel like my biggest dream in life is something my mom spent her whole life trying to avoid.