I was organizing the house for Christmas — the quiet, in-between kind of organizing where nothing is actually finished, but everything feels like it’s slowly finding its place again. Half-sorted toys sat in wild piles that became more chaotic as the boys dug through them. The boys were doing their usual parallel play, where they are doing two different things right next to each other.
My youngest had wandered over with an alphabet puzzle that didn’t quite make sense yet. I listened as Luca gently took a piece from his hands and said, “Hun, you have to turn it so it fits. Let me help you.”
A minute later, when the vacuum startled my youngest and he ran to his big brother, my oldest didn’t roll his eyes or brush him off. He opened the little playhouse door and whispered, “Come on. Let’s go somewhere quiet.” They curled up inside together. And before I could even take another step, he said the words that cracked something open in me:
“You’re safe with me.”
I stood there holding the vacuum, suddenly unable to move.
For a long time, I’ve carried this quiet fear that the chaos of our adult world — the tension, the dysregulation, the things I can’t always protect them from — must be leaving invisible cracks in them. That somehow, without meaning to, I had broken something delicate and permanent inside my boys.
But in that tiny playhouse, in the softness of those words, I realized something else was happening entirely.
They weren’t breaking.
They were becoming gentle.
And somehow… so was I.
The Things They Say That Rebuild Me
Later, I decided we all needed a break and some fresh air. We went out to our backyard so they could run around and I could throw the frisbee for my high-strung herding dogs. I was pushing them on the swings and throwing the frisbee for the dogs. My oldest kept shouting, “Push me more, mommy!” I said, “Hey, bud, I am not a superhero with 3 arms! I’m doing the best I can!” He looked at me and like a damn poet at 5 years old he said:
“But mommy, you are a superhero.”
He didn’t say it like a compliment. He said it like a fact.
If I get hurt, you look like a doctor.
If (youngest’s name) isn’t sharing, you look like a police officer.
If I’m hungry, you look like a chef.
If you make me laugh, you are a tickle monster.
If you jump on the trampoline with me, you are my friend.
I laughed — because it was sweet and funny and wildly specific — but I also felt something deeper shift. Because those weren’t just cute words. They were a map. A reflection. A quiet description of how my children experience safety, care, and presence.
And lately, they’ve started doing something else too.
They tell me I’m beautiful.
They tell me I look like a princess.
They say it casually — while brushing past me in the hallway or climbing into my lap — as if it’s the most obvious truth in the room.
Those are words I didn’t grow up hearing.
They are words I don’t hear now.
But they are the words my sons speak fluently.
They are offering me the voice I am learning to use with myself.
Motherhood as a Mirror
For a long time, I lived with a quiet, heavy fear:
What if I broke them?
But today, watching my oldest pause his own play to protect his brother’s peace, I saw something that didn’t fit that story at all.
I saw patience.
I saw emotional literacy.
I saw gentleness.
Children do not grow gentleness in a vacuum.
Their softness is not accidental.
Their empathy is not random.
It is the echo of how they’ve been loved.
Which means somewhere along the way — even on tired days and overwhelmed nights — I gave them something solid. Something safe. Something true.
And if they are becoming gentle…
then I must have been gentler than I thought.
When Their Love Confronts My Old Story
I was taught that love is something you earn.
That it is conditional, negotiated, fragile.
But my children love me without contracts.
They love me when I’m tired.
They love me when I cry in the kitchen.
They love me simply because I am here.
Their love has corrected my internal compass.
They are teaching me that love is not supposed to hurt.
That peace is not something you earn.
That gentleness is the baseline.
Re-Raising Myself
Motherhood is not just about raising children.
It is about reshaping the woman raising them.
I am learning to speak gently.
To rest without guilt.
To protect my peace the way I protect their sleep.
I am becoming the woman my children already believe I am.
My children don’t know that they are healing me.
They don’t know that their love is rebuilding my nervous system one bedtime hug at a time.
So this is my quiet vow:
I will protect their softness.
I will protect my own.
I will choose homes that feel like exhale.
I will choose love that does not require shrinking.
I will choose peace as our inheritance.
I am becoming who my children already think I am.
Her Quiet Escape 