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What My Mother Taught Me About Confidence—And What I Had to Unlearn
A personal reflection or reader-submitted story series about inherited beliefs and breaking generational patterns. Note: This based on a reader submission story not my own story. My mother, Neelam, was born in Fiji but raised by her strict Indian parents who believed in one thing: reputation above all. To her, confidence looked like perfection. A clean house. Perfect grades. A marriage before 25. A daughter who didn’t talk back. Neelam taught me how to survive, not how to shine. She meant well—every curfew, every critique, every reminder to “act like a lady” was her way of protecting me. But growing up in Auckland, in a Gen Z world, I started…
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Generational Echoes: How Our Mothers Taught Us to Prioritize Expectations Over Emotions
Picture Credits: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a1/b1/ad/a1b1adfa698210ecb101031cdba546cc.jpg There’s a quiet legacy passed down in many South Asian homes — not always through words, but through glances, silences, and sacrifices. It’s the legacy of our mothers, and their mothers before them. Women who survived by meeting expectations, not expressing emotions. Women who stayed silent so their daughters could speak — but accidentally taught them silence instead. This isn’t about blame. It’s about understanding. Because the emotional patterns many South Asian women struggle with today didn’t start with them. They are generational echoes, shaped by culture, gender roles, survival, and love — complicated, messy, and real. The Mother as the Model For many of us, our…
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“Lessons from My Ammi: The Cultural Influences That Shape My Writing”
Daughters of Strength, Bosses by Choice