When You Realize You Weren’t Equipped To Be A Mother: Parenting In Survival Mode

One of the hardest things I have ever admitted to myself is this:

I was not equipped to be the kind of mother my children deserved.

Not because I did not love them. I did. Fiercely.

But love is not the same as being equipped.

Being equipped would have meant things like:

having models of emotionally healthy parenting

having a mostly regulated nervous system

having support, stability, and room to fall apart without my children absorbing it

having language for my own feelings, so I could help children name theirs

Instead, I found myself surviving life side by side with my children.

We were moving through real stress, real instability, and real emotional landmines. I was trying to parent and survive at the same time. That survival bond is powerful, but it can quietly slide into something else.

It can set you up to be codependent with your own children.

Surviving Together Is Not The Same As Being Safely Held

When you are under-resourced as a parent, it can start to look like this:

You lean on your children emotionally because there is no one else there.

You share more than their young nervous systems can hold, even if you do not mean to.

You treat them like a teammate in the crisis, not a child who needs a safe adult.

From the inside, it can feel like closeness.

We are in this together. We understand each other. We have each other’s backs.

From the outside, and often only years later, you might realize that what felt like loyalty also put adult weight on small shoulders.

That is what I mean when I say I was not equipped. I did not have the tools to separate my own panic and pain from what my children needed from me. I was loving them with everything I had, but what I had was shaped by my own unhealed story.

Many of us were parenting in survival mode, not because we did not care, but because we had no support and no map.

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Accountability Is Not The Same As Self Blame

I think it is important for mothers to take responsibility for the places we were wounded and how that shaped our parenting. Pretending we did not miss anything does not help our children, and it does not help us.

At the same time, taking accountability is not the same as turning on ourselves.

Self-blame says:

“I am a terrible mother. I ruined everything. I should never have had children.”

Accountability says:

“I was under-resourced, overwhelmed, and carrying my own trauma. That affected my children. I am willing to see that, grieve it, and do what I can to repair and grow now.”

One shuts you down and keeps you stuck in shame.

The other breaks your heart open in a way that makes change possible.

When I say I was not equipped, I am not erasing the harm or excusing it. I am refusing to keep telling the story in a way that makes me either the perfect mother or the lifelong villain. I was a human being with real limitations, and my children had to live inside those limitations with me.

Step 9 is where I let that truth exist without immediately sprinting into self-annihilation or spiritual spin.

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When Love And Survival Get Twisted Together

There is a particular kind of confusion that happens when you and your children survive hard things together.

You might think:

“We are so close, we tell each other everything.”

“They can talk to me about anything. I am their safe person.”

“We have a bond other people do not understand.”

Sometimes that is true in a healthy way. Sometimes it is also true that:

they felt responsible for your moods

they became your confidant too early

they learned to scan you and the room before they could even scan themselves

It is possible to be both loving and overreliant.

It is possible to be both protective and overwhelming.

It is possible to be both doing your best and asking too much of your children.

That bothness is what shame hates. Shame wants a simple story: either you were an angel, or you were a disaster. Step 9 will not let me live in either extreme.

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What Taking Responsibility Looks Like For Me

For me, taking responsibility has sounded like sentences I never wanted to say out loud.

I can see where my fear and trauma made me emotionally unavailable.

I can see where my loneliness asked my children to hold more than they should have.

I can see where my own survival mode meant I did not notice how heavy it was for them.

This is not about dragging myself. It is about telling the truth so I can stop repeating the same patterns under prettier language.

Taking responsibility looks like:

Letting myself feel the grief of what they lived through

Noticing my impulse to collapse into “I am the worst” and choosing not to go there

being open to their version of the story, even when it hurts

Changing how I show up now, instead of only apologizing for the past

Self-blame keeps the spotlight on me.

Accountability brings the focus back to impact and repair.

Many of us were parenting in survival mode, trying to protect our children while carrying wounds and responsibilities that no one had ever helped us hold.

Step 9 is not a public self-burning. It is a quiet, steady decision to stop lying to myself about what my children experienced, and to let that awareness shape the way I love them and myself going forward.

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A Slice of Humble Pie

For a long time, I comforted myself with the idea that I did the best I could and that my love would cover the gaps. There is some truth in that, but it is not the whole truth. The fuller story is that I was parenting while deeply under-resourced, and my children absorbed the cost of that. Admitting I was not equipped is humbling because it means I can no longer hide behind my intentions. I have to look at the actual impact. It also softens something in me. Instead of calling myself a failure, I can see a mother who needed more support, more healing, and more care than she ever received. Both things are true at once. I can hold myself accountable without throwing myself away.

Reflection

Think about a season when you were parenting, caregiving, or leading others while you were in survival mode.

Where were you under-resourced or unequipped, even if you were trying your best?

In what ways might the people who depended on you have felt the weight of that?

Notice where your mind wants to jump straight into “I ruined everything” or “I did nothing wrong.” Can you sit for a moment in the middle space where you acknowledge both your love and your limitations?

If you feel ready, ask yourself:

What is one small, concrete way I can move toward repair or change now, without needing to be perfect or punish myself?

Affirmation

I can tell the truth about where I was not equipped without condemning myself, and I am willing to let that truth guide how I show up differently now.

Thank you for reading. If this stirred something in you and you’d like to spend more time with this work, you can explore The Humble Pie 12 Steps and learn more about how I support people as a trauma recovery coach.