After crashing into another car one Saturday afternoon, with my two sons in the backseat, I called my dad while I waited for the police to assess the scene.
“Oh no!” he exclaimed. “Are you guys okay?”
“Yes, just shaken,” I said as the officer handed my sideview mirror to me through the driver’s side window.
“Good. I’m glad,” he says. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I could use help buying a new mirror,” I said.
“Oh, well, that’s not what I meant,” he replied.
That’s when the second crash happened. It was the realization that offering to help without actually doing so was like saying “I love you” just because it sounded nice.
There has been a particular kind of grief that I’ve been experiencing, not from death, but from the clarity of realizing my parents can no longer hold space in the center of my world. My mom and dad are still alive, still active in my life, and still continue to offer gestures that resemble care. But the part of me that once felt safe, seen, and parented is no longer there.
Now, I carry this quiet ache. They are not the warm, all-knowing people I once believed would do anything for me. I’ve had to release the version of them I once idolized. Now I tolerate them, not out of resentment, but out of acceptance. It’s been the saddest kind of maturity.
At my son’s kindergarten graduation ceremony, instead of greeting me with a hug or even asking how I was doing, my mom commented on my outfit: “I’ve never seen her in that look before,” she blurted out…to my ex.
While she was alarmed by shiny black leggings, slingback boots, and a jean jacket, I was equally stunned by her Pentecostal version of nurses’ scrubs; a powder blue, boxy dress with a matching jacket and headwrap. She looked like a monochromatic version of Mother Theresa.
Still, I kept my comments to myself. We only see each other a few times a year. We rarely talk on the phone. I never even told her my sons’ father and I broke up. Talking about my relationships with someone who feels like an acquaintance is odd.
As an adult, I no longer see my parents as the heroes in my story. I see them simply as flawed humans. They are people I likely wouldn’t choose to spend time with if we weren’t related. But we are, so I try. I oblige to the “honor thy mother and father” programming from my years in Sunday school. But what is the quality of that life if honoring means shrinking, staying silent, or letting them hurt you without any accountability?
Sometimes I wonder if I am being unfair. Both of my parents lost their mothers by the time they were my age. My maternal grandmother passed at 21; my dad’s mother, at 38. I know I’m supposed to feel grateful, but our personalities clash. They boisterously misunderstand me. We get along best when I make myself smaller and when they feel like I need their approval.
My therapist, Curtina Alexander, a licensed professional counselor for Embrace Psychotherapy in Connecticut, told me: “Recognize your triggers and patterns. Even the role you play in it.”
I had to learn to stop inviting conversations that would leave me frustrated. I no longer talk about politics or technology with my dad because he gives me a monologue on his perspectives. I don’t share my yin yoga practice with my mom because she will call it demonic. I stopped trying to make them see me. Instead, I set boundaries to protect my peace.
I used to think that growing up meant becoming a better version of my parents. Now I know it also means surviving them and choosing myself.
Loving my parents from a distance has become its own rite of passage. I still answer their calls and texts when I feel up to it. I hug them when it feels genuine. But I no longer perform closeness. It’s not estrangement. It’s alignment. I’m loving them for who they are, while honoring who I have become.
I believe that maybe their contribution to breaking generational cycles was simply staying alive and being present. That mattered, especially after losing their own mothers that young. However, my contribution will be different. For my sons, I’m being more than just present. I’m emotionally available, curious, and accountable. I want them to feel safe, even when they’re struggling. I want them to know they don’t have to earn my tenderness.
I know I’m not alone in this shift. So many daughters, like me, walk this line. We are grateful that our parents are still here, but we need a therapy session after every visit. We bite our tongues or argue back. We’re mothering ourselves and our children while still recovering from being someone else’s child.
This is for us.
Stacy Graham-Hunt is an award-winning journalist, author of Processing Pain, and a first-generation college graduate whose work explores identity, emotional legacy, and the quiet labor of becoming. She is also the founder of How Was the Funeral?, a cultural storytelling platform rooted in grief, ritual, and memory. Follow her on Instagram at @stacy.grahamhunt