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The Maternal Assertiveness We All Need

I wrote this from the woods. Literally — I was walking in the woods behind my aunt and uncle’s house, mid-family trip, having just left the dinner table in tears. Not because anything was wrong exactly. Because something had gone right, and it cracked me wide open.

Here’s the quick version. A week before this trip, I had a tooth pulled. It was supposed to hurt for three to five days and then get better. Instead, at day five, it got worse. Much worse. I was on ibuprofen that wasn’t touching it, I wasn’t sleeping, and I still got in the car and drove my family to Cape Cod because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, and because some part of me had already decided I should just be able to handle it.

That part of me has a name. I call it being the hero. Sucking it up. It’s in my lineage — my programming, if you want to get technical about it — and it’s a pattern I know intimately, both in myself and in the women I work with.

What changed everything wasn’t the pain. It was my aunt.

Fierce compassion, meet the mother bucket

At dinner, once I finally admitted how much pain I was in, my aunt didn’t just comfort me. She got assertive. “Okay, you’re in pain, right? Here’s what you need to do. We need to look at your meds. I think you should see a doctor.” My uncle chimed in too: “Are you trying to be a hero here?”

And something in me just… melted. I’m 44 years old, and having someone step in like that — firm, clear, unmistakably for me — felt like a language I don’t get spoken to in very often.

I call this fierce compassion. Compassion has two sides: tender and fierce. Tender is the soft, nurturing, “come here and let me hold you” kind. Fierce is the mama-bear kind — the “no, this isn’t okay, and I’m not going to let you talk yourself out of getting help” kind. We tend to only think about the tender side when we talk about mothering. But fierce compassion is just as essential, and for a lot of us, it’s the side we never got.

I talk a lot about what I call the mother bucket — the container that, in theory, only your mom was meant to fill. Attuned presence. Kind, discerning guidance. Both the tender and the fierce. When our moms couldn’t fill that bucket — because they were absent, overwhelmed, unwell, or simply not capable of that kind of presence — we’re left with a hole. And we will find some way to fill it, consciously or not. Scrolling. Overworking. Numbing out. Looking for it in partners, in friend groups, in strangers.

You don’t have to get it from your mom to get it

Here’s what I want you to sit with: needing that fierce, maternal presence doesn’t mean you failed to become self-sufficient. And not having gotten it from your own mother doesn’t mean you’re locked out of ever receiving it.

I’ve received it from my aunt. I’ve received it from a friend named Robin who will look me dead in the eye and tell me what I need to hear. I’ve even received it, once, from a total stranger on a plane. It counts. All of it counts.

And the deepest version of this work — what I call mothering ourselves mindfully — isn’t about replacing those people. It’s about learning to also be that resource for yourself, so you’re not entirely dependent on someone else showing up at the right moment. Mindfulness and self-compassion are the actual skills underneath this. Learning to notice when you’re in “hero mode,” and learning to meet yourself with the same fierce clarity my aunt met me with at that dinner table.

That night ended up teaching me something else, too. Later, distracted by my own pain, I nearly missed my daughter telling me — in tears — that her mouth hurt from her new braces and she didn’t feel like I was really listening. She was right. We got ice packs, went upstairs, and I stayed with her. Taking care of myself first is what gave me the capacity to actually show up for her.

That’s the whole arc, really. Someone filled my bucket a little. It gave me enough to go fill hers.

If this resonates

If you carry this hole — if you’ve never had an assertive, fierce, unmistakably-on-your-side maternal presence — I want you to know two things. You are not alone in this. And you don’t have to wait for it to show up from your mother to start receiving it, asking for it, or becoming it for yourself.

If you want to talk more about your own experience of this, send me a voice note or an email. And if you’re curious which inner voice runs the show for you day to day, take the Discover Your Dominant Inner Voice Quiz — it’s a good place to start.