Twenty-seven year old nurse Ashley Morrison has never had kids before. But now she’s pregnant with her first baby, and she’s already thinking about all of the ways she’s going to break the cycle of unhealthy parenting that has passed trauma onto her bloodline for generations.
LOL! Good fucking luck with that one!
During her weekly therapy Zooms, Ashley recounts damaging events she experienced growing up and says things like, “When I’m a mom, I’m never going to do anything like that.”
Oh, SUUUUUUURE you aren’t, Ashley.
As if Ashley’s ability to make emotionally mature, thoughtful parenting decisions and foster a healthy environment for her kids wasn’t completely demolished by her own toxic upbringing. She may try to break free of the hurtful parenting style she vividly remembers all too well, but when it’s 2 a.m. and her kid just threw up all over the couch, that muscle memory’s going to kick in and her own mother’s ghost is going to possess her body like a demonic entity.
She can steer clear of alcohol and read books all she wants, but toxic parenting is her destiny. A birthright her own children will some day pass on to theirs.
Ashley is doomed to not only repeat the sins of her parents, but to be fully aware of what she’s doing while she does it. Unlike her own parents, whose low emotional IQs and alcohol abuse kept them blissfully unaware of the psychological damage they were inflicting, Ashley will know exactly what’s going on but be unable to stop herself thanks to years of behavioral imprinting.
Sorry, Ashley, but your promise to yourself to never treat your own children the way your parents treated you has already been broken by simple human psychology and your own DNA. There’s a reason it’s called a cycle: It just keeps going forever.
But seriously…Good fucking luck.
