There are no bad parents, only broken systems…

Yesterday, 9 years ago, I had the immense joy of holding my little one in my arms for the very first time. I became a parent, a mother. 
Every day was and still is a pure beauty, a discovery, an adventure, and lessons .... 
But it was also hard. I am not the kind of person who will tell you that motherhood is beautiful, that everything is fine, that I use my feminine and ancestral intuition and blah blah blah.... NOPE!!! 
For the first two years I remember being so angry because I was confronted with what it is really like to be a parent, to be a black parent in Europe, to be an African parent without a community, a healthy community to lean on.... I have been confronted with lies that nobody talks about as a parent, as a mother. 
No, it's not easy and always as beautiful as seen on Instagram. I was thinking that as a visual artist at the time, I could keep working, taking my baby everywhere, going on residencies and making my art, etc.... No, darling only a few artist parents experience this and most of the time they are systemically privileged and I wasn't and still am not. 

If you know me, you know I'm real and I like to tell it like it is. So, for the typical comments and questions: 
How is your motherhood going? You must be a great mother. 
She is so lucky to have you as her mother. 
Here are some of my answers I was giving: 
Motherhood is hard AF! 
It's so messy that I'm not able to be what society has portrayed me to be as a mother.
I don't think I'm a mother.
Her father is a better mother than I am. He does everything so well... 

I shocked a lot of people around me with these answers. Especially other white mothers who couldn't understand me because obviously we have different realities.
In 2016, when my daughter was about 2 years old, in an honest conversation with a friend (a cis white man), I opened up to him about my challenges as a mother, my daily struggles, my inability to be the perfect mother that was expected of me, in a racist, misogynoir and patriarchal society. About my jealousy of my partner, who was a better parent than me, and the fact that he was becoming the 'mother'.  About understanding that the art world was not very supportive of women and artist mothers, etc., but also and more importantly about how I felt like I was reliving moments of my childhood through the eyes of my little girl. How I was afraid of hurting her, because there was no pleasure left in me, nothing joyful to share with her. There are only pain and rage in me. 
I talked for many minutes, and my friend listened very carefully, without judgement, and when I finished, he said this: 
"I can hear that you are mothering from a wounded place. I think a lot of things from your childhood have resurfaced now that you've become a mother yourself, and obviously the lack of support and the oppressive system you're in isn't helping you and is instead suffocating you… It is normal that your partner is a better parent than you because he’s a cis white male, with the privileges that come with it. He is German and you live in Germany, a system he knows better than you do, so has less pressure than you and more ability to be fully present in parenting. Instead of being jealous of him, lean on him for your own healing, it's not late, you can still be a good parent..." 
Needless to say, this conversation changed my life, didn't it? 
I had an epiphany 🤯, so this guy just put names to things I was feeling that I had no words for. He just opened my eyes to systemic, intergenerational, and individual trauma, without calling it that way. 
That day I decided to do my work, to stop blaming myself, stop self-flagellation and feeling shame, and instead look at the bigger picture, the system that is holding the wounds inside me, that is not giving me the space, time, and resources to heal. I decided to forgive myself in the way I have been mothering.
Since then, a lot has changed, I can share love and happiness with her and my second child. I have truly been growing up and learning with her for 9 years now.  

Am I now a good mom? YES! Not as defined by society, but only defined by me. Each time I am not letting the system ruin my relationship with my children, each time I am aware and working against systemic trauma, each time I use my breath to regulate my nervous system against the oppressive system I am in, I believe I am a good mother. Voilà!!

Most of my clients who have experienced a difficult childhood, at the beginning of our journey together hold a grudge against their parents but over time manage to forgive them because as I often tell them, “I deeply believe that there are no bad parents, there are only broken systems that are wounding us humans.”