You Were Not the Best Mom in the World

Mom,

This Mother’s Day, I’m thinking of you — like every other child in the world is thinking of their own mother. And I wanted to write you something, to make you a gift of my thoughts. But what can I say?…

You were not the “Best Mom in the World” …

You weren’t there to tuck me in most nights or hold my hand when I cried. There was no first day of school, no shopping trips or mommy and me outings. Many times, when I wanted to run to you, I didn’t know where you were.

Someone took that chance away from you. You didn’t get to kiss me when you wanted to or dry my tears on your own shoulder. You had to send me to a nursery in a commune soon after I was born and fight just to be allowed to teach me to read yourself. You had so many other children, not entirely through your own choice, that I was often just one of the crowd.

The world I was born into was rough, and you were born there too. As a child, I think you were also scared and often mistreated, and your own mother was not around. People took you away from her as well.

My life was pretty hard, Mom, but I know that yours was harder. The things that you suffered as a child and young adult make even my head spin. The things you went through as a mother — at 15, 17, 21, 23, 25, 27, 30 and 37, make my heart break. Even as I made it through a world of intense mind-control to find success, I sometimes wonder how you managed to do the same.

You were not the “Best Mom in the World”, but it’s the things that you managed to do for me in spite of our world, that are so impressive. When people ask me about my success, it’s a story I can’t tell without talking about you. You taught me to read at a very young age, saying to me that “The only thing you need from life, Daniella, is for someone to teach you to read. Absolutely everything else you want, you can teach yourself”. At 17 years old, without really realizing it, you were teaching me GRIT. You were teaching me to rebel against a world that neither of us fully understood was evil. You were teaching me that knowledge was power, and that learning would be my strength and my road to salvation.

There are a lot of things from my childhood that I’ve blocked out, or that still hurt today. But one thing always stood out as glowing — my Mama! My mama was strong, she could (and did) survive anything. My mama was beautiful, so beautiful she often suffered for it. My mama was the smartest woman in any room, even though she’d not received much education past 6th grade home-schooling. As a 9-year-old girl in a cult, you decided that you weren’t just going to be one of many, and you taught yourself a skill that made you standout — teaching yourself shorthand and becoming one of the most valued typists around by age 12. Without realizing it, you were teaching me to make my own path — in a world where none of us were taught that we could be anything that we wanted to be.

When the day came that I chose a different path, you made sure I got away. Even once I had rejected your world, your god, and your lifestyle, you were still my strength. When a 15-year-old girl, who’d never been out alone, was questioning her decision to break with the religious order that had controlled her family for generations, you secretly pushed me forward. When I was scared to leave what I knew, and set off for a new country, a new culture and a new life, you made it seem possible. Even though it would take you most of another decade to make the break yourself, you encouraged me to leave that world and strike my own path — not knowing when you’d see me again. I know now that your heart was breaking, and I can only look at my own little girl and marvel at the pain you endured to help me.

You always let me reach back for emotional support — even when that was discouraged by others around you. You never blamed me for my decision to get away. You helped me to think through how I would function in the big, wide world, so unfamiliar, and your existence reminded me that I could succeed — no excuses. You made me promise not to dye my hair green and go off the rails with my new-found freedom (I took you up on some of that advice 😊).

Through the years that suicide was threatening to conquer me, you were my emergency call. As maybe the only person on earth who could actually understand and empathize with what I was going through, you just listened. As one of the few people who really cared that I continued living, you still didn’t pressure me. You helped me realize that struggle isn’t weakness, and your words were what pulled me through some of the darkest times and sent me in search of help.

You’ve made an effort to be there for most of my key moments, often travelling with next to no money across countries to watch me walk a stage or pin a medal. When you think I’ve been ashamed of you, scared to introduce you to my ‘normal’ friends, or to bring you into my world — I’ve always been proud.

As you’ve gone through your own rough transition into the ‘real world’, you’ve been open with me about your journey. We’ve talked about your struggles, your depression and your doubts. We’ve cried over the choices that many of your children have made, and shared stories of our struggles to find a place in this whole new and strange world. We’ve crafted a strong bond as smarter, stronger and fully free, adults who’ve made our own choices in life, finally!

When I told you about my newest direction in life, you didn’t hesitate to support me. Even though my speaking out and sharing my stories could impact your world, you didn’t try to stop me. You were strong enough to tell me to speak my truth, even through your tears. My stories have been hard for you to read, but you have stood by me, once again. I hope that today, your tears will be happy, healing ones.

Today, Mom, you are one of my best friends and I appreciate your perspective, love and concern. Today, I always care about what you think, about whether you are proud of me and my choices. Today, I know you love me, will wipe away my tears, and I always know where to find you when I need you. Today, you were there when I brought my beautiful baby into the world, almost lost her, and you helped me love her into life. Today, you come with me on my annual girl’s weekend, and that 15-year difference between us seems like less than two — I love introducing my young, fun, smart and beautiful mama around to everyone I know.

You weren’t the “Best Mom in the World”, but you were something 1000 times more important than that near meaningless cliché. You were the best mother I could have had in the world that was controlling our lives, the world that we’ve both now had to fight against. When people ask me about my success today, I answer without hesitation that I got lucky, I really had the “Best Mom in that World”. And only 7 other people on earth can say that.

Daniella Mestyanek Young is an American author and TEDx Speaker. Daniella has been breaking through barriers and challenging authority figures since her earliest childhood memories growing up in the horrifying Children of God Cult and on through her service and deployment to war twice. Daniella served as part of the first group of women who integrated into deliberate combat arms missions back in 2011 and has since spent the majority of her time leading in veteran service organizations to try and help folks heal and find their own definition of success after their service.

Daniella is married to the world’s best special operations helicopter pilot (retired) and speaks primarily in Brazilian Portuguese with her daughter, who sasses her back in three languages. Daniella is currently at work on her memoir, Uncultured. She can be found speaking speaking truth to power, irritating vetbros and stamping out the kyriarchy on Twitter @daniellamyoung.