I love my mother. I don’t want to become her

It was a small apartment, but space was never something the family of four had to worry about. Everything had its place – she kept it simple, elegant, deliberate, and within means. Warmth and order lived side by side, from the meals that appeared on time, to the way she knew what each of her children needed, often before they did.

In the evenings, a portion of the living room transformed into a clinic for her homoeopathy practice, the room filled with grateful sighs as people left feeling better than when they arrived. Yet, even as her evenings were spoken for, a hearty dinner would be on the table for her family at 7.30pm sharp. None of their routines were disrupted – not even by a minute.

This might sound like a piece of Tiktok “trad wife” content – gentle, devoted, idealised – but it’s actually my childhood. And the woman in question: my mother. She ensured that she was available and present at all times so the home could run like a well-oiled machine. Her career had to find its way around this.

This is a scenario many women can relate to.

We watched our mothers inhabit the roles of homemaker, mother and wife fully, often without recognition or acknowledgement. They were, in many ways, the OG trad wives

We have since moved beyond such singular definitions of womanhood, into lives that hold careers, independence and choice. And yet, some part of that older script lingers. In the midst of our small wins at gender equality, certain patterns persist. Lapping up the warmth and comfort our mothers provided has become our benchmark of what a home should be, and what we want to give our children – the same, if not more.

But as we imagine ourselves managing the physical and emotional labour, often at the expense of our own ambitions, that aspiration quickly turns into a mix of doubt and resistance. “Can I offer what my mother did?” shifts just as quickly to: “Do I want to inherit the model of motherhood I grew up with?”

My mother grew up and married into a multi-generational home. She had known no other way of living. She valued the support of an extended family, and there was real warmth and bonding in that environment. She had a good marriage, but that kind of family system also came with clearly defined roles, and she never thought to question them. In more candid moments, she has admitted that she had to grow up too soon – taking on the care of an infant from day one, as my father had then been recently widowed.

Even after we became a nuclear family, those principles stayed with her. It was simply a different idea of womanhood, one where individual ambition sat outside the structure of daily life. She set aside her own passions – some, by her own admission, small and even childish – in favour of the family.

A lot of her so-called moral codes became ingrained in me. So much so that, in her final years, that responsibility of holding the family together was passed on to me – even though I was the youngest – I took it on without question. Perhaps, somewhere deep within, that has shaped my own hesitation around motherhood.

What makes a good mother

I have spoken to a few women who feel the same. We love children as much as anyone else, but for a woman in the prime of her career, motherhood means stepping away for five years or more. And for some, including me, having let that window pass, the question is whether we can justify taking on that role at all.

One can’t help but wonder if this is one of the reasons for Singapore’s falling fertility rates. Much of the conversation centres on cost, childcare and the pressures of modern life. All real concerns. But beyond affordability, women are also asking these other very valid questions.

This is not a rejection of motherhood, nor a dismissal of our mothers’ efforts. It is that very legacy – the standard they set, the care they gave – that makes the question heavier.

But reimagining motherhood also means taking a closer look at what we still expect of it. There is, even now, a certain idea of the “good” mother: one who does most of it herself, who is always present, who rarely steps away. Those who choose to structure care differently – whether by sharing it, relying on help or setting boundaries – are often measured against that same standard.

If that expectation remains unchanged, it is worth asking whether the hesitation many women feel is really about motherhood itself, or the version of it they have seen and been asked to live up to.

The answer, then, may not lie in encouraging motherhood as it has been, but in reimagining it – not as something to inherit, but something to choose and shape on our own terms.