Lessons From My Mother
May 14, 2021
Olivia Proffit
Olivia is a social media manager and grad student 9-5, but a writer and adventurer all other hours of the day. She loves to explore her city of San Francisco, take trips to less foggy places, do yoga, scuba dive, and spend time with friends and family. She is passionate about empowering women and is so excited to work with InHerShoes to inspire women to be more courageous.
Gilmore Girls: the show that showed the world what a strong mother-daughter bond could be. Also the same show that my mother and I binge watched together… twice… during quarantine. Why? Because we relate to the Gilmore girls.
They are best friends. They challenge each other. They complement each other. They fight; they make up. They are the same, but different. But most importantly, they are both courageous and Rory grew up to be the strong woman she was with Lorelei as her role model.
That’s me and my mom. I could not be more grateful for my relationship with my mother. My mom and I are so close because we are the same person in many ways. But what she doesn’t know is that part of the reason we are so similar is because I strive to be more like her.
My mother is the strongest woman I know. She raised me in a loving and encouraging household, mostly on her own, while navigating her own personal uphill battles.
She works in banking and anybody familiar with the finance world knows that it is very much male-dominated. She’s had to face many challenges in her career as a woman, but that never stopped her. She stayed up nights after putting me to bed to teach herself her job and worked her way up from being a teller to an award-winning business banker who is well known and respected in her industry.
When I was younger, I didn’t understand these challenges. She never let me see any limits to my own potential as a woman in this world because she never let me see how those challenges may have affected her. She carried on as the great mom she was and never let anything come in between our relationship or her ability to inspire me to be the best I could be. My mother sacrificed so much for me— more than I will likely ever know or understand. And yet, there was not a single day that went by when I didn’t feel like her number one priority. She instilled so many values in me that I hope to instill in my own daughter.
She taught me to simply be a good person. She taught me to love, accept, and empathize with everyone I meet. She taught me to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around any individual and we all must respect each other. But most importantly, she taught me how to be a strong, independent, bad-ass woman because she is one, and she never let me believe that I could be anything less.
Without my mother, I would be lost. I still look up to her now, as a 26-year old woman, the same way that I looked up to her when I was 5 years old. I am grateful to have been raised by such an incredible person and if I can grow up to be half the woman she is, I will be proud.
My relationship with my mom is a bond like no other because mother-daughter relationships are bonds like no other. As women, we are exposed to so many messages that tell us how we should be, look, and act. It’s easy to get lost in the messages and feel lost as a woman. But when we look to our mothers, and our grandmothers, they can help ground us. They remind us that amidst all the bullshit, all we really need to do is be ourselves and define our own path with courage.
To all mothers out there, thank you. Thank you for helping us navigate through life. Thank you for all of the hugs, kisses, bandaids, ice-cream dinners, scolding, check-ins, guidance, sacrifices, wisdom, and love. Thank you for everything.
Today and every day, we celebrate you.
