Bella looked at me one day and asked:

“Mom, what do you really look like when you’re angry?”

And I didn’t even hesitate.

I said: Ember.

You know Ember. From Elemental.

The girl made of fire who can’t touch anything without burning it. Who was taught, by love, by sacrifice, by not wanting to disappoint anyone, to hold herself in.

Until she couldn’t.

Until everything around her was ash.

Bella didn’t know who Ember was yet.

So we had to watch the whole movie.

Together.

So she could see what I meant.

And halfway through, she turns to me and asks:

“Mommy, why couldn’t you control your anger when you were young?”

And I just sat there.

Because wow.

Okay.

We’re doing this.

Around the same time, I watched the Hannahversary. The Hannah Montana anniversary special.

And then the song came on.

Younger You.

And I don’t know what I expected to feel.

But what came up was grief.

Not cringe. Not shame. Not even anger at myself.

Just… grief.

And okay, can we talk about Miley for a second?

Because she went rogue. She went a little crazy. And honestly? I deeply relate.

The difference is I’m not famous. I’m not a singer. I didn’t have an album to put out cursing the whole world.

I just had… my hands. And whatever was closest to me. 😅

For a girl I barely recognize. For years I can barely remember.

There’s actually a black hole in my timeline. A chunk of my teenage years I don’t fully have access to anymore. I was on autopilot. Surviving. Surging from one explosion to the next without really being present for any of it.

My mind protected me, I think.

Because what was happening inside was too much to hold consciously.

Here is what I know about that girl.

She had anger management issues.

She copied what she saw at home, because that’s what kids do. We learn what we live.

But she also had nowhere to put any of it.

No healthy outlet. No one sitting her down saying “hey, what’s actually going on?” No tools. No language for what she was feeling.

So everything got bottled.

Compressed.

And then it would explode.

My sister called me Hulka. Woman edition.

She was not wrong. 😅

I broke things you could replace.

Glass doors. Plates. Cups. Bowls. Phones. Xboxes. (Sorry 哥哥)

And things you couldn’t.

Friendships. Relationships. Trust that took years to build and seconds to shatter.

If it could break, I broke it.

Things. People. Bridges.

Everything.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it…

I broke my own heart too.

My parents’ hearts. My siblings’.

And I believe… even God’s.

Because deep down, underneath all that rage, I know now what was actually there:

Depression. Severe anxiety. Guilt that piled on top of pain that piled on top of more pain. A girl who couldn’t express herself, who had no idea how to ask for help, who just kept compressing and exploding and compressing again.

And the guilt from the damage I caused only made everything worse.

I hated myself for what I did.

I still have moments where I hate her.

But I’m learning, slowly, that what I actually feel is grief.

There’s a difference.

Hate says: she was bad.

Grief says: she was hurting. And I wish someone had gotten to her sooner.

There’s a scene in Elemental where Ember finally tells her dad the truth.

That she’s exhausted from holding it all in.

That she has her own dreams, her own fire, and she is tired of pretending otherwise.

And she’s terrified he won’t love her anymore.

And he does.

He loves her anyway.

And she cries.

And I cried.

Because underneath all that rage… there’s always just a kid who needed someone to stay.

And then there’s Split Fiction.

My husband and I have been playing it on Nintendo. It’s a co-op game, you play through together, and there’s this moment. (Spoiler alert, skip ahead if you haven’t played it.)

You enter Mio’s subconscious.

And there she is.

The Evil Mio.

The dark version. The shadow self. The one that lives underneath. The one she’s been running from.

I didn’t say it out loud, but in my head I went: THAT’S ME!

Like, yes. I see her. I know her. I have MET her in my own kitchen.

Isn’t it wild how God puts mirrors everywhere when you’re ready to look?

Movies. Video games. Your daughter asking you a question mid-cartoon.

Suddenly everything is pointing at the same thing:

It’s time to look at her. Really look.

Fast forward to this past month.

Ben has been sick for over two weeks. Ear infection. Couldn’t even hear from one side. Was supposed to lead worship on Easter Sunday and couldn’t.

And I’ve been solo parenting through all of it.

The girls sick too. The house a mess. School. Work. No family nearby. Just me.

And on top of that, I switched medications. From Sertraline to bupropion. And the withdrawal from Sertraline was awful. And the new medication? Also rough. My body has been through it while my brain has also been through it and I am just… a lot right now.

(There is so much more I want to say about my mental health journey. The full story, including dermatillomania and trichotillomania, but that deserves its own post. And I will write it. Soon.)

And I crossed my limit.

And I snapped.

And I felt her.

The old Melody.

Standing right there in my kitchen.

And I hated it.

I hated that she came back. I hated that my kids saw it. I hated how fast it happened, how familiar it felt, how the bottle fills up so quietly until suddenly it just… doesn’t.

I texted my Bible study group that morning and said I felt like I was going a little crazy. That I just wanted my mom. That I am the help, and sometimes the help needs help, and there is nobody coming.

And that was true.

That is still true sometimes.

But here’s what’s also true.

I watch my daughter Bella now.

She is bold. She is expressive. She has opinions and she is not shy about any of them.

She is also very sensitive. Deeply feeling. The kind of kid who can go from full dramatic meltdown to laughing on the floor in five minutes.

Honestly? Very me.

But here’s the difference.

She expresses it.

She doesn’t bottle. She doesn’t compress. She doesn’t hold it until it detonates.

She just… lets it out. In real time. Loudly, yes. Dramatically, absolutely. But out.

And sometimes I have to remind myself to stay regulated when she loses it because honestly, she is so much, and I am tired, and it is a lot.

But then I remember:

She is not broken.

She is just feeling.

And feeling out loud, safely, in a home where she is loved,

that is exactly what I never got to do.

I explained it to Bella that day.

I told her I was like Ember.

That everything would burn down around me because I didn’t know what to do with the fire inside.

That I copied what I saw and I didn’t have anyone to teach me differently.

That I lost friends. That I hurt people. That I broke things I couldn’t put back together.

And she listened.

And she nodded.

And she didn’t look at me like I was scary.

She looked at me like she understood.

That moment felt like healing.

Not because the past got easier.

But because she was safe enough to ask.

And I was finally free enough to answer.

I won’t say I am completely healed.

I still have hard days. I still feel the pressure build. I still have moments I’m not proud of.

But I am not that girl anymore.

Not fully.

Because that girl never repaired. She just exploded and moved on and let the wreckage sit.

I repair now. Every time.

I go back. I sit with my girls at bedtime. I say sorry. I tell the truth. I plant the same thing over and over:

不管怎麼樣，我們都會愛你。

對不起，媽媽太兇了，你可以原諒我嗎？

No matter what, we will always love you.

If you grew up angry,

if you broke things, burned bridges, scared people, scared yourself,

if there’s a black hole in your memory where the hardest years used to be,

I want you to know:

You were not crazy.

You were in pain.

And pain that has nowhere to go has to go somewhere.

You deserved someone who could see past the fire to the kid underneath it.

It is not too late to become that person for yourself.

I am not completely healed.

But I am proud of the woman I am today.

And the most important thing of all,

I am a mom.

And that is the most beautiful, most challenging, most hard, most holy thing I have ever done.

The fire didn’t destroy me.

But here’s what I’ve learned. Fire doesn’t only burn.

With the right material, it melts. It builds. It transforms.

In Elemental, fire and sand together don’t destroy each other.

They make glass.

Something clear. Something strong. Something that can hold light.

That’s what I’m becoming. Slowly. Imperfectly.

Still made of fire. But shaped now. Held together.

Anger is still around.

But she’s not my best friend anymore.

More like… a difficult acquaintance I’ve learned to manage. 😅

And somehow, by grace, the fire found somewhere safe to finally land.

And Bluey gets annoyed and is basically like:

“Why are you always copying me?”

Honestly? Fair.

Because as an older sister myself… I get it. 😅

I have a sister too, so let me just say this with love and solidarity:

little sisters are annoying. Sorry.
Cute, lovable, precious… and also deeply committed to copying your entire existence.

So when my oldest came to me later that day and said:

“Why is she always copying me? I don’t want her to copy me. I want her to be different.”

…I had to stop for a second.

Because first of all:
girlfriend, valid.

But second of all?

That hit me way deeper than I expected.

Because she wasn’t just talking about copying.

She was saying:

“I want to be my own person.”

And honestly? I love that about her.

I really do.

She is bold.
She is direct.
She has opinions (soooo many of them).
She knows what she likes, what she doesn’t like, and she is not particularly interested in pretending otherwise.

She’s also super sensitive.

Like, very sensitive.

She feels everything deeply.
She gets hurt easily sometimes.
She notices tone, energy, facial expressions, all of it.

She’s emotional in that very big-hearted, very intense, very little-girl way where one tiny thing can wreck her whole mood… but also, one silly thing can have her back on the floor laughing five minutes later.

And then there’s the fun side of her.

She is creative.
She is kind.
She is hilarious without even trying.
And she is so silly.

Like… aggressively silly.

The kind of child that can go from dramatic monologue to interpretive dance to random sound effects in under two minutes.

Honestly? Very me. Lol.

Big feelings.
Big imagination.
Big personality.

And yet, underneath all of that softness, she is also very, very strong.

That’s what gets me.

She is persistent.
She doesn’t give up easily.
She doesn’t just fold because someone tells her to.
Even when she cries, even when she gets emotional, there’s still this little core in her that feels so solid.

Like this child really came into the world with a built-in sense of:

“No… I think I’ll be myself, thanks.”

And I’m not gonna lie, I’m proud of that.

Because the world doesn’t always know what to do with girls like that.

Girls who are:

• sensitive and strong

• emotional and resilient

• kind and bold

• silly and deeply thoughtful

Girls who don’t naturally just melt into whatever shape the room wants them to be.

And maybe that’s part of why this hit me so hard.

Because I think I was like that too.

But somewhere along the way… I learned to edit myself.

One of the things I’ve noticed about her lately is how she likes to dress.

Most days, I’ll pick out her clothes for school. Easy. Efficient. Less chaos for me.

But every now and then, she’ll decide she has a vision.

And let me tell you, that vision is not always… aligned with mine.

She’ll come out in some completely random outfit combination like she’s a tiny eccentric art director with zero concern for public opinion.

Mismatched socks.
Questionable color palette.
Accessories that do not belong together.
Absolute confidence.

And sometimes I’ll look at her and think:

Girl. No. Absolutely not.

And sometimes I do say no.

But sometimes she insists so hard, and with so much certainty, that I end up being like:

“…you know what? Fine. Go ahead.”

And then she walks out happy as can be, wearing an outfit that makes absolutely no sense to me — and she is THRIVING.

And that gets me every time.

Because she doesn’t seem weighed down by the question that followed me around for years:

“What will people think?”

She just likes it.

So she wears it.

And what really struck me is this:

when I tell her no, she doesn’t fall apart.

She doesn’t spiral into shame.
She doesn’t suddenly think she’s wrong or bad or ugly.
She doesn’t seem to take every boundary as some deep rejection of who she is.

She can hear “no” and still stay secure.

And honestly?

That feels like emotional maturity to me.

Not because she’s perfect.
Not because she’s never dramatic (please lol).

But because she seems to have this healthy sense of self that says:

“I can have preferences. I can be disappointed. And I can still be okay.”

That is huge.

And if I’m being honest, it also made me ask myself something painful:

Why couldn’t I do that?

Why did I care so much about what people thought?

Why did other people’s opinions have so much power over me?

Why did I spend so many years trying so hard to be acceptable, presentable, easy to understand, easy to approve of?

And I think the answer is…

because that didn’t come from nowhere.

I moved a lot growing up.

And when I say a lot, I don’t just mean changing houses.

I mean changing entire worlds.

Different countries.
Different cultures.
Different languages.
Different expectations.
Different social rules.
Different versions of myself, depending on where I was and who I needed to be around.

And if you know me, you know I’m a PK.

So yepppp, let’s talk about PK syndrome.

Because if you know, you know.

There’s a very specific kind of pressure that comes with being a pastor’s kid.

You are always seen.
Always representing.
Always “the example.”
Always aware that your behavior doesn’t just reflect on you — it reflects on your whole family.

So you learn things early.

You learn how to behave.
How to read a room.
How to be “appropriate.”
How to not embarrass anybody.
How to be good.
How to be respectable.
How to not be too much.

And on top of that, I was also moving around all the time.

Trying to fit into new schools.
New friend groups.
New cultures.
New expectations.

Trying to figure out who I was in spaces where I was often the new kid, the different kid, the one who had to explain herself, the one who didn’t quite fit neatly anywhere.

And after enough years of that, you get really good at adapting.

But adaptation comes with a cost.

Because when you spend enough of your life trying to fit into new places, eventually you stop asking:

Who am I when I’m not trying to belong?

Whew.

That question has been sitting with me.

Because I think so much of my younger self was shaped by trying to fit in.

Trying to not stand out too much.
Trying to not make things harder.
Trying to be accepted.
Trying to be understood.
Trying to be “normal.”

And honestly? I didn’t want to be different.

Not really.

Not when being different meant:

• being lonely

• being misunderstood

• missing out

• feeling out of place

• carrying things that felt too big for my age

I missed things as a kid that mattered to me.

Graduations.
Milestones.
Moments that felt important.

And I know some people might think those are “small” things, but to a child, they’re not small.

They’re the things that make you feel like you belong to your own life.

And I think for a long time, I internalized this idea that fitting in was safer than being fully seen.

So I adapted.

I adjusted.

I became hyper-aware.

Of how I looked.
Of what people thought.
Of whether I was too weird, too different, too much, too whatever.

So now, when I watch my daughter proudly wearing mismatched socks like she has absolutely nothing to prove to anybody…

I don’t just see a silly little girl getting dressed.

I see freedom.

And maybe that’s why it makes me emotional.

Because she gets to express herself in ways I think I learned to suppress.

She gets to be bold because she is growing in safety.

And I think I learned to survive through self-awareness.

There were years I didn’t really like who I was.

Years I carried things I was way too young to be carrying.

Anxiety.
Depression.
Pain.
Abuse.
Confusion.
The kind of stuff that shapes you before you even have language for it.

And when I look back now, I can see that so much of my younger self wasn’t just trying to grow.

She was trying to survive.

So when my daughter says something like:

“I want to be different.”

…that does something to me.

Because she’s saying out loud something I didn’t know I was allowed to say.

She’s saying it without shame.
Without apology.
Without asking for permission.

And if I’m honest, that makes me proud.

But it also makes me grieve.

Because sometimes, motherhood has this strange way of showing you what you didn’t get.

Not to punish you.

But to reveal it.

To name it.

To gently bring it into the light.

And I think that’s what this has been for me.

Because when I look at her, I don’t just see my daughter.

Sometimes I see the little girl in me too.

The one who needed more room.
More stability.
More safety.
More freedom to just be.

And somehow, watching my daughter become exactly who she is has made me realize something:

she is growing in places where I once hurt.

And that is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

I’m not a perfect mom.

At all.

I get tired.
I get overstimulated.
I lose patience.

And lately, with the kids being sick back-to-back, lack of sleep, work, life, all of it… whew.

I have absolutely had moments I’m not proud of.

Moments where I’ve snapped.
Moments where I’ve been short.
Moments where I hear myself and immediately think:

ugh. that was not it.

And the mom guilt comes in fast.

But one thing I’ve really tried to do from the beginning is this:

repair.

At night, before bed, I go back.

I lay with her and I tell her the truth.

“Mommy is sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”
“That was not your fault.”
“Mommy has not been sleeping well, but that’s still not how I should have treated you.”

And for years now, I’ve also told her the same thing before bed, over and over again:

不管怎麼樣，我們都會愛你。

No matter what, we will always love you.

No matter what happens outside.
No matter what happens inside.
No matter what mistake you make.
No matter what you feel.
No matter what.

You can always come to mama.

There are no secrets here.
There is nothing you could ever do that would make you unlovable to me.

That has been one of the deepest prayers of my motherhood.

That my children would grow up with something I didn’t always have:

the unshakable knowing that they are loved.

Not because they performed well.
Not because they were easy.
Not because they made life convenient.

But simply because they are mine.

And one night recently, after I had apologized to her for losing my patience, she looked at me and said:

“It’s okay, Mommy. I still love you.”

And I just lay there.

Because those were my words.

The same words I’ve been planting into her little heart for years.

And now she was saying them back to me.

And I realized:

this is the fruit.

Not perfection.
Not flawless motherhood.
Not always being patient and regulated and gentle every second of every day.

But fruit.

The fruit of consistency.
The fruit of repair.
The fruit of emotional safety.
The fruit of planting something over and over until one day, without even realizing it, you hear it blooming back to you.

And wow… that has done something to me.

Because when I watch my daughters now, I realize:

I am not just raising them.

In some ways, I am also healing alongside them.

And maybe that’s one of the quiet miracles of motherhood.

Not that it makes us perfect.

Not that it magically erases what happened to us.

Not that it removes every trigger, every grief, every scar.

But sometimes, while we are loving our children well, God is also gently healing the child we once were.

And I think that’s what this season has been for me.

Not perfect.
Not polished.
Not easy.

But healing.

Because yes, I still have hard days.
Yes, I still lose my patience sometimes.
Yes, I still carry old wounds.

But seeing my girls grow — seeing them speak with confidence, feel safely, love freely, and move through the world without shrinking themselves — has healed so much in me too.

And when my daughter says:

“I want to be different.”

I don’t hear rebellion.

I hear wholeness.

I hear freedom.

I hear a little girl who already knows she does not have to disappear to be loved.

And maybe that is one of the greatest gifts I will ever give my daughters:

not a perfect mother,

but a home where they are safe enough to become fully themselves.

And maybe, in the middle of building that for them,

God is healing me too.

Today, it is one of the most debated words in our culture.

Somehow, the conversation about women has become more confusing than ever.

Every year when International Women’s Day comes around, the internet suddenly remembers that women exist.

Companies post inspirational quotes.
Brands highlight their female employees.
Social media fills with empowerment slogans.

And while the attention is nice, I always think the same thing.

Women are not women for one day.

We are women every day.

Womanhood is lived daily—in our families, our communities, our work, and in the quiet responsibilities women carry that often go unseen.

But if we are honest, something strange is happening in the conversation about women today.

We are living in a moment where something that used to be obvious—what a woman is—has somehow become controversial.

To understand how we arrived here, we have to step back and look at how the women’s movement evolved.

Because the truth is that feminism did not grow in a straight line.

At some point, the paths began to split.

When feminism was about fairness

The earliest women’s rights movements were not about rejecting men or dismantling families.

They were about fairness.

In the 1800s, women had very limited legal rights. Married women often could not control property or finances independently. Many professions and universities were closed to them. Women could not vote.

In 1848, activists gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, for the first organized women’s rights convention in the United States.

Their demands were simple.

Women should have the right to vote.
Women should have access to education.
Women should be recognized as full citizens under the law.

Eventually those goals were achieved. In 1920, American women gained the right to vote.

At that stage, feminism was primarily about legal equality.

Many early activists were also religious women who believed that men and women were both created in the image of God and deserved dignity.

The goal was not to erase the differences between men and women.

It was simply to ensure women were treated fairly.

When feminism branched into many directions

Today, feminism is not one single movement.

It has many branches.

There is liberal feminism, radical feminism, socialist feminism, intersectional feminism, ecofeminism, cultural feminism, and others.

Some focus on legal equality.
Some focus on economic systems.
Some focus on social structures.
Some focus on identity and gender theory.

Many of these branches disagree with each other.

Some feminists focus on protecting women as a biological category.

Others argue that gender identity should define who is considered a woman.

All of these perspectives now exist under the same label.

Which is why conversations about feminism today often feel confusing.

Equality does not mean sameness

One of the biggest confusions in modern gender debates is the idea that equality means sameness.

But men and women are not the same.

Biology, psychology, and everyday experience show differences between males and females.

Differences in communication.
Differences in risk-taking.
Differences in nurturing behaviors.

These differences do not make one sex superior to the other.

They simply mean we are wired differently.

So the question becomes:

Do we want men and women to be identical?

Do we want women to compete with men?

Or do we want fairness while recognizing those differences?

Early feminism largely asked for fairness.

But some modern conversations have shifted toward eliminating distinctions between men and women altogether.

What marriage taught me

This year marks eight years of marriage for me.

And marriage taught me something I struggled with during the early years.

I used to think equality meant everything had to be perfectly fair.

Fifty-fifty. Same responsibilities. Same roles.

But real marriage does not work like that.

Marriage is not a ledger.

Some seasons I carry more emotional weight. Some seasons my husband does.

Parenting, work stress, illness, pregnancy—life constantly shifts the balance.

Healthy marriages are not built on scorekeeping.

They are built on sacrifice.

Instead of asking “Is this fair?” the better question becomes:

“How can we love/support each other right now?”

Growing up between cultures

My perspective on these questions is also shaped by my background.

I grew up in Latin America, and my parents are Taiwanese.

That means I grew up seeing different cultures approach family and gender roles in different ways.

In Latin culture, people often talk about machismo.

But anyone who actually grew up there knows the story is more complicated.

Yes, men may appear to lead publicly.

But inside many homes, women—especially mothers and grandmothers—are the real backbone of the family. (Just like the movie Encanto)

In many ways, our families are quietly matriarchal.

Women hold enormous influence in raising children and shaping the next generation.

But the older I get, the more I realize that culture alone cannot answer the deepest questions about identity.

For me, the ultimate reference point is the word of God.

A crisis of identity

One of the biggest shifts in modern conversations about gender is the idea that identity determines whether someone is a man or a woman.

This debate often gets grouped together with other topics like sexual orientation.

But these issues are actually different.

Sexual orientation refers to who someone is attracted to.

Gender identity refers to how someone understands their own identity as male or female.

Yet in modern cultural debates, these discussions are often lumped together.

At the same time, many people today seem to be experiencing a deeper identity crisis.

People are asking fundamental questions:

Who am I?
What defines me?
Where do I belong?

When identity itself becomes unstable, society becomes unstable as well.

The question feminism never fully solved: motherhood

There is another tension that sits quietly underneath many feminist debates.

Motherhood.

For decades, feminism fought to open doors for women in education, politics, and the workplace.

But one question was never fully resolved.

What do we do with motherhood?

Because motherhood changes everything.

Pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and raising children require time, physical recovery, emotional energy, and deep presence.

These are not small interruptions in a woman’s life.

They are profound biological and relational realities.

Yet modern economic systems were not built around those realities.

The modern workplace was designed around male life patterns—workers who never experience pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum recovery.

So many women today feel pulled in two directions.

On one hand, society encourages independence and professional success.

On the other hand, motherhood calls for sacrifice, patience, and devotion.

But motherhood is not a limitation.

It is one of the most powerful roles human beings experience.

Without mothers, there is no future.

A deeper spiritual question

As a Christian, I also see a deeper spiritual layer behind many of these debates.

The Bible begins with a simple statement about human identity.

God created humanity male and female.

Those differences were not meant to create competition between men and women.

They were meant to create partnership.

עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ (Ezer Kenegdo)

This phrase appears in the creation story when God says He will make a partner for Adam. It is often translated as “a helper suitable for him,” but the Hebrew meaning is deeper. Book of Genesis 2:18 uses the words ezer (help/strength) and kenegdo (corresponding to him, facing him). Scholars explain that the phrase describes someone who stands alongside as a corresponding partner, not someone inferior.

But when those differences are blurred or denied, confusion spreads—not only in culture, but in families.

And when families weaken, societies weaken too.

A moment that reminded me what womanhood really means

Working with mothers has also shaped how I think about these conversations.

I have sat with women in the early days after birth, when their bodies are still recovering and their babies depend on them for everything. I have watched mothers learning how to breastfeed for the first time, exhausted but determined to nourish their children.

In those moments, womanhood is not a political theory.

It is not an identity label.

It is a lived reality.

The female body is doing something extraordinary—recovering, producing milk, regulating hormones, responding to a baby’s needs.

No slogan or social movement can fully capture what happens in those early postpartum weeks.

And when you sit with mothers in those moments, you realize something very simple.

Womanhood is not abstract.

It is embodied.

It is relational.

It is deeply connected to the creation and nurturing of life.

Those experiences reminded me that the conversation about women cannot ignore the biological realities that shape women’s lives.

Women every day

Women fought to vote.
Women fought for education.
Women fought to participate fully in society.

Those victories matter.

But somewhere along the way, the conversation became confused about something much more basic.

What a woman is.

For me, the answer is not complicated.

A woman is not a costume.

A woman is not a feeling.

A woman is a biological reality deeply connected to the creation and nurturing of life.

And that reality deserves clarity, dignity, and protection.

Because women are not women for one day.

We are women every day.

Five years of being someone’s mother. Five years of loving someone so much it rearranges your brain chemistry. Five years of realizing that motherhood is the most humbling, exhausting, beautiful thing I have ever done.

And every year her birthday sits right next to International Women’s Day.

March 8.

Which is funny, because when I was in labor, I had one very specific request.

Please do not come out on March 8.

If you grew up around Chinese culture, you might understand the joke.

In Chinese slang, “three eight,” written 三八 (san ba), can describe a woman who talks a lot. Loud, opinionated, a little dramatic. The auntie who always has something to say about everyone’s business.

Not exactly the birthday energy I had imagined for my daughter.

I remember joking with the nurses about it while I was in labor.

Please baby, just not March 8.

And honestly, I was doing my best to make that happen.

Because she was born at 11:19 PM on March 7.

Very close. Too close for comfort. But technically… we made it.

Of course babies are not particularly interested in their mother’s cultural humor.

She came when she came.

And just like that, I became a mother.

Five years later I laugh when I think about it. Because honestly, if my daughter grows up a little 三八, I might actually be proud.

The world could use more women who speak up.

And becoming a mother made me think much more deeply about what being a woman actually means.

Not in the abstract way people argue about on the internet.

In the real way.

The body way.

I work in the birth world. My days are filled with pregnant mothers, newborn babies, women who are healing, women who are exhausted, women learning how to feed their babies, women learning to trust their bodies again.

When you see that up close, day after day, something becomes very clear.

Womanhood is not a costume.

It is something the body lives through.

It starts in girlhood.

A little girl growing up in a female body. Learning about her body slowly. Then puberty arrives and suddenly there is blood. Your first period. The strange realization that your body is capable of something ancient and powerful.

For many women, the story continues.

Pregnancy.

And pregnancy is not just cute bump photos and baby showers.

Pregnancy is your entire body reorganizing itself because it is building another human being from scratch.

Your organs move.

Your ligaments stretch.

Your skin stretches.

Your sleep disappears.

Your appetite changes.

Your hormones do things that make absolutely no sense.

Your body is literally creating life cell by cell.

And then there is birth.

Anyone who has ever witnessed birth up close knows there is nothing symbolic about it.

There is pain.

Real pain.

The kind of pain that takes you somewhere primal, somewhere deep in your body where you realize women have been doing this since the beginning of humanity.

There is blood.

There is sweat.

There is fear.

There is strength you did not know you had.

Whether that baby arrives through a vaginal birth or through a C-section, a woman’s body goes through something enormous.

And then suddenly there is a baby on your chest.

Your body is shaking. Your heart is wide open. Your entire life just changed in a single moment.

But the story does not end there.

Then comes the part no one really prepares you for.

The bleeding that lasts for weeks.

The soreness.

The stitches for some mothers.

The incision for others.

Your hormones crashing.

Your body feeling like it no longer belongs to you.

And then there is breastfeeding.

Your breasts swell.

Your body produces milk.

Sometimes it works beautifully.

Sometimes it hurts.

Sometimes both mother and baby cry while figuring it out.

You wake up every two hours.

Your shirt is soaked with milk.

Your nipples crack.

Your back hurts.

You are exhausted in a way you never imagined possible.

And yet somehow, in the middle of all that chaos, you fall deeply in love with this tiny person.

This is the rawness of womanhood.

The rawness of motherhood.

Your body changes permanently because it has carried life.

Your hips shift.

Your breasts change.

Your priorities change.

Your heart becomes vulnerable in a way it never was before.

And when you witness this over and over again, working with mothers and babies, something becomes impossible to ignore.

Womanhood and motherhood are deeply connected.

Not every woman becomes a mother, and that is okay. But the female body carries the capacity for life in a way that shapes womanhood itself.

Women carry life.

Women nurture life.

Women raise the next generation.

That is not a stereotype.

That is the reason humanity exists.

Which is why it honestly feels absurd when people try to reduce womanhood to things like makeup, dresses, or heels.

Womanhood is not lipstick.

Womanhood is blood.

It is sacrifice.

It is endurance.

It is creation.

It is the long, messy, beautiful work of bringing life into the world and raising it.

And this is where I will say something that many people are suddenly afraid to say.

Trans women are not women.

They are trans women.

Recognizing that difference does not make someone hateful. It simply acknowledges biological reality.

You cannot claim the title without the reality.

You cannot claim the privileges without the sacrifices.

The blood.

The pain.

The risk.

The lifelong transformation of the body.

As a Christian, I also believe womanhood and motherhood are more than biology.

They are a ministry.

Women pour their bodies, their sleep, their energy, their hearts into raising the next generation of human beings.

That work is sacred.

And in a world that sometimes feels confused about the most basic truths, I believe women have a responsibility to protect that reality.

Not out of hatred.

But out of love.

Love for our daughters.

Love for the girls growing up in this world.

My daughter turned five yesterday.

When I look at her, I see the long road ahead of her.

Girlhood.

Puberty.

Becoming a woman.

And maybe one day, if she chooses, motherhood.

My hope is simple.

That by the time she grows up, the word woman will still mean something real.

Something rooted in truth.

Something worth protecting.

Five years ago I was joking in the delivery room about not wanting a 三八 baby.

Now I look at her and smile.

Because if she grows up to be a woman who speaks boldly, who refuses to be silenced, who protects truth even when it is unpopular…

Then honestly, I will be very proud of my little 三八 girl.

And if I’m being completely honest, she probably got it from me.

Because I am also very 三八.

I talk too much. I have opinions. I say things out loud that other people are afraid to say.

My husband would probably confirm this immediately.

But maybe the world needs a few more 三八 women right now.

Women who are not afraid to speak.

Women who are not afraid to protect their children.

Women who are not afraid to say that womanhood is real, that motherhood matters, and that truth is still worth defending.

So maybe my daughter being born right next to International Women’s Day was not bad timing after all.

Maybe it was perfect.

Nothing serious. Just something light and fun. A little show that a child can watch, laugh at, and then go to sleep peacefully.

Like most parents today, I do try to filter what my kids watch. Not because I’m paranoid or hateful or homophobic or transphobic, but because the internet and children’s media today are very different from when we were growing up.

There are so many messages hidden inside children’s shows now. Sometimes you don’t even notice them until you’re already halfway through an episode.

So that night we decided to watch the Baymax series on Disney+.

The first episode was cute. Exactly what you would expect from a children’s show. Baymax helping people around the city, simple problems, simple kindness.

The second episode was fine too.

But then came the third episode.

In the episode, there’s a little girl who gets her first period. Okay, that’s part of life. Puberty happens. Bodies change. I’m not against kids learning about their bodies in an age-appropriate way.

But then Baymax goes to the store to buy menstrual products for her.

And suddenly there are several characters standing around giving advice about which products to use.

Pads. Tampons. Different brands.

And then there’s a male character wearing clothing meant to signal a [gender identity message], talking about which product he prefers.

I paused the TV.

Because I was sitting there thinking… wait a minute.

Why is this here?

Why does a children’s cartoon suddenly need to introduce [adult identity debates] in a scene about menstruation?

My daughter is still a child. She’s not even thinking about periods yet.

And suddenly a show that’s supposed to be about a friendly healthcare robot helping people is introducing a conversation that even many adults struggle to understand.

Then in another episode, there’s a character who clearly has feelings for another man and asks him out.

Now let me say something clearly before anyone jumps to conclusions.

One of my closest friends is gay, and my cousin is also gay and married. I care about them deeply.

This is not about hating people.

This is about something else entirely.

This is about asking why these conversations are increasingly appearing inside children’s entertainment.

The Reaction Online

After watching the episode, I looked it up because I was curious if anyone else had noticed the same thing.

And of course they had.

In fact, several media outlets were celebrating that exact moment.

One article praised the show for including a transgender buying menstrual products and described the backlash from some parents as conservatives simply being upset.

But reading that article actually made something clearer to me.

Because it showed the disconnect that is happening right now.

For many people working in media, that moment was seen as representation and progress.

But for many parents watching with their children, the reaction wasn’t anger as much as confusion.

Why is this conversation happening in a children’s cartoon?

Why are topics that even adults are still debating being introduced in shows meant for young kids?

Parents are not sitting down with their children thinking about politics.

We are just trying to find something innocent for them to watch before bedtime.

But more and more, we realize that children’s entertainment is no longer just entertainment.

Children Don’t Have Discernment Yet

Children simply do not have the discernment yet.

They don’t understand cultural debates about identity, sexuality, politics, and all the things adults argue about online on Wi-Fi.

Their brains are still developing.

They are still learning how the world works.

Children deserve time.

Time to grow.
Time to develop discernment.
Time to understand their bodies and relationships slowly and safely.

And this is where my perspective may come from a different place than some people.

Because for me, this issue is deeply personal.

My Childhood Was Not Protected

When I talk about protecting children, it’s not theoretical.

It’s because my childhood was not protected.

When I was around five or six years old, someone close to my family crossed physical boundaries with me.

At that age, I didn’t understand what was happening. I just knew something felt wrong, but I didn’t have the language or the courage to say anything.

Then around eight years old, something similar happened again.

Around that same time, I was exposed to pornographic material for the first time.

People really underestimate what that does to a child’s mind.

Once those images enter your brain, they don’t just disappear. They shape the way you think about your body. They create curiosity before you’re ready. They introduce ideas that a child simply cannot process.

And because there was no one guiding me through those things, it kept going deeper.

Around ten years old, more boundaries were crossed.

Around twelve, something happened with an older boy. Not full sexual intercourse, but still situations that no twelve-year-old should be navigating.

Every time something like that happens, it pulls you deeper into confusion and addiction.

Deeper into shame.

By fifteen, there was a man at church — around twenty-six or twenty-seven — showing interest in me.

At the time I didn’t understand what grooming was.

Now, as a mother, I look back and think: what is a grown man doing pursuing a fifteen-year-old girl?

But when you’re a child, you don’t know better.

Children trust adults.

And if the adults around them are not protecting them, they end up trying to make sense of situations far beyond their maturity.

The Shame I Carried for Years

One of the hardest parts of all of this was the shame.

Because I grew up Christian, I believed that sexual intimacy was something sacred.

But when you’re exposed to explicit sexual material too early, especially through abuse or media, everything becomes distorted.

I remember being a little girl — maybe eight — worrying that I might somehow be pregnant.

Eight.

A child worrying about pregnancy.

Later as a teenager, I remember lying to my parents about medical appointments because I was trying to deal with situations I was never mature enough to carry. There were many birth control injections, pills, even next day emergency pills. I was still a child, but I was already trying to fix problems that children should never have to face.

That kind of weight steals something from childhood.

It steals innocence.

It steals peace.

And it can take years to untangle that.

A Long Road to Healing

Healing from those experiences was not quick.

It has been a long road.

A long journey.

There were years where I carried so much shame and confusion that I felt very far from God. My mind was constantly stuck in everything I had been exposed to growing up.

It took time to understand that the guilt I carried was never mine to carry.

It took time to rebuild a healthy understanding of my own worth.

And even now, I can honestly say that I am still healing.

Healing doesn’t always happen in a straight line.

Sometimes it’s slow. Sometimes old memories come back. Sometimes you realize there are still parts of your heart that need to be restored.

But healing is possible.

And motherhood has been one of the biggest parts of that healing for me.

Motherhood Changes Everything

When I look at my daughters now, I see how innocent they are.

I see how much they trust the world around them.

And it makes me realize how fragile childhood really is.

Children are not miniature adults.

They should not be carrying adult conversations.

They should not be trying to process issues that belong in the world of grown people.

They deserve childhood.

They deserve time to grow.

They deserve protection.

Let Children Be Children

So when I say “let children be children,” I mean it very seriously.

Let kids play.
Let them imagine.
Let them explore the world slowly.

Let adults deal with adult conversations.

Parents have the responsibility to guide their children, teach them boundaries, and protect their innocence for as long as possible.

That’s not hatred.

That’s love.

And as a mother, it’s something I will never apologize for.

I wasn’t just attending.

I shared.

We discussed a simple graph titled:

“Should My Child Have a Smartphone?”

It walks through basic but uncomfortable questions:

Have you taught your child what to do if they encounter explicit content?
Have you explained online predators?
Have you talked about digital boundaries?
Have you explained how and when access can be removed?

If the answer is “no” at any point, the graph says:

Not ready.

And even if every box is checked, it still doesn’t say “yes.”

It says:

Maybe — but with supervision.

As I stood there holding that chart, something shifted inside me.

Because my daughter turns five next week.

Five.

She still needs help opening her yogurt. She still believes the monsters disappear when I turn on the light. She still reaches for my hand without hesitation. She still can’t watch the Paw Patrol movie for the 29,384,728th time by herself.

And I kept thinking:

I was only three years older than this when the internet found me.

I was eight when I first saw what I should never have seen. (Yep, I am talking about porn).

Eight.

Back then, it didn’t feel catastrophic. It didn’t feel like a defining moment. It felt curious. Secret. Normal.

That’s the danger.

Early exposure doesn’t always explode your childhood.

Sometimes it quietly erodes it.

It introduces concepts your brain is not ready to metabolize. It lowers your internal alarm system. It makes things feel “grown up” before you understand what being grown up actually costs.

Gaming became my coping mechanism. It was my escape. It made me feel competent, connected, and seen.

But gaming wasn’t just a game.

It was chat rooms.
Private messages.
Strangers behind usernames.

Conversations would start innocent. Friendly. Complimentary.

Then slowly they would escalate.

Requests for pictures.
Requests for more.
Requests that, looking back now, no child should ever have to navigate.

It never started extreme.

It started subtle.

That’s how grooming works.

It builds familiarity before it builds pressure. It creates validation before it creates vulnerability. It makes a child feel chosen before it makes her feel exposed.

And because I am a PK — a pastor’s kid — the layers were even heavier.

Imagine being exposed too early and then carrying it as your own moral failure.

Imagine sitting in church, hearing about purity and holiness, while secretly believing you’ve already disqualified yourself—yet as a pastor’s kid, you’re also the one teaching these things to the younger kids, all while struggling inside.

That is a particular kind of weight.

In faith environments, early exposure doesn’t just create confusion.

It creates shame.

I didn’t think, “I was too young.”

I thought, “I sinned.”

I didn’t think, “Someone crossed a boundary.”

I thought, “I crossed it.”

So I carried it.

Quietly.

I smiled. I served. I performed. I compartmentalized.

And because I didn’t feel safe bringing those experiences to my parents — not because they didn’t love me, but because we didn’t have language for those conversations — I processed everything alone.

The internet became my educator.

Silence became my protector.

And secrecy became normal.

There were real-life layers too. Older boys at church who crossed subtle lines. A sleepover at twelve that created familiarity and secrecy. Fourteen, when that familiarity led somewhere darker.

At fourteen, I had to lie to my mom so she would take me to the OB to check if I was pregnant. I had taken so many emergency contraceptive pills that I lost count. I received so many birth control shots and tried so many pills that I started to believe I had damaged my body and might never be able to have children.

For years I labeled all of it “sexual immorality.”

Motherhood renamed it.

Motherhood looked at my almost-five-year-old and said:

She is a child.

Which means I was one too.

That realization undid years of self-condemnation.

When I look at my daughter, I do not see someone capable of “sexual sin.”

I see someone who would be confused. Impressionable. Vulnerable.

And suddenly, my entire childhood reframed itself.

This isn’t paranoia.

It’s pattern recognition.

It’s what happens when you stop viewing your past through shame and start viewing it through motherhood.

And now I am the parent.

Parenting, to me, has two responsibilities that cannot be separated:

To equip.
And to protect.

Equip means building a home where shame has no oxygen. Where my children can bring uncomfortable questions into the light. Where biology is taught clearly and confidently. Where sexuality is framed as embodied, sacred, and rooted in reality — not detached from it.

Protect means acknowledging developmental reality.

Children are not miniature adults.

They are not cognitively equipped to navigate unrestricted digital access, private messaging platforms, algorithm-driven content, or overnight environments without supervision.

Pretending they are is not progressive.

It is negligent.

So yes, we use OpenDNS — paid family version — at the router level.

Yes, parental controls alone are not enough.

Yes, most content is filtered by me first.

Yes, I ask what show is playing before playdates.

Yes, I am vocal about it.

And yes, that has social consequences.

Some moms in my circles think I’m intense.

Some have stopped inviting us.

Some have quietly distanced themselves because I won’t let my kids watch certain shows, normalize certain conversations, or attend certain sleepovers.

That’s okay.

I am not parenting for social comfort.

I am parenting to break cycles.

The Kitchen Phone Method

There will be no personal smartphones until at least middle or high school. (Sorry, not sorry).

When devices are introduced, this will be our framework:

• Phones live in the kitchen or another central common area.

• Devices are used only in open spaces.

• No closed doors.

• No devices in bedrooms.

• No devices in bathrooms.

• No private scrolling.

• Charging happens in common areas overnight.

• Parents know passwords.

• Usage is supervised and revocable.

A smartphone is not a childhood milestone.

It is a responsibility tied to maturity.

And sleepovers?

Not happening in my house.
Not happening at yours.

You can call it extreme.

I call it informed.

And this is not only about my faith — though my faith absolutely informs how I see embodiment and integrity.

It is also about clarity.

We are living in a cultural moment where even basic biological definitions are being reframed through gender ideology in ways I cannot reconcile. When embodiment becomes negotiable and language around sex becomes unstable, children lose grounding.

My home will have clarity.

Bodies mean something.
Boundaries mean something.
Words mean something.

If that makes me controversial, so be it.

I carried shame that was never mine to carry.

My daughters will not.

She will not confuse attention with worth.
She will not confuse secrecy with maturity.
She will not confuse exposure with empowerment.

And as I sat in that Zoom room looking at that simple graph, I realized something:

The graph isn’t really about smartphones.

It’s about whether we are willing to guard our children even when it costs us socially.

You don’t have to agree with me.

But don’t mistake conviction for fear.

I am not raising culturally convenient children.

I am raising protected ones.

And I will not apologize for that.

My husband says it. My siblings have been saying it my whole life.

“Melody, you don’t have to say everything you think. Melody, be careful who you trust. Melody, not everyone needs to know your business.”

They were right. I just had to learn it the expensive way.

But here is the thing about being too honest, too open, too much. It also means that when someone tries to use that against you, you have nothing to hide. Everything I said, I meant. Everything I shared, I believed. I was not performing. I was not pretending. I was just myself, out loud, in a world that apparently finds that threatening.

I am old enough to know who I am, who God is, and who goes in front of me.

That is exactly why I am writing this.

The Field I Fell In Love With

I did not stumble into lactation. It found me when I needed it most.

I was pregnant in 2020 and gave birth in 2021. I was overwhelmed, isolated, and completely unprepared for how hard the early days of motherhood would be. I found breastfeeding communities online and those women, strangers every single one of them, held me together. They walked me through cluster feeding. They told me my body was not broken. They showed up for me through the hard nights when I did not know what I was doing.

That season changed me. It made me want to be that person for someone else. It made me fall in love with lactation, with maternal health, with the sacred and exhausting and beautiful work of supporting women through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

I threw myself into studying. I learned about mammary gland development, hormonal regulation, milk production, infant feeding physiology. I logged my clinical hours. I showed up every single day committed to becoming the best clinician I could be.

And the deeper I studied, the more one thing became undeniably clear to me.

This work is rooted in female biology. Pregnancy. Lactation. Postpartum recovery. These are not abstract concepts. These are sex-specific physiological processes that happen in female bodies. That is not a political statement. That is just biology. That is just the work.

When I said sex is real and bodies matter, I meant it the way I mean everything I say in a clinical context. Precisely. Specifically. Without apology.

What I Was Posting About

I was writing on Threads. Just being myself, a mother, a Christian, a woman training in a field built entirely on female biology. Things like:

“Sex is real and bodies matter.”

“If you’re female, you’re female. If you’re male, you’re male.”

“In my work, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, growth, and health data are all sex-based. That’s not political, it’s just how care works.”

“Between working in maternal and child health and being a Christian, I’ve landed here: I don’t really believe in gender as an identity.”

“In my faith, the body isn’t a mistake we override with feelings. It actually means something.”

I said I do not support abortion. I wrote about what I believed honestly and openly because that is who I am and I did not think I needed to apologize for it.

I was not speaking as a representative of any clinic. I was not in a clinical setting. I was a woman on the internet saying what she believed.

And someone decided that needed to be stopped.

The Person I Trusted

Around this same time I was building what I thought was a real mentorship.

She was already established. Already credentialed. Already running something successful. Clinically competent, business savvy, the kind of person who had built something real in this field and knew exactly how it worked. I respected her genuinely. I looked up to her.

And I, being exactly who I am, an Asian Latina who was raised to believe that honesty is respect and directness is love, gave her everything.

I told her what I observed about the clinic. What was working and what was not. I shared my vision for my own private practice someday. I told her about my faith, my values, my plans, my goals. I was transparent about all of it because I thought that was what you did with a mentor. You showed them the real you. You trusted them with your future.

She was supposedly going to help me build my practice.

I handed her a loaded gun and called it trust.

The Email

A complaint was sent to my workplace.

Whoever sent it had gone through my Threads posts carefully. Screenshotted them. Compiled them. Written a detailed, specific, professionally framed message to my employer describing me as dangerous. They called my comments extremely disturbing. They said I was spreading anti-trans and homophobic rhetoric. They wrote:

“In medicine, an oath is taken by all to provide the best care for each individual patient, not to follow the laws of your religion. Melody is on social media claiming her religion guides her, not science, reality, or education.”

They quoted my posts back to my employer one by one. They described me as someone spreading hateful disinformation in what they called a sacred and eternal field. They said they were appalled that a female healthcare worker would behave this way. They invoked the idea of a female led office and suggested that my employer should know better than to allow someone like me to represent their practice.

And then they said this:

“It took me less than 10 minutes to find out where she worked, your website, and your email.”

Less than ten minutes.

They closed by saying they were reaching out privately, as if that was a kindness. As if the implication of what they could do publicly was not sitting right there between every line.

Not one word about patient harm. Not one example of clinical incompetence. Not one complaint about how I actually treated anyone in a clinical setting. No one said I denied care. No one said I was cruel. No one said I harmed a single patient.

Just what I believed. Just who I was outside of work. Just me, being me, which was apparently enough to try to destroy everything I was building.

For months after this I told myself it was a stranger. Someone scrolling, someone angry, someone I would never cross paths with again. I held onto that because it was easier than the alternative. Because the alternative meant sitting with a kind of betrayal I was not ready to name.

I was wrong. But I will get to that.

What My Boss Did With It

She forwarded me the email.

She said she respected my personal beliefs. She said she understood that perception matters in healthcare, that patients need to feel safe, that a clinic’s reputation is built on trust and she took that seriously as an owner.

And then she told me what needed to happen.

Posts like mine needed to be removed or made private under my professional name. Any public content of this nature needed to exist under a name that was not associated with the clinic. Maintaining alignment in this area, she said clearly, was important for our continuing professional relationship.

She also wanted to make something very clear, unprompted, unsolicited, just in case I had any confusion, that theirs was not a faith-based clinic. They were an evidence-based medical practice. Science guided their care. Professional standards guided their care. Respect for every patient guided their care.

Not religion.

I want you to understand something.

I had never once brought my faith into a clinical setting. Not once. I documented meticulously. I followed protocols. I collaborated with other providers. I showed up for every patient with the same standard of care regardless of who they were or what they believed. I did my job and I did it well.

But the moment someone connected my name to a set of personal beliefs expressed on my own personal social media, suddenly my faith was a liability. Suddenly who I was outside of work was a problem that needed to be managed. Suddenly I needed to either erase myself or hide myself to keep my job.

The Setup I Did Not See Coming

My schedule had been getting quiet. Not because patients were not there. My schedule was normally full. That was just the reality of my caseload. But appointments started disappearing. Hours that should have been booked were not. And quietly, without any announcement or conversation, a new person was being brought on. A W2 employee. Already being set up. Already being integrated into the clinic’s structure.

While I was still showing up every day believing I had a future there.

By the time that complaint email arrived and was forwarded to me, I believe the decision had already been made. The replacement was already in place. My schedule was already being wound down. The complaint did not cause my firing.

It just gave them something to point to on the way out.

Then I Got Fired

I will not pretend I was without fault in any of this. I am too honest and I have always known it. I told her things about the clinic I probably should have kept to myself. I gave direct feedback. I shared real observations. I thought, genuinely thought, that was what you did with a mentor. You told them the truth because you trusted them and because you believed they wanted things to be better.

What I did not understand was that my honesty was being quietly catalogued. That every candid observation I shared in good faith was being filed away. That the trust I was extending so freely was not being extended back to me.

And then after I was let go, I found out she was going around asking people whether I had stolen patients. Whether I was poaching her caseload. Whether clients had followed me out the door because I had taken them.

I need to be very direct about this.

I did not steal patients. Not one. Not a single one. My conscience would not allow it. And honestly, Jesus would not allow it either. I do not have it in me to do something like that and sleep at night and stand in church on Sunday morning and mean anything I sing.

Here is what I believe actually happened. The caseload dropped after I left. And that needed an explanation. The explanation that was most convenient, the one that pointed away from the quality of care and toward me, was theft.

It was not theft.

It was just the work.

Good care has a way of following people. That is not something you can control or contain or accuse someone of stealing. That is just what happens when patients feel seen and supported and cared for well. They remember. They talk. They come back.

I worked hard for every single one of those relationships. Every one.

The Cease and Desist

After I was already fired, already gone, already picking up the pieces and figuring out what came next, another email arrived.

This one was from the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners. IBLCE. The governing body that oversees the IBCLC certification.

They informed me that I was using the term IBCLC inappropriately. On my website I had described myself as an IBCLC exam candidate. According to their trademark policy, the IBCLC mark is restricted to individuals who have already obtained and maintained the certification. Using it in any form, including calling yourself a candidate, is an unauthorized use of the mark.

They wanted me to remove it from every platform. My website. My social media. Everywhere. And they wanted me to send them screenshots documenting that I had done so.

I want you to stop and really think about that.

Who knows that calling yourself an IBCLC exam candidate violates a trademark?

Not a random person on the internet. Not someone who stumbled across my Threads posts and got upset about my views on biology and faith. Not a stranger with an axe to grind scrolling through social media at midnight.

Someone who lives inside this professional world. Someone who understands the credentialing process inside and out. Someone who knows exactly how IBLCE operates and what its trademark policies say and how to use them as a tool.

Someone who is already board certified.

Someone like an IBCLC.

I was already fired. Already gone. There was no clinic to protect anymore. No shared patients. No professional overlap. No reputation at stake. No reason, none, to keep coming after me.

Unless the goal was never about protecting a clinic.

Unless it was always about me.

When I Finally Understood

The complaint email was too detailed. Too specific. Too professionally fluent. It knew exactly how to pressure a clinic owner. It used exactly the right language about patient trust and inclusive care and clinical reputation. It was written by someone who understood this world from the inside.

The cease and desist came after I was already out the door. No shared space. No ongoing connection. No professional reason to keep going.

Before I left I asked if anyone could pull the original complaint. A name. A date. Any record at all.

Nothing. Nada. Zero.

I cannot prove it. I may never be able to prove it. And I am not here to accuse anyone publicly without proof because that is not who I am and that is not how I was raised and that is not what God asks of me.

But I know what I know.

The person I trusted most in that season, the one I shared my dreams with, my faith with, my honest and sometimes too candid observations with, my plans for my own future with, was most likely the one working quietly behind the scenes to make sure none of it happened.

She trained me. She supervised me. She signed off on my hours. She helped me cross the finish line.

And then she tried to make sure I never crossed another one.

If you are reading this, thank you for the hours. I will put them to good use.

What I Know About Justice

I want to be very clear about something.

I do not want revenge. I am not writing this to destroy anyone or expose anyone or start a war. That is not in my heart and it is not what this is.

I believe in God and I believe He sees everything. Every email. Every report. Every quiet conversation asking whether I stole patients. Every calculated move made in the dark. He saw all of it. He sees all of it still.

I also believe I was not the only person this happened to. I believe there are others, other employees, other clinicians, who were harmed or threatened or pushed out. I believe that kind of pattern has a way of catching up with itself. Not because I am going to make it happen. But because that is how God works.

He goes before me. He always has. He did it through this and He will keep doing it.

I handed this to God a long time ago and I meant it. I am not carrying it anymore. It is not mine to carry.

Justice will be served. Not by me. By Him. In His time. In His way.

God is good and I have watched Him be good in my own life through every single part of this story. That is enough for me. That will always be enough for me.

Where I Am Now

I finished my clinical hours. I completed my education. I built my own private practice, the one she was supposedly going to help me build.

I started over on social media from zero. New account. New handle. New following. Back to the beginning. And I kept going anyway because that is what you do when you know what you are building and why you are building it.

I am sitting for the IBCLE exam in September.

Life is good. I am genuinely, ridiculously, deeply blessed and I mean that with everything in me.

I hold two truths and I am not letting go of either one.

I am committed to honest, evidence-based, compassionate care for every single person who walks through my door.

And I believe sex is real, and that it matters in maternal health.

My conscience will not let me say otherwise.

And neither will Jesus.

I am old enough to know who I am. I am old enough to know who God is. And I am old enough to know who goes in front of me.

This experience did not make me louder. It made me clearer, about what I believe, about who I trust, about what I am building and exactly why I am building it.

Someone tried to end my career in less than ten minutes.

Instead, I built one.

It was the language of home. Of elders. Of things you do not over-explain because everyone just understands.

I was born in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. My parents had a business in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, so crossing borders was normal to me. Later we moved to Taiwan. Then Mexico. Then back to Brazil. Now I am in the United States raising daughters here.

I have never really belonged to just one place.

Portuguese, Taiwanese, Mandarin, Spanish, English. I grew up switching languages the way some people switch moods. And with that came a lot of identity confusion. Too Asian in Brazil. Too Brazilian in Taiwan. Too foreign in Mexico. Now in America I am still explaining myself.

Third culture kid. Transcultural kid. Third world kid. I have heard all the labels. Take your pick.

When you grow up like that, you learn quickly that words shift depending on where you stand. Something obvious in one place becomes controversial in another. Some meanings survive translation. Some get softened. Some get stretched until they barely resemble what they once meant.

Motherhood is one of those things.

It looks different everywhere. It is structured differently. Supported differently. Celebrated differently. But at its core, it is embodied. It is biological. It is relational. It is not theoretical.

One night, after asking her to repeat herself for the third time, my daughter looked at me very seriously and said:

I laughed. But it stayed with me.

Are we listening to words?

Are we paying attention to what they mean before we start reshaping them?

Right now even basic words feel unstable.

Woman.
Mother.
Truth.

I never wanted to dive into politics. Honestly. I just wanted to pursue my career in maternal child health, get my IBCLC license, support breastfeeding families, and mind my own business.

Then La Leche League shifted in ways I did not expect. Language started changing in maternal spaces. Definitions blurred in rooms that were supposed to center women and babies. And suddenly, staying quiet did not feel neutral anymore.

At one point I got a little too vocal online. I wrote plainly. I assumed clarity was harmless. I underestimated how fast screenshots travel and how uncomfortable simple biological statements can make certain people. Let’s just say I learned.

Nothing dramatic. Just clarifying.

I realized I needed a space where I could write full thoughts. Not captions. Not comment sections. Not reacting in fragments. Just thinking.

I am also a PK. A pastor’s kid. Faith is not something I picked up as an adult trend. I grew up in it. I am proud and deeply grateful to be a sixth-generation Christian. That legacy matters to me. It shaped how I understand order, truth, family, and responsibility.

Being a Christian in this modern era is not always easy. Believing in created order. In embodied difference. In truth that is received, not invented. That can feel like swimming upstream.

But I am raising daughters. Quiet compromise does not build strong girls.

Motherhood, for me, is my most important ministry.

Not the platform.
Not the credentials.
Not the career.

My babies.

The way I speak to them.
The way I explain the world to them.
The way I model conviction and joy and courage.

That is the work.

Some days that means teaching them why words matter. Some days that means protecting them from what I genuinely believe is confusion dressed up as progress. Some days that means laughing through the chaos because if I do not laugh, I might lose my mind.

I consider myself very funny. My husband thinks I have a broken sense of humor. Sorry, I am Latina. We cope with sarcasm and loud laughter.

Humor keeps me sane. Faith keeps me grounded. Motherhood keeps me brave.

This is not a protest page.

It is not a reaction account.

It is a place to think honestly about motherhood, culture, identity, faith, biology, and what it means to raise daughters in a world that feels like it is constantly redefining itself.

I did not plan to be here. I planned to quietly build a career in maternal child health and serve women and babies.

But here I am.

A multilingual, slightly displaced, pastor’s kid, birth worker mom trying to raise strong daughters in confusing times.

Motherhood is not branding to me.

It is ministry.
It is work.
It is sacrifice.
It is daily obedience that adds up over years.

And some things, no matter how much we try, simply do not translate.

If you are a mother navigating more than one world, culturally, morally, spiritually, you are welcome here.

This is Motherhood, Untranslated.