In partnership with
I think some of what I call love…
is actually control dressed up nicely.
That’s uncomfortable to admit.
My son will be 23 soon.
I still make his dinner plate.
My daughter is 14.
I wake her up every morning. I make her tea. I make her breakfast.
I don’t resent it.
I don’t feel burdened.
I actually enjoy taking care of them.
That’s what makes this dangerous.
Overfunctioning rarely feels toxic.
It feels loving. Devoted. Attentive.
At 23, I was pregnant.
At 14, I was in boarding school, living with strangers, learning very quickly that no one was coming to soften anything for me.
So now?
I soften everything.
And here’s the question I couldn’t shake this week:
If I remove every ounce of friction from their lives…
what muscle are they building?
When I plate his food, I’m not harming him.
But I am reinforcing something.
When I wake her every single morning, I’m not ruining her.
But I am absorbing discomfort she could be learning to manage.
And if I go one layer deeper?
Part of me needs to be needed.
Part of me feels safest when I am indispensable.
Part of me still believes love is proven through usefulness.
That didn’t start in motherhood.
That started in survival.
When you grow up adapting, managing, carrying,
your nervous system wires itself around being the strong one.
So of course you overcorrect.
You give your kids the life you didn’t have.
But here’s the truth that stung:
Sometimes giving them the life you didn’t have
is about trying to repair your childhood through them.
And they were never meant to carry that.
They don’t need trauma.
But they do need:
Responsibility.
Effort.
Ownership.
Small failures.
Alarms they oversleep and regret.
And here’s the line that caught me off guard:
Sometimes I wonder if I’m preparing them for adulthood…
or preparing myself for emptiness.
Because if they grow fully capable…
If they don’t need me in the same way…
Who am I then?
That’s the part no one says out loud.
Overfunctioning isn’t always fear for them.
Sometimes it’s fear of becoming unnecessary.
So this week, I’m not making a dramatic parenting shift.
I’m experimenting.
He can plate his own dinner.
She sets two alarms.
And I sit with the discomfort in me.
Not because I want to withdraw love.
But because I don’t want my unresolved history shaping their independence.
If this makes you defensive, pause.
If it makes you sad, pause there too.
High-capacity women don’t overfunction because they’re controlling.
They overfunction because they learned early that love equals effort.
Unwiring that doesn’t happen through productivity.
It happens through tolerating the space you don’t rush to fill.
Next month we’re going deeper into regulation, because you can’t step back if your nervous system interprets it as danger.
But before we regulate…
We tell the truth.
— Moya
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