Generational Ache: How Unhealed Pain Becomes Legacy

 

The water was calm, and so was I.

There’s something about being submerged just me, the steady sound of my breath, and the gentle sway of the water that allows my mind to slow down. Swimming has always been my sanctuary, a place where clarity seems to find me.

That day, clarity came in the form of a download I didn’t expect. It wasn’t something I thought applied to me, but I couldn’t shake it. The thought was simple, yet heavy:

Some women want to have a man’s child because of how he loves his children.

Not out of love for him, but because seeing him nurture his kids awakens something deep within them, the ache of a little girl who never felt cherished by her father.

When I sat with that thought, it unraveled something profound.
For some women, bearing his child isn’t just about starting a family. It’s about birthing the inner child she’s been carrying, hoping that in raising his baby, she’ll finally receive the love she’s always craved.

It’s not strange when you really think about it. It makes sense.
We’re not just choosing partners; we’re selecting pathways to healing, or at least trying to. But when that healing comes from a place of pain, it often creates more pain.

I thought back to my own life. I don’t have a relationship with my father, and I never looked for him in the father of my child. I never thought I carried that wound in that way. But I have dated men with children, and I remember how I’d pull back. If a man had a good relationship with his kids, I felt like I’d never be seen. If he didn’t, I withdrew too. Deep down, I didn’t believe I’d ever be prioritized because my own parents never did.

And then I remembered something I saw online. A man admitted that his ex treated their son with a softness she never showed him. That hit me hard. This isn’t just a woman’s struggle. Both men and women are often seeking the love they never received as children, hoping that parenting or being parented through their partner will fill the void.

But here’s the hard truth: having children won’t heal your childhood wounds.
When we don’t face our emptiness, we risk passing it on. We raise children who grow up carrying the same ache we never addressed, repeating patterns instead of breaking them.

We need to talk about this.
We need to face the pain we’ve been avoiding so that we don’t create more children who will one day swim in their own grief, wondering why love feels so far away.

Healing doesn’t happen when we put new lives into the world while carrying old wounds. Healing begins when we choose to parent ourselves first to nurture the little boy or girl inside us who never felt seen or safe.

Children deserve to be loved for who they are, not for who we needed.
And we deserve to heal without creating another generation of souls to carry what was never theirs.