I have never felt like a naturally "nurturing" person. I don't have many traditional domestic instincts, never gravitated toward caregiving, and was never the "mom" of my friend groups. I have a kitchen because my husband likes to cook, and it comes with the house. I don't fold laundry on time, and I've always had to consciously say the right thing to someone needing advice.
However, upon becoming a mother, I learned that nurturing does not necessarily mean baking fresh muffins every Sunday or always having coordinated outfits for family outings.

Specifically, this past summer, our family took our annual trip back to Lake Superior's shore, where my husband and I grew up. My then six-year-old daughter would live on the beach if she could. The photo attached is from one of our evening ventures to the lake. She was so full of joy- and even better- confidence. She danced on the sand like the only one on the beach. She jumped through the waves as if seeing them for the first time. She was completely elated that I was there and couldn't care less what we looked like in our bathing suits or whether we were making a scene in our frolicking.

As I stepped back for a moment and watched her, I remembered being six years old, on a beach playdate with my best friend, and noticing for the first time how much bigger my thighs were than hers. I distinctly recall quickly covering up in a towel while an unfamiliar self-consciousness crept over me. It was a seemingly small moment of my life that has never totally erased itself.Growing up in the late 80s and 90s, there was not much body-positive messaging. Society told us to buy low-fat dressing and go on cottage cheese and cantaloupe diets when we started growing out of our clothes.

Looking at my daughter that evening, I was immensely proud of her self-confidence due to nurturing her sense of self, individuality, and uniqueness. I never tell my daughter she can't wear something because it doesn't match or is not "right" for her body type. I never ask her to sing quieter in the car because she's off-key. As a mom, I have made a conscious effort to nurture her soul and help her always feel like she deserves love and happiness. I snapped a few photos of us, even though I could point out the flaws on my makeup-free skin, and felt pale and less than confident in my swimsuit myself. They are some of my favourite photos of us in her seven years. They capture the raw jubilation of that moment in time.

While my house may not look like the cover of Southern Style, and my grilled cheese sandwiches are sometimes burned, I am relieved when I see her dancing to herself, smiling, singing, and feeling it, not thinking of feeling inferior because of how she looks. I have chosen to nurture her beautiful soul, my proudest accomplishment as a mother and human.

On July 16, 2000, the nurse handed me my firstborn, Lucas, wrapped in a blue blanket. At first sight, I remember thinking, “He doesn’t really look like a Lucas,” I suppose my motherly instincts were trying to foretell that twenty-three years later, he would confide in us that he is transgender. He had been struggling in silence his whole life, but now she has never been happier. Her new name, Claire, is quite fitting. It means “clear”, and I’m so glad she is now clear about who she is meant to be.
For some time, she had been sneaking a few articles of women’s clothing into her room, which she had gotten from a friend.

I was upset, not because of the clothes, but because I didn’t want her to hide anymore.So, together, we went online to buy her first dress. She had been waiting her entire life for this day. When the package arrived, she ran to her room to change and walked back down the stairs like my daughter. She wore the most genuine smile I had ever seen. Something as simple as a new dress had given us a feeling of pure happiness. I couldn’t help but notice the symbolic nature of this moment. Change can be pretty daunting, but that day, she changed, and it was beautiful.