“Why don’t we live together anymore?”

Co-parenting is brutal.

You walk a tightrope.

Between someone who resents you more than they love the children…

and children who see the cracks you cannot hide.

Their small faces.

Restless. Searching. Questioning.

“Why don’t we live together anymore?”

“Do they even love us?”

“Why are you always so tired?”

Sometimes I have no answers.

Sometimes I do.

The tears that follow—when your little one cannot make peace with the changed equations—

pierce something deep inside.

Some nights, I lie awake.

Wondering if I am doing enough.

If I am protecting them—or just passing along the chaos I inherited.

I want to hide behind busyness.

I want to pretend.

I want to stop feeling the weight of what this separation has done—to them, to me, to us.

And yet, there is a slow, terrifying awareness:

The only way forward is to stop pretending.

To face the questions they ask, even when I have no answer.

To let them see the raw, unpolished, messy me.

To let them carry the real version of who I am,

not a version filtered through fear and exhaustion.

In those moments… I pause.

I bow.

To my humanness.

To the limits I cannot escape.

To the fear, the fatigue, the uncertainty.

To the questions I cannot answer, the tears I cannot hold back, the guilt whispering I’m failing.

And still, I turn to Laddu Radha. To Hanuman Ji Maharaj. To my guru.

The answer is always the same:

Your children don’t need a perfect mother.

They need a happy, rested, relaxed one.

Not someone busy fixing everything.

Not someone trying to answer all questions flawlessly.

But someone who is present.

Someone who breathes.

Someone whose calm creates space for them to breathe too.

When I allow myself that—pause, rest, let go of trying to be everything—

the tension softens.

The storms still rage.

The questions still come.

But a space opens.

A space where my children can feel, ask, grow,

without carrying the weight of my exhaustion or silences.

This is not perfect.

This is not tidy.

This is messy.

Raw.

Human.

And somehow, it is enough.

Connection, not perfection.

Presence, not answers.

Breathing together, not hiding apart.

To every mother reading this—

Your children feel your absence before they understand your words.

They carry your silences.

Your compromises.

Your exhaustion.

When you pause.

When you show up—raw, messy, trembling, real—

you may just give them the safety you’ve been longing for yourself.

Being here.

Being human.

Being seen.

Even broken.

Even exhausted.

Even afraid.