(Caveat: This is quite specific to Asian culture, take with a grain of salt!)

I often wonder what the essence of maternal love really is.

Unconditional love doesn’t exist naturally. In the natural world, most animals eventually drive their offspring away, and we’re no exception—we’re part of nature, after all.

Our fantasies of the perfect mother are just like a mother’s obsession with her child making it big. I think this so-called attachment doesn’t come from genes or human nature, but from the values we’ve absorbed for years on end, the ones that keep society stable.

Sometimes giving birth is like a car crash. A vehicle called “carrying on the family line” barrels out of control toward a girl, while culture and family drag the young woman into it heedless of life or death. The devil never spells out the cost, and probably the girls never chose motherhood for themselves either.

For something as irrational as a drunk-driving accident, seeking compensation is only natural. But almost no one gives mothers enough of it. They just tell her it’s her duty as a human being. They conjure a so-called happy family tale out of a thousand tragedies, shove her onto the pedestal of the saintly mother, and leave her alone to shoulder all the responsibility with false hope.

A mother can only repeat to herself over and over that this tragic accident has meaning, and the meaning of her suffering is often misplaced onto her child. The child, as the newest and most vulnerable being, repeats the mother’s self or the family’s fate all over again, bound for life by these values.

In this narrative, everyone is a perpetrator, and everyone is a victim too.

Sometimes I wish human society had a bit more of its animal side—no glorified myths woven by language, so that kindness and malice could be as straightforward as a puppy’s wagging tail or a cheetah’s sharp teeth. That way, people could express love freely and relaxed, and when danger looms, choose to run for their own lives without hesitation.

Just as a mother won’t love every animal, I hope my own mother has the right to dislike her child while fulfilling or passing on her duty to raise them. I hope I have the right to accept her departure, to accept not repeating her sorrowful fate, to accept a survival and choices that are mine alone.

Our generation is already embracing a freer kind of family structure. Family should never be a place where perpetrators raise more perpetrators, or victims torment other victims. Just like choosing a partner, our generation should have the right to choose our family members.

Maybe what truly provides the warmth of family isn’t tied to blood at all. Family can be a soulmate you’ve never met halfway across the world. Family can be the goofy group chat friends who greet each other daily and swap pebble memes. Family can even be the neighbor’s golden retriever who wags its tail begging for pets every time you meet. Family shouldn’t feel like a car crash.

Man, if you’re thriving happily in a traditional family, I genuinely wish you the best. I’ve been trying to make peace with myself, and now I can type these words without a flicker of emotion—maybe it’ll reach someone far away, helping them feel a little less wronged in the night, a little more affirmed and at ease with themselves.

But is it a good thing to have no anger or sadness? Is it a good thing to overthink everything, convincing yourself you’ve got it all figured out?

This neko has no idea, tbh—so take it with a grain of cyan～