I remember being five years old, watching the adults around me – my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents – moving through their joy, their rage, and their shame. I wondered: Where does it begin?
My maternal grandmother was a firstborn daughter. My mother is a firstborn daughter. I’m a firstborn daughter.
Was I doomed to the same fate?
Would my children be?
How far back does this pattern go?
That question never left me. It’s what led me to become a trauma therapist, and it’s what I see playing out in my practice every single day: parents desperate to break cycles they didn’t even know they inherited.
The Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
According to the CDC, the number one perinatal complication isn’t gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, or even preterm labor. It’s mental health disorders. Anxiety, depression, and postpartum distress affect more new parents than any physical health issue.
Yet when you’re pregnant, you’re handed checklists of what to buy – strollers, swings, cribs, diaper genies -, but no one hands you a guide on how to regulate your own emotions, navigate exhaustion without shame, or build a support system before you desperately need one.
We spend thousands of dollars on gear. We lather our bodies with coconut oil and vitamin E to prevent stretch marks. We read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” cover to cover. We want to do everything possible to give our babies the best start.
But here’s what the research actually shows: The biggest predictor of your child’s well-being isn’t how much stuff you buy or which parenting method you follow. It’s you – your mental and emotional health.
What We Get Wrong About Mental Health
We’ve been told that mental illness is a biological destiny. That it’s in our genes, that it’s chemical, that it’s permanent. And while epigenetics is real and fascinating, here’s something most people don’t know: There is no biological marker for any mental health diagnosis listed in the DSM. No blood test. No tumor. No brain scan that can diagnose depression, anxiety, ADHD, or trauma.
There are only patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings – and a system that labels those patterns so we can feel less alone or bill insurance.
What we do know, backed by decades of research, is that the environment a child grows up in is the most powerful predictor of their mental and emotional health. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) increase the risk of everything from anxiety and depression to diabetes and early death. Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) build resilience, health, and the ability to thrive.
Which means we’re not powerless. In fact, we’re more powerful than we were ever told.
The Work That Actually Matters
That vibrating chair won’t determine how successful, joyful, calm, or kind your child becomes. It won’t protect them from feeling alone or bullied. It won’t decrease their chances of struggling with addiction or mental health challenges.
Stuff and schedules are not solutions to your baby’s well-being.
As a trauma and grief therapist, I’ve learned that thoughts revolve in our minds because we have a problem and we’re trying to find a solution. These thoughts spin and spin until we get them out of our heads, where they can finally evolve into actionable solutions. This is a huge component of what makes therapy so effective.
When thoughts are expressed to a compassionate, non-judgmental person, it’s like moving your phone screen from the tip of your nose to arm’s length. When it’s too close, your vision is myopic. As it moves away, you gain clarity. You can actually see.
This is called metacognition – thinking about your thoughts. And it’s the foundation of breaking generational patterns.
Starting With You
I often get asked: Do we start with the child or the parent?
The answer is always the same: We start with you.
Wherever you are on your journey – trying to figure out if you want to be a parent, pregnant and planning, raising a toddler, or reparenting yourself – the most important work you can do for your children is the work you do on yourself.
Not perfect parenting. Not buying the right stuff, not following the latest method.
Just showing up as a regulated, aware, healing human who’s willing to do it differently than it was done to you.
Because that’s how we break the cycle, and that’s how we answer the question I asked as a five-year-old: How do we stop the pain from continuing?
We start with us.
About the Author: Liza Samuel, LCSW, is the Executive Clinical Director of Azadi Therapy, a boutique trauma and grief therapy practice in Miami Beach. She specializes in helping clients break generational patterns using EMDR, IFS, and somatic approaches. This piece is adapted from her forthcoming book on cycle-breaking and conscious parenting. Learn more at myazadi.com