Mother's Day 2025: The Interlocking Lines
- BLKBRY
- May 11
- 3 min read
Updated: May 23

She is her mother's daughter.
When we look at each other, we see ourselves reflected. I see my eyes, my hair, my smile in hers. I passed my features onto her in the same way I’ve passed my joy and hurt onto her, although I would never wish the latter upon her. The troubles I face in this world are ones that she has inherited, but they lay side by side with the unique joys of our heritage.
Our lives, our struggles, and our triumphs are a long line of hands reaching for one another—my daughter to me, me to my mother and grandmother, reaching back to the first mother. This braided connection binds generations of Black mothers and daughters together in an unbreakable thread: grief and joy, strength and softness, passed down like sacred heirlooms.
Trauma Lives in the Body
This connection isn’t just emotional, nor only spiritual—it’s biological. Epigenetics, the study of how experiences impact gene expression, shows us that trauma can literally change how our genes express themselves.
Science now confirms what many of us have long felt in our bones: trauma can be passed down through generations. The field of epigenetics has revealed that intense stress or trauma can leave chemical markers on DNA that influence how genes show themselves. This doesn’t mean that trauma changes the genetic code itself, but rather how genes “turn on” or “off.”
Studies have found evidence of this intergenerational transmission of trauma in populations who experienced mass violence and oppression. Our trauma as a people in this nation is centuries long and still ongoing. Is it a wonder that Black women have some of the health outcomes in the country? Systematic racism and ancestral trauma combine and make living as a Black American woman that much more challenging. In 2018, researchers at the University of British Columbia found that children of women who experienced trauma had altered stress hormone profiles—affecting how their bodies respond to fear and adversity. Imagine how our children are impacted by the centuries of racial trauma inflicted upon our people.
The Sacred Thread Between Mother and Daughter
Yet amid this reality, there is something sacred: the relationship between Black mothers and daughters. It is a lineage of resilience and resistance, an unbroken line of fierce love. It is both a mirror and a guidepost. We don’t solely hand down our trauma—we hand down joy, creativity, pride, style, brilliance, music, tradition, language, laughter, and love in the face of adversity.
Our traditions are protective. Studies show that strong family bonds and cultural identity are resilience factors against intergenerational trauma. Rituals, community, and storytelling offer anchors to those navigating a world that tries its hardest to unmoor us. Sharing family history, especially the stories of how our mothers and grandmothers endured and thrived, fosters identity strength and psychological well-being in children.
Can We Undo The Impact of Epigenetic Trauma?
If trauma can be passed down, can healing be passed down too? Emerging research suggests it can. Practices like therapy, mindfulness, somatic healing, and communal care help regulate the nervous system and shift the physiological patterns we inherit. These practices may not erase trauma's genetic imprint, but they help rewire our responses—lessening the burden on our children.
A 2022 study from Emory University showed that maternal nurturing behaviors—like attentiveness, emotional warmth, and presence—can buffer against the effects of trauma and stress in children. That means every time we show up for our children with love, gentleness, and patience, we are literally shaping their biology for the better.
This is our sacred work: to do our healing not just for ourselves, but so our daughters don’t have to heal from what we didn’t. We build new pathways with every moment of self-awareness, every boundary we honor, and every emotion we allow ourselves to feel and release.
Happy Mother’s Day to the Black daughters who are now mothers ourselves, doing the work to break cycles, to love louder, to rest deeper. We are history in action. We are not only inheritors of our ancestors’ pain—we are architects of healing, all for our children’s future.

Comentarios