I took a picture of my youngest pestering her sister for attention by making kissy faces. This went on for some time – about 10 minutes. It made me laugh, because I saw myself reflected in that silly, persistent, joyful declaration of love and the desire to be loved back. She felt no shame in it. She just loves.

Her dad made an observation that was as pithy as it was mind-blowing: “She’s you, without the baggage. She’s who you could have been.”

Children are a frightening and awe-inspiring responsibility. Every newborn I’ve brought home has terrified me. They are wholly dependent on you, the adult in the room. At 46, I still don’t feel like an adult, and I know what it’s like to lose a child. The possibility of loss has become an impediment to every relationship I’ve formed since that day, and it is debilitating. I feel it with every child I’ve been fortunate enough to watch reach adulthood since.

Compounding this is the baggage I’ve carried since I was about 4 yrs old. It’s heavy and I hate it. I’d love to set it down.

Who would I have been, had my parents realized the gravity of their responsibility? Parents who’d accepted that pedophiles do not change? That there are things more important than familial harmony? My parents were wonderful in many ways, but my mother is a victim and my father’s weakness is loving my mother. His weakness cost me.

Who would I have been?

My inner child is a ghost. When she’s afraid, she masks it with anger. She becomes a poltergeist. I rip apart the people who love me, because I don’t believe that anyone can love me; I’m not worth protecting. My adolescence was all anger and self-destruction. If our view of the world is solidified at around the age of 4, I’m fucked. There’s no way anyone can love me enough for me to believe them. Ask the men in my life.

My daughter isn’t me, but she has similar traits, and is blessedly free of the same baggage. It’s my responsibility to be the person my inner child needed – not that it will heal my hurt, but that it will prevent her from becoming this banshee. Parenting our children as if they’re our inner child is necessary to stop the cycle. Setting aside what hobbles us, so that they have the chance to become more.

A friend of mine noted that she has the same “laugh face” I do. She is joy. She’s radiant. I’m in awe of her. I want to love like she does – fearlessly, fiercely, completely. Instead, every time I get close, I panic and self-destruct.

But there’s hope for her.

Becoming an adult is realizing that nothing will ever change what has been done to us by those who knew better. It’s our responsibility to avoid giving the same scars to our kids. (Don’t worry — I’ve made brand new mistakes, and given them shiny new scars. Life’s fun like that.)

In addition to parenting our children, we have to learn to see who we were when we were younger with compassion. Parent yourself. In that little ghost of Aprils past, I see uncertainty and self-doubt, the secret belief that I am too much to deal with and not worth enough to put forth effort. I also see love and compassion and kindness. What she had to go through, later compounded by the loss of her child, made her beautiful. The compulsion to give others what she does not believe she deserves is fucking astonishing.

I could have justified being a monster. And yet I chose to become something else. I have no hope for me, but I have hope for you. I will give until I have nothing left to give someone else what they’ve always needed.

I am who I needed when I was younger, precisely because who I needed was not there. That banshee under my skin is the fucking Valkyrie you need. Her lack of regard for herself has crystallized into a sort of selfless strength that I longed for. Many people allow life to kill them long before they die. I’ve had close calls, but that was never really an option.