The winner of this round is yet to be undecided.

Thankfully, this particular battle has nothing to do with working mom guilt. No, this is the war between who I am when I act in accordance to my upbringing and who I am when I make a conscious effort to break free of my upbringing.

I’m talking in riddles. I apologize.

Does your parenting style now reflect the style of parenting you had as a child? I would guess that we would all say, “yes,” despite wanting it to be otherwise. How often did I tell myself, “I will not be my mother or father when I have a child”? I didn’t want to be demanding, exacting. I would hug my child and show an abundance of affection. I’d say, “I love you, and I’m proud of you” so often that my child would get sick of it. I’d show my child in infinite ways that she as treasured, not a burden. The mom I would choose to be would bear little likeness to the mom I’d be if I followed in my parent’s footsteps.

But I found myself looking in the mirror and realizing that I so often default to the “me that is the product of my environment.” Due to the culture in which my parents were raised as well as their natural tendencies, they were not affectionate and warm parents. I cannot pinpoint the exact age when my mother hugged me for the first time, but it was sometime in my early college years. My father spoke words of love and kindness only after he had experienced some severe trauma. And while my parents showed love in other ways, the reality is that I grew up with little physical affection and kind words and have always struggled to show love and care in those ways.

Enter my husband and six-year-old many years later, who both feel most loved through physical affection and verbal affirmation. Yikes! So often, I have to consciously work at hugging and speaking words of encouragement. When I’m tired of trying, I end up being cold and distant. How often have a hurt my family’s feelings by actively pushing them away when they want to hug me? Ask them. Lexi will try to crawl into my lap and throw her arms around me, and I will feel so physically uncomfortable that I will throw her off of me in a not-so-gentle manner. I’ll be glad to jump up and perform any task needed to show my love, but please don’t ask me to cuddle indefinitely! What kind of mother does that??

A selfish one. That’s the “me” I want to run from, but she keeps hounding me. And this selfish me shows up at work, too. I’ve always worked in fields where building strong relationships with people is the crux of what I do. Hugging people doesn’t always come naturally. I often try to show love and care at work by completing tasks well. Some days, it’s truly the best I can offer.

If some of you don’t believe me and are convinced that I am a hugger based on what you’ve experienced, then I am so glad to know that the “me” I want to be does make her appearance in equal proportion to the selfish me.

The beauty of life is that I get to start over again every day, every moment of every day. I am trying. And just a word of warning…I’m not feeling very partial to hugging right now. But I do care.