It is not only the mother, it is the fear she was raised with

By Dr. Abeer Alkady

One of the most painful scenes in many homes is watching a girl grow up feeling that she has to understand more, endure more, and stay quiet more, simply because she is a girl. In the very same house, her brother may be given more room, more excuses, and a softer kind of love.

This is not a rare story, and it is not emotional exaggeration. It is a truth many daughters know well, even if they never say it out loud. How many girls have been met with harsh words in the name of discipline, constant control in the name of protection, and painful comparisons in the name of doing what is best for them, while a brother is given more flexibility, forgiven more quickly, and understood before he even has to explain himself?

But the issue, as I see it, is not only that a mother is harsh with her daughter and soft with her son. It is deeper than that. Sometimes the mother herself was raised on fear. She was taught that a daughter is a source of constant worry, that protecting her means being strict, that goodness must be forced through pressure, and that one small mistake could ruin her future. A son, by contrast, is often seen by society as someone who can be excused, forgiven, and given another chance.

That is where the real tragedy begins. A mother may be harsh not because she does not love her daughter, but because she fears for her in a damaging way. She loves her, yes, but she loves her through old fear, fear she never healed from, fear she inherited and now passes down in the form of commands, criticism, restrictions, and words that leave marks for years.

What hurts even more is that the daughter does not grow up remembering only what was said to her. She remembers how it made her feel. Less safe. Less accepted. Less free than her brother. She learns that she must always prove she is good enough, respectable enough, mature enough, responsible enough, just to deserve an ordinary level of approval. That is a heavy burden for any girl, teenager, or young woman to carry.

Society is part of this problem too. In many ways, it still teaches mothers to be harder on daughters and softer on sons. It still tells them that a girl’s reputation is more fragile, her mistakes more dangerous, her movement more watched, her voice more controlled, and her choices more heavily judged. Then people wonder why so many girls grow up wounded on the inside, or why so many mothers do not know how to love their daughters with fairness and ease.

I am not writing this to put mothers on trial. I am writing this to say that it is time to pause. It is time to ask ourselves, with honesty, whether what we call parenting is really care, or whether it is simply the repetition of old fear. Are we raising girls to be strong, or are we raising them to be anxious? Are we loving our children fairly, or are we quietly reproducing injustice inside the home under the names of experience, protection, and tradition?

A daughter does not need a mother who frightens her all the time. She needs a mother who sees her, understands her, and respects her humanity. She needs warmth, not judgment. Guidance, not emotional damage. Fairness, not silent favoritism that cuts into her every day.

And this imbalance does not serve boys either. When we raise a son to believe the world will be gentler with him than with his sister, we are not raising a mature man. We are raising someone who gets used to unearned privilege without even noticing it, someone who grows up assuming he is entitled to what was denied to someone else.

Fairness inside the home is not a small parenting detail. It is the first lesson in dignity, the first lesson in confidence, and the first lesson in emotional health. A home where a daughter feels she is worth less than her brother, whether through open behavior or quiet signals, is a home that plants a wound that may stay open for years.

We do not need perfect mothers. We need mothers who are willing to look inward with courage and break the cycle instead of passing it on. We need a new awareness, one that says protecting a girl does not mean weakening her, and raising a boy does not mean excusing him from accountability. Fair love is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Sometimes it is not only the mother who is harsh. Sometimes it is the fear she was raised with speaking through her. But awareness can interrupt that voice, before a daughter is made to pay for a wound she did not create.