"When I was in kindergarten, my mother was already warning me to be vigilant. Decades later, America elected a president who famously bragged about grabbing women 'by the pussy.' That vulgar phrase — excused as locker-room talk and shrugged off by millions of Americans — was an exact description of what happened to my mother that day at the mall. She was sexually assaulted while boys laughed and strangers looked away. And even now, the misconduct and sexual violence of Harvey Weinstein, Sean 'Diddy' Combs, Jeffrey Epstein and too many other men prove that these stories are very much still worth warning us about.
I feel my mother’s absence every day, and it’s especially urgent this time of year. My grief is anger that my mother died, and anger that she suffered for years before she died. It’s anger that she had to teach me about violence before she got to teach me so many other things. Anger that women are still expected to absorb shame quietly and move on. Anger that in 2026, we are still arguing over whether women are believable.
This Mother’s Day, I’m tired of trying to squeeze myself into someone else’s tidy narrative about what love and grief are supposed to look like. Instead, I’m going to honor my mother’s full legacy — not just the parts that fit neatly into an Instagram caption. I’m going to hold the beauty of the day alongside my ire, and the tenderness alongside the truth: I feel anger for the world she had to prepare me for.
Rage is my inheritance, too."
~ Rebecca Feinglos
