To understand the emotional inheritance of Eastern European women, Romanian women in particular, you have to understand what the women in our lineage actually lived through. Not as a history lesson. As a body memory that is still running in many of us today.

I spent six years as a mother before I realised I'd never actually been myself. From the second they placed my newborn in my arms at the hospital, I felt like I'd been handed the lead role in a play where everyone knew their lines except me. I was drowning in other mothers' philosophies—no screens vs. educational apps, wooden toys vs. plastic, perfect lunches vs. simple sandwiches—borrowing whatever the mother next to me was doing, assuming she knew better.