Beyond the Backbone: A Mother’s Reflection on Legacy, Labor, and Liberation by Desirée Simone Elder

My daughters once had a conversation about me that I wasn’t meant to hear.
They were in their room, curled up together, trading notes about all the things they believed I was. One said I was a “Pastor-Writer” —a phrase they’ve created to name the thing I do when I’m preaching from the pulpit one moment and typing away at my laptop the next. The other chimed in and added “Delta,” with the kind of pride that can only come from overhearing too many sorority calls and watching me step into my sisterhood with joy. Then, one of them said something that stopped me cold.
“She’s a superhero.”
I paused outside their door, listening.
“She can do everything,” she explained. “If we ask her for something, we know she’ll figure it out.”
I smiled at first, because what mother doesn’t want to be her child’s hero? But later, I sat with that sentence-She can do everything-and it started to unravel me. I knew what she meant. She meant I’m dependable. Creative. Capable. That I show up. That I come through.
But I also heard something else. I heard the seed of an expectation-that love looks like doing, and that strength means always saying yes. I heard the echo of every unholy agreement I’ve made with overfunctioning and overextending. And I wondered: What does it do to a child to watch their mother wear a cape she never asked for? What does it do to a woman to keep wearing it?
Every May, we take a collective breath and pause to say thank you to the mothers. We flood brunch spots, send flowers, and post tributes that rightfully honor the women who made us, shaped us, and carried us-sometimes literally and always metaphorically. We call them the backbone of our families, our communities, our churches. And they are.
But what happens when the backbone is tired?
As a Black woman, a mother of twin daughters, and someone who lives in the tension between pride and exhaustion, I want to both honor and challenge the phrase “backbone of the community.” Because what we celebrate as strength, we rarely interrogate as burden. What we exalt as resilience, we often ignore as weariness. And what we name as legacy may also be a load.
We have always been the backbone.
This is not new. Our foremothers have held the line for generations. Black women in particular have been praised- and too often, expected—to do the work that others won’t. To hold broken systems together. To stretch thin resources into miracles. To raise children, keep faith, bury loved ones, and keep going.
In our families, we are often the ones holding history and hope in the same hand. We know how to navigate silence and shout. We can fry chicken, braid hair, balance checkbooks, quote
Scripture, file court papers, lead meetings, and teach Sunday School—all before noon. And yet, for all our brilliance and ingenuity, the cost is rarely calculated
We have always been the backbone.
But should we always be?
Somewhere along the way, being the backbone became not just our role but our identity. And that’s where it gets complicated. Because when the world keeps telling you that your highest calling is to hold everyone and everything up, you forget to ask yourself what you need. You forget to check your own spine.
Mothering, in particular, has a way of making you both the foundation and the roof. You carry, you cover, you cushion. And if you’re not careful, you disappear under the very thing you’re trying to hold up.
I know this intimately. I’ve worn the cape stitched together by ancestral duty, cultural expectation, and internal pressure. I’ve signed silent contracts— corrupted covenants—that said my worth is tied to how much I do, how well I hold it all together, and how quietly I do it.
But I’m beginning to tear those contracts up.
Because I want more for my daughters. I want them to know they are more than what they carry. I want them to know that saying no is holy.
That asking for help is powerful. That strength isn’t proven through exhaustion.
Maybe it’s time we reimagine ourselves.
What if we weren’t just the backbone, but also the breath?
What if we saw ourselves not just as the structure, but as the soul?
What if we allowed ourselves to bend, to break, to rebuild-without shame?
What if we honored our mothers not only for what they did, but for who they are? For their laughter. Their wisdom. Their dreams. For the parts of them that were too often eclipsed by responsibility.
What if this Mother’s Day, we offered each other something more than flowers and thanks?
What if we offered freedom?
Freedom to redefine.
Freedom to rest.
Freedom to mother on our own terms.
To the women who came before us-thank you. We stand on your shoulders with deep reverence.
To the women standing now-thank you. We see your labor, your love, your longing.
To the daughters watching us—may you inherit not just our strength, but our softness too.
To the woman I see in the mirror-may you not forget the crevices of your faith etched out by your creativity. The dreams braided into your DNA. May you remember that you were never meant to be the whole house. You are the spark that built it.
We are more than backbones.
We are breath, brilliance, and becoming.
And this Mother’s Day, I choose to believe that is enough.