the permission you were not given

the thing about mothering is that nobody authorized it.

not the state. not the medical system. not the community you grew up in that had very specific ideas about who gets to be soft and who has to be hard and which bodies are allowed to hold other bodies without it meaning something complicated.

susan mothers anyway.

this is not defiance in the loud sense. it is defiance in the structural sense — the kind that just keeps happening regardless of whether anyone is watching or approving or filing the correct paperwork.

you do not need permission to make a room. you just need to make it.