Feenstra was in shelters as a child and turned to prostitution as a teenager to care for her drug addict mother. The 40-year-old model now has a child of her own, four-year-old Brooklyn.
“There is a theory that says that your old pain from childhood resurfaces when your child reaches the age when you were most hurt,” writes Feenstra. “You feel it in the little things. It’s not your child or the situation that causes the pain. It’s the part of you that finally requires attention. The part of yourself that was once not seen, not heard or not loved.”
Feenstra says that children can teach their parents something. “To make you feel what really feeling is. To remind you of playing. Of healing. Of just being. Of love in its purest form.”
“Growth starts with awareness,” writes Feenstra. “When taking responsibility for what is yours. How beautiful is that? And yes, I had to carry my mother’s backpack. And her mother’s backpack. But my child does not have to carry that. Generational trauma stops with me.”
“He who refuses to heal repeats,” the model concludes. “And what you don’t heal, your child carries. I thought I should share this. Do something with it.”