Every year around Mother’s Day, this image makes its way back to me.
Six different versions of the same woman.
Six different people deciding who she must be.
Friends soften her. Society stereotypes her. Politicians turn her into a talking point. Activists turn her into a symbol. Somewhere in the middle of all of it stands an actual human being trying to live her life and love her children.
What strikes me now is that this is not just the experience of sex worker mothers. In many ways, it is the experience of motherhood itself. People are deeply attached to the idea of what a mother should be. Some believe a good mother sacrifices everything. Some believe a good mother stays home. Others admire career ambition until it looks “too ambitious.” Women are praised for being nurturing, but judged if they are sexual. Celebrated for being independent, but criticized if they are unavailable.
Mothers are constantly sorted into categories that make other people feel comfortable. Working mother. Stay-at-home mother. Single mother. Career mother. Young mother. Older mother. “Good” mother. “Selfish” mother.
Sex workers simply experience those projections at full volume.
People hear the words “sex worker” and often stop seeing the person entirely. Instead, they fill in the blanks with whatever narrative they already carry. Some picture exploitation. Some picture empowerment. Some picture danger, glamour, instability, rebellion, trauma, confidence, survival, greed, freedom, or shame. Rarely do they picture the ordinary moments that actually make up most of our lives. The grocery store. Homework help. School pickup lines. Worrying about whether your child is happy. Sitting awake at night doing mental math about schedules, bills, opportunities, and the future. Wondering if you are getting any of it right.
Motherhood humbles all of us in very similar ways.
No matter what a woman does for work, most mothers are quietly carrying the same emotional weight. We want our children to feel safe. We want them to feel loved. We want to give them opportunities we maybe did not have ourselves. We worry constantly. We second-guess ourselves. We try to build stable lives out of imperfect circumstances. We hope the people we love feel supported even when we are exhausted.
That thread exists across almost every kind of mother I have ever met. The attorney answering emails from the sidelines of a soccer game. The nurse working overnight shifts. The waitress missing bedtime three nights a week. The executive traveling for work. The woman cleaning houses. The teacher buying classroom supplies with her own money. The sex worker screening clients after packing school lunches.
Different jobs. Same love.
And maybe that is the part that gets lost when people debate women like me from a distance. Motherhood is not measured by whether strangers approve of your profession. It is measured in the small, repetitive acts of care that slowly shape a child’s life over time. The truth is, my children do not experience me as a political argument, a stereotype, or a cultural controversy. They experience me as their mother.
The woman who shows up.
The woman who worries.
The woman who loves them fiercely.
The woman trying her best, just like so many others.
And maybe that matters more than anything else. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, especially the ones carrying identities the world does not always understand.
❤️ Charlotte