The Eldest Daughter Lie: Why You Can’t Save Your Family {Part 6 of 8 Series: Eldest Daughter Turned Cycle Breaker} | Episode 32

In this raw and deeply personal episode, Ashley Crabb dismantles the belief that returning home—or becoming a mother—will magically heal generational wounds.

After moving back to Pennsylvania while pregnant, Ashley believed she would be the one to bring her family back together. That her growth, her presence, and her children would be the catalyst for change. But instead of transformation, she found herself facing the same patterns, the same pain, and the same roles she thought she had outgrown.

This episode is a powerful reckoning with the “eldest daughter” identity, the martyr complex many mothers unconsciously carry, and the invisible labor of holding generational trauma.

Ashley shares the moment everything shifted—the line she drew in the sand, the boundary that changed her life, and the realization that healing doesn’t come from saving others—it comes from no longer abandoning yourself.

This is a must-listen for mothers who feel the weight of “holding it all together” and are ready to finally put it down.

Key Topics:

•  The illusion that moving home or becoming a mother will fix family dynamics 
•  The “eldest daughter” role and how it shows up in motherhood 
•  Martyrdom, victimhood, and the identity of being “the one who fixes everything” 
•  Invisible labor and generational emotional weight carried by mothers 
•  Assigning unconscious responsibility to children to “heal” a family 
•  The breaking point: realizing nothing changes if you stay in the same role 
•  Boundaries with family, addiction, and choosing self-respect 
•  The difference between saving your family vs. building your own 
•  Letting go of control and releasing what isn’t yours to carry 
•  Rewriting your identity as a mother and woman 

If this episode resonated, share it with a mother who feels like she’s carrying it all.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I really thought moving back home to Pennsylvania was going to fix everything. I thought coming back to everything I ran away from was going to fix everything. I thought I was coming back a different woman, a changed woman, and definitely a barefoot and pregnant woman, but a stronger woman, a clearer woman. I thought I was going to be the one who brought everything back together. Welcome to Wealth and Mothers, the show where we rewrite the rules of success for women who are building businesses, creating wealth, and raising families all at the same damn time. I'm Ashley Crab, and this isn't a show about balance, productivity, or doing more. This is a space for mothers who know they're caring more than anyone acknowledges, and who are ready to turn that into power, leadership, and wealth. Here we talk about what it actually looks like to create a movement inside the reality of motherhood. The invisible labor, the identity shifts, the ambition, the pressure, and the truth that none of it disqualifies you from wealth. It qualifies you for it. Because mothers don't need to shrink to succeed, they need to be seen. Let's get into today's episode. When we left Washington to come home to Pennsylvania, to come back to Pennsylvania because it wasn't my husband's home. I really didn't. I felt like, I mean, I felt like I was coming home, but I felt like I was stepping into something. Like everything that I had been doing out west had led me back here, had led me here, back home, back to my family. But this time I wasn't the same girl. I had done the work. I had seen things differently. I had done different things. I started to change my life. So in my mind, this was it, right? This was this was the meat and potatoes, my German ancestry coming out. But this was where the bread and butter, I can't stop. Okay, for real. This is where everything came together. I thought, I'm gonna come back. Me and my big old belly and my boys are gonna come back to this family. And everything is gonna shift. Everything's gonna soften. Everything is going to automatically heal. When we come back, everything will come back together the way it was supposed to be. The way that that bubble, if you remember that little bubble I lived in when I was a feral girl, that's the way everything was supposed to be. Like by coming back home after being gone for seven years, by coming back home with this new life inside of me still, I was bringing back what had been missing. I was bringing back the missing puzzle piece. Like, yes, I was the one who could do it. And I honestly, I, I held on to that. I held on to that. And I and like when I say it out loud here, I'm like, oh, your ego was riding high. But I held on to that hard. I rode that ride hard because it felt good. It felt purposeful. Like, even though the decision we made to move back home felt purposeful in and of itself, one of the reasons was this purpose, right? I had this meaning built inside of my master plan that my husband graciously agreed to, that we were gonna fix everything. And so it felt like, oh wow, this was why, this was why I had to go through everything. This, this is the reason why. And I I realized now that when I came home, and and I say I, even though it was my husband and and the boys were still inside my belly, I'll have to, I'll have to show some pictures of that. But I say I because like this was the narrative in my head. This wasn't Scott's narrative. This wasn't anyone else's narrative. It was that martyr role again. It was that victim role again. Like, oh, I've been through it all and like now I'm gonna save everyone. I'm gonna sacrifice everything and I'm gonna save everyone. But I don't sit here and hold regret for that narrative. I don't sit here and punish myself for that being part of the reason we moved because I know now, I can say confidently now that even the mindset I had during that move, even that martyr mindset that I had inside of me, was for a reason. But then after we moved back and we're living with my mom and we're finding our own apartment, and you know, the boys are getting ready to come Earthside, nothing, nothing had changed. I wanted like this instantaneous change. Like Ashley's here, change, the boys are here, change, instant gratification. But it wasn't it wasn't that way, and it wasn't happening that way. My mom was still drinking, you know. My family patterns were still the same. My patterns were still the same. And I remember looking around, thinking, how the fuck is this still the same? How the fuck is this narrative still the same? How did I come all the way back here? How did I move? But nothing else moved. No one else moved. What I didn't see at first, what I didn't recognize at first was that I hadn't left any role. I had dressed up that eldest daughter role differently. So yeah, I wasn't the reckless version anymore. I wasn't the dangerous, chaotic version anymore. But I was still chaotic. I was still living in the chaos. I was still carrying everything, the narrative, the generational cycles, the trauma. I was still the one who was deciding I had to hold it all together by myself. I was still the one deciding that I had to be the only one to fix what I felt was broken. I was still deciding that I was the one believing if I just loved hard enough, if I just showed up enough, if I just did enough, if I just brought these boys around enough, ew, that even sounds grosser to say out loud. But I'm forgiving myself, everybody. I'm forgiving myself because that's the truth. When you come, when you, when you when you say the things out loud and your brain just keeps going and the truth just keeps coming out, that's the truth. I put an I put that narrative on my boys before we even moved, before they even came into this world. I gave them the responsibility of being the ones who saved everything. That is that is a crazy realization that you're all witnessing in real time because I I didn't start truly breaking the eldest daughter cycle when we moved back here, when I decided to move my family back here. I was deciding that I would be the one to love hard enough and change everything, but I was also deciding for my boys that they would take on the responsibility of being the ones who changed everything. So, people, I've I've blown my own mind in this moment. Um, and you're gonna deal with this side tangent, but again, we're owning our shit. We're saying, you know what? I don't, I don't regret the decisions I made. I see where the decisions put us in the time. I own it. I started making moves then, and now I really see where I'm gonna make the fucking moves now. So going back to these bullet points I have for this episode, when you lay your motherhood on top of me realizing as a daughter, as the eldest daughter, that nothing was changing, what no one prepares you for is that nothing's changing because you're still in the fucking script. You're still in the script. So when you're sitting there wondering why, why is this generational narrative still fucking going? It's because you're still living in the script and you don't even realize it. And that's okay. But if you want it to change, buckle up buttercup because it needs to change. Because everyone talks about how beautiful it is, how beautiful this journey of motherhood is. And what they don't say is how freaking heavy it is. And we do to some extent, we we, you know, it's like the iceberg that the Titanic hit. We we hit the tip of the iceberg on how hard motherhood is. But we talk about the surface level hard. We talk about the visible labors that we carry. We don't talk about the invisible labors that we're carrying. And those invisible labors are the labors of our generations. So when we feel like we are carrying everything on our back, it's because we are. We are. We're carrying everything on our back, and we either don't acknowledge it, we acknowledge it and like give ourselves grace, but it's really just excuses, or we acknowledge the surface of it, and it takes a while for us to hit the rest of this freaking iceberg. I love my boys. There, I'm a great goddamn mom. There's no part of me that questions that. There is no part of me that questions how deeply and profoundly I love those boys. But sitting here and saying, wow, shit, Ash, not only were you still acting as a martyr, not only were you still giving everything, holding everything, trying to fix everything and victimizing yourself, but you were still carrying that narrative. And now I can say that living like that, that's why I didn't feel powerful in motherhood. That's why I felt depleted. That's why I felt resentful. It's when you realize, like, you're drowning. I was drowning. I was still drowning in the same shit that I thought I had ripped that tether from. I stayed there longer than what I would enjoy to admit, but I am. I was telling myself, this, this is just, this is just what it is. This is just motherhood. This is just family, but it wasn't, it wasn't any of that. It wasn't any of the external stuff. It wasn't this is what motherhood is. It was me. It was me still playing the same role. It was me still writing and living that same narrative. And what I can only say now, during this episode, is that my subconscious knee that I was doing that. My subconscious knew that I was trying harder, that I was trying to give more, that I was trying to keep showing up so finally something would click for someone else. But it was never going to click. I was never going to make it click for anyone else. I was never going to be able to give enough or try hard enough for someone else to decide that they wanted it to click. And so right around my boy's first birthday is when I really started to understand that everyone's reaction, everyone's response, everyone's perception and interpretation and decisions are their own. That's when I realized I cannot fix this for anybody else. I can only fix this for me, but I can't fix this for anybody else. It was right around the time my boys were about to turn one, and we've hit a lot of rock bottoms. My little trio of ladies, my mom, my sister, and I. And I can say that right around the time the boys turned one, this was the rockiest of rock bottoms we had all hit. And it's not a story I'm ready to share yet. It's also not exactly my story to share. But I, in the moments where I was trying to figure out from Pennsylvania, my mom and my sister were in Boston. I was, I was still trying to figure out how to save it all. I realized, wow, you moved 3,000 miles away to Washington State and you still tried to fix everything. You moved back to PA and you still tried to fix everything. And now you're still trying to fix everything in another suite again. Like this is where the line in the sand gets drawn. This is where I drew that line in the sand. I said, this is no longer mine to carry. And it wasn't from anger. I mean, I was mad in in that in those moments, right? But it wasn't from anger. It wasn't from punishment. It was from truth. It was from my truth. If this doesn't change, if I don't decide right here, right now, that this is how it's going to change, then it never will. So in in that moment, right before my boys turned one, I looked my mom in the eye. And for the first time in my life, because I've never said this to her, I said, you either choose the booze or you choose us. You either choose to be completely sober, or you don't get access to this life anymore. You don't get access to our life anymore. I want you to be in it. I want you to be a part of it, but this is the standard. This is the boundary. This is the line and the sand that I draw. And it was one of the hardest things that I have ever done. It's like my heart broke into a thousand pieces. Because when we give someone a choice, us or this thing, when we force someone to decide, our biggest fear is that they're not going to decide on us. Our biggest fear is that out of the two choices they're given, their decision isn't going to be us. And so that's what I was really afraid of, right? That's why I never had said that to her before. Because what if she didn't choose me? And I know that I'm sitting here and I'm saying my family are life, blah, blah, blah. But I meant me. I meant me. I really did. Because I'm the root of this family. I'm the foundation of this family. Without me, there is no them. Me, me. And you know what? I wanted the best version of all of us. And so even though that was the hardest thing I've ever done, it's the best thing I've ever done. Because I finally started letting go of the woman who would have done anything, anything to keep the peace. Anything to keep everybody close, to anything to be the one who doesn't have to take ownership of breaking it. But I already knew. Like it was gonna break. It was gonna break in one way, shape, or form. And me trying to make sure it didn't break at all was sure as shit not fixing anything. And what it really wasn't doing was serving my family. It wasn't serving me, it wasn't serving my family. I was staying stuck, I was keeping my family stuck because I'm the foundation of the family. Like I said earlier, I didn't come home to save my family. My boys did not come home to save my family. That is not our role. I get to I get to rewrite the plot. Plot twist. I came home to stop abandoning myself. I came home to build the solid foundation of my family, of my four-person unit. Coming back home to save my family and coming back home to build the foundation of my family, to stop abandoning myself in the process. Those are two very, very different things. And I see now that because in that moment, I decided, not even that I was going to be the one who carried everything, but I decided in that moment that I was the one who was going to break it. I was fine with taking on that responsibility and not in a martyr way, not in a victim way, not in an egotistical way, in a way that says everything shifts now. Not because I'm fixing anything, not because I'm fixing anyone, but because I finally got the fuck out of my own way. I got the fuck out of everyone's way. And for the first time in that moment, because you know, we broke the matrix. We get to time travel now. We time collapsed. Are you having fun on this journey, everybody? Um, in that moment, I can look back and say, wow, for the first time, I really wasn't the martyr. I really wasn't the victim. But I can also sit here and say, wow, I wasn't the martyr. I wasn't the victim. And I forgive myself for doing that. I forgive myself for trying to pass on that role. I decided in that moment, whether my conscious self knew it entirely or not, but I decided in that moment that this woman sitting in front of you today was going to be the woman I became. And I started living her right then, right there. And I'm never going back. I'm never going back to holding what wasn't mine. I'm never going back to trying to martyr myself and victimize myself. I'm gonna forgive myself for the moments where I still do before I truly catch what I'm doing. If this episode resonated with you, share it with another mother who is on a mission, who is building something real. This is how we change the conversation by making sure women like us are seen, heard, and paid. And if you're ready to step into your next level of visibility, leadership, and wealth, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss what's coming next. You can also connect with me on Instagram, TikTok, my newsletter, where I share daily thoughts and conversations around motherhood, identity, and wealth. I'll leave you with this. You are not behind, you are not too much, and you do not need to choose between your family and your success. You are the woman who gets to have it both. I'll see you in the next episode.