IT LOOKS LIKE Serena Williams is settling into motherhood nicely. She took to Instagram this week to begin an open letter to her own mother, to thank her for the example she set to Serena and her four siblings.

The letter was continued on Reddit:

I’ve been called man because I appeared outwardly strong. It has been said that I use drugs (No, I have always had far too much integrity to behave dishonestly in order to gain an advantage).

It has been said I don’t belong in women’s sports – that I belong in men’s – because I look stronger than many other women do. (No, I just work hard and I was born with this badass body and I’m proud of it).

Serena then addressed that her strength is nothing in comparison to her mothers.

She pointed out that her mother, Oracene Price, has been through so much and has had to listen to so much undue mockery and criticism of her daughters.

Mom, I’m not sure how you did not go off on every single reporter, person, announcer and quite frankly, hater, who was too ignorant to understand the power of a black woman.

I am proud we were able to show them what some women look like. We don’t all look the same. We are curvy, muscular, tall, small, just to name a few, and all the same: we are women and proud.

Applauding her the sheer class that her mother has and hoping to grow to be as strong as Oracene, Serena wrote:

Thank you for being the role model I needed to endure all the hardships that I now regard as challenges – ones that I enjoy. I hope to teach my baby Alexis Olympia the same and have the same fortitude you have had. Promise me, Mom, that you will continue to help.

If the sentiment of that baby’s onesie and the infants biceps are anything to go by, then Serena’s already off to a flying start.

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