tomorrow, if you let me

Because here's what we know about Leida: she resents and rebels against her mother. And from Leida's perspective? Her mother is the Empire personified.

We, the viewers, know that Mon is opposed to the Empire. We know she's on the eve of launching an open rebellion. But Leida doesn't know that. Mon's path to power has been forged by working within the system, by making ripples but never so many waves as to get tossed out of office. Mon is a part of the Empire, and her commitment to working long hours in her Imperial office is part of what keeps her away from her family.

Leida doesn't rebel against her mom by signing up for Junior Imperial Academy; she rebels by embracing Chandrilan traditions. They're conservative traditions, regressive traditions, painfully gender normative traditions--but they're not Imperial traditions. They're a reminder of what Chandrila was like before the Empire (an Empire that famously favors galaxy-wide homogeneity and disdains local customs) came to power.

the sacrifices we make shape us

it’s the way mon, from the beginning, has chosen the rebellion over her family. it’s the way she sacrificed her daughter’s future for the future of the galaxy. it’s the way she would have done almost anything to protect leida, to stop her from being trapped in an unhappy marriage as a child just as she was, but not quite anything, because the rebellion has to come first. it’s the way that she’s both selfish and torturously selfless, and at every moment the guilt of it is tearing her apart. it’s the way that she watched as perrin literally gave leida away, to a marriage that she herself arranged, watched how close the knife came to leida’s throat, knowing that she may never again be able to protect leida at all.

Mon Mothma’s crash out (valid)