I wrote this some time ago for, I guess you could say, “Mother’s Day for the Rest of Us.” I hope it brings you solace if you are currently feeling the quiet ache of unhealed childhood wounds during this season. I hope it brings you solace.
Next week, I’ll be telling you about my brand new “old lady” tattoo, but since Sunday is Mother’s Day I wanted to share this with you. Let me know if you can relate.
For The Rest of Us on Mother’s Day
I get this knot in my stomach and wave of distraught when Mother’s Day rolls around each year. How do I celebrate in the face of having had lousy parenting?
Odes to moms who inspired, supported, expanded, guided and embraced, in unconditional love, ooze from, well, everywhere… from friends talking about their Mother’s Day plans with the old girl to special events that ceremoniously drape the day. Then there’s the incessant Internet patter – with Facebook, Twitter (X), and the rest of the cyber posse shouting out the love for mom.
I used to be resentful and even angry, with a big dollop of jealousy for those who got the good parents. It was like they landed in the lucky sperm club, and, in this instance, wealth didn’t have anything to do with it.
I used to tell myself I would have settled for a parent who was able to throw even a bone of emotional bonding my way. Of course, silly me, bonding is a childhood process — through the bedtime snuggles, help with homework, cooking lessons, and later, celebrating the first kiss, comforting the first break up and crying together over all the other joys and struggles. It wasn’t to be for me.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but unhealed childhood wounds have a way of echoing through our lives. These childhood wounds can quietly shape our sense of worth, influence how we connect with others, affect the love we believe we deserve, and keep repeating familiar patterns until we finally bring them into the light with compassion, understanding, and awareness.
When Unhealed Childhood Wounds Get Handed Down
Ah, I used to think, the person I could’ve been had it been different. But the years on the couch, the stream of workshops and retreats, the cathartic, crying jags with girlfriends have moved my resentment-cum-regret-cum-brokenheartedness into a place of understanding and compassion for a woman who, I realize now, gave all that she could give. For me, the healing came slowly, and in layers.
So it’s not about forgiveness. What would I forgive? She gifted me the pieces of parenting she salvaged from her own broken childhood… a handed-down generational all-but-empty bag of parenting skills. Looking back, I can see how unhealed childhood wounds are often passed quietly from one generation to the next. Not because our parents don’t love us, but because they can only give what they themselves were given.
I have no idea about her childhood. The secrets she kept of her upbringing are evident enough that they were dark and debilitating and needed to stay in a locked vault. And, who knows, perhaps she did better for me than the parenting she received. Even without knowing the details, I could feel the trauma she carried throughout her life. Understanding that became the beginning of emotional liberation, allowing compassion to exist alongside my own grief.
My Continuing Mother’s Day Recovery
These days, in my continuing Mother’s Day recovery, I stretch for ways to give gratitude to her. I was fed, clothed and had a warm bed. I couldn’t say it was a completely safe existence, but there was a continuity that I somehow would be taken care of. Although there were a number of steps missing in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs*, I believe she loved me to the full extent of her capabilities. What we now know about effects of childhood trauma makes that easier for me to understand.
Today I’ll think of her and recall how I used to call her and wish her happy Mother’s Day. I would share talk of the weather, how she was feeling, and what she’d been up to. She never asked me. And after a few clumsy minutes we’d say goodbye.
That memory evokes an inevitable tinge of sadness that engulfs me like a sudden thundershower. I will breathe it in, shake it off and congratulate myself that after all these many years, I have become the person that I’ve always wanted to be. And thinking of my mother and honoring her role in my life is proof enough of that.
If Home Wasn’t a Safe Place
Some of you reading this didn’t just grow up with a parent who couldn’t bond. You grew up with one who wasn’t safe. And for some of you, that didn’t end in childhood. It followed you into a relationship, or it’s still sitting at your own kitchen table.
If that’s you, I want to hand you something practical.
Control looks digital now. Passwords that aren’t yours anymore. Location sharing you never agreed to. A phone that seems to know more than it should. That kind of fear isn’t paranoia, and you’re the authority on what you’re sensing.
ExpressVPN published a tech safety guide for survivors of domestic violence that walks through securing your devices, your accounts, your messages, and your money. It’s plain, step by step, and free to read.
Open it on a device the other person can’t reach, if you can. A library computer, a friend’s laptop, a phone they’ve never touched.
And if you’re in the United States and need someone right now, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).
Healing the wound is the long work. Getting safe comes first.
With Love,
Becca
*Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological model that prioritizes human needs from the most fundamental (like food and safety) to higher-level needs (like esteem and self-actualization), suggesting people must satisfy lower-level needs before pursuing higher-level ones.
