Let’s talk about Mother’s Day.

The Friday Edition | No. 59

Let’s talk about Mother’s Day. (Includes Guided Meditation)

Not the cards or the brunch. Not the performative filtered social media stories to maternal perfection. Let’s talk about the deep ache and ick that fills your chest every May when you’re reminded again that many would rather canonize the role of “mother” than examine it. That no one wants to talk about the wound a mother can inflict and leave behind when she’s cruel, neglectful, emotionally absent, jealous, or just flat-out damaging.

Let’s talk about the fact that women who speak about their mothers with anything less than praise are still seen as selfish, ungrateful, and that we are the problem. We are taught, over and over, that it’s better to smile and stuff the pain down than to name it. God forbid we disrupt the narrative that all mothers are saints. That they tried their best. That we should be grateful just to exist.

But you know what? Existing isn’t enough. Being born isn’t the same as being mothered.

Some of us were raised by women who used us, competed with us, or punished us for being emotional, needy, angry, or too alive. Some of us weren’t allowed to cry, to feel unwell, or ask for more. Some of us were told to be quiet, to smile, to behave, to earn love that never came. And then, when we struggle with intimacy, with self-worth, with boundaries, with CPTSD, and auto-immune disorders born of chronic stress and overwhelm, we’re told we are the problem.

Wait… what… F*** NO! The problem is that nobody wants to talk about what it does to a child to grow up emotionally abandoned and preyed on by the one person who was supposed to protect them. The problem is that we are still expected to protect the image of “Mother” even when it means abandoning ourselves all over again.

The loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter, is the essential female tragedy.

_Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution

And let’s be clear - this isn’t just about one woman failing to mother well. It’s systemic. The role of “mother” has been shaped, distorted, and confined by patriarchal expectations for centuries. Women are told they must give and give and give, that their bodies exist to produce, and their value lies in caretaking. Meanwhile, they’re stripped of real support, autonomy, and power. Many are pushed into motherhood before they’re ready, kept there by financial, emotional, or even religious control, and expected to sacrifice everything while smiling sweetly. Rage is not allowed. Needs are not allowed. And if a woman does break - if she projects that pain onto her child - the system protects her silence, and the abuse. It tells the child to be loyal. To be grateful. To never speak ill of the one who birthed them. This is how the epidemic grows: in silence, in shame, in the name of tradition. And too many people suffer because of it.

If someone does not want me, it is not the end of the world. But if I do not want me, the world is nothing but endings.

_Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

The truth is if you were unloved, neglected, controlled, scapegoated, exploited, or emotionally manipulated by your mother, that didn’t just shape your childhood. It shaped your wiring. It taught you to contort yourself for love, to apologize for existing, to distrust and negate your own instincts. That kind of wound doesn’t just “go away.” It burrows in deep and lives in the nervous system. It shows up in relationships. It shows up in the way you silence yourself, the way you second-guess your own worth, and the way you reach and recoil at the same time.

But let me say this to you clearly and candidly: you are not broken.

Before you continue reading...

If this is stirring something deep, I’ve created two offerings to support your healing: A digital journal for daughters of narcissistic mothers to heal the mother wound - filled with gentle prompts, space to write, and a letter to your inner child. And, a free guided meditation on healing the mother wound (or click on the video link below) - created to help you reconnect, grieve, and begin to mother yourself the way you always needed.

You can find both in my HeartBalm Healing Etsy store and on my YouTube channel.
They were made with great care and tenderness, because I’ve walked this road too.