Daughters of Unloving Mothers: Mourning the Mom You Deserved:

The road that is recovery from a childhood without a mother’s love, support, and attunement is long and complicated. One aspect of healing that is rarely touched upon is mourning the mother you needed, sought, and — yes — deserved. The word deserved is key to understanding why this remains elusive for many women (and men): They simply don’t see themselves as deserving, because they’ve internalized what their mothers said and did as self-criticism and have wrongly concluded that they’re lacking, worthless, or simply unlovable.

As an unloved daughter myself, fast approaching my seventh decade of life, the role that grieving plays in healing struck me once again last week, which marked the 16th anniversary of my mother’s death. Since I write about unloved children frequently, some people wrongly believe that I think about my own mother all the time. Nothing could be further from the truth.

After years of going back and forth, I cut my mother cleanly out of my life, 13 years before she died. My decision, at almost 39, was prompted by my discovery that I was carrying a daughter, my first and only child. I was finally able to do for my unborn child what I hadn’t been able to do for myself: Get free from my mother’s poison. In anticipation of becoming a mother, I began the process of mourning the mother I deserved, which had nothing to do with the actual woman who’d given birth to me.

When I learned that my mother was failing 16 years ago, I did not go to see her, even though everyone in my life — including my therapist — thought I should go for “closure.” But I was wise enough to realize that they hadn’t walked my path, and their vision of closure was based on novels and Hollywood movies in which a-ha! moments flourish and mothers always love. In real life, I would ask the question I always wanted to be answered — “Why didn’t you love me?” — and she would refuse to answer, as always, but this time her silence would stretch out into eternity. I didn’t attend her funeral, either. But I did grieve — not for her, but for me and my unmet needs. And the mother I deserved

Written on October 12, 2024