Celebrating motherhood, can be complicated for some. Here are 4 truths about Mother’s Day you might not hear about, but that everyone experiences at some point.
If this “holiday” makes you feel isolated, you’re not alone.
Key points
- Mother’s Day can be complicated—especially if your relationship with your mom is painful or absent.
- It’s normal to feel both anger and love toward a parent figure at the same time.
- Grief models are lacking when it comes to complex relationships.
Mother’s Day is once again upon us. The pastel ads. The social media tributes. The brunch reservations and the school crafts.
And while some people genuinely feel joy and gratitude on this day, for many others, Mother’s Day brings a complicated mix of dread, grief, resentment, and confusion. If you’re feeling like you’re the only person who is not in a celebratory mood, you’re not alone. This “one-size-fits-all celebration” rarely fits the messy realities of real-life relationships.
Read More Here: Give Your Mom A Break: 5 Ways To Pamper Her This National Lazy Mom’s Day
Four Truths About Mother’s Day No One Talks About
If you’re dreading Mother’s Day or are feeling less than greeting card sunshine, here are four things to know:
1. You’re not a bad person if Mother’s Day makes you feel bad
There’s an unspoken cultural script that says we’re supposed to feel warm and fuzzy about this day. But what if your mother was emotionally unavailable? Or absent? Or harmful? What if you’re grieving a mom who passed, or mourning the fact that you never had a nurturing one to begin with?
In Frontiers in Psychology, an article called “Unresolved trauma in mothers: intergenerational effects and the role of reorganization” states, “A mother’s unresolved trauma may interfere with her ability to sensitively respond to her infant, thus affecting the development of attachment in her own child, and potentially contributing to the intergenerational transmission of trauma.”
Or maybe you’re a mother yourself, and this day feels like a painful reminder of what you’re not getting in return—no appreciation, no acknowledgment, no breakfast in bed—just another day of invisible labor. Or maybe you long to be a mother, but infertility challenges have made that difficult or impossible.
The truth? Painful feelings on Mother’s Day don’t make you bitter or broken. Life is complicated. The myth of the “perfect mom” and the “grateful child” leaves zero room for the complex truth of human relationships. You’re allowed to feel however you feel.
2. You don’t owe anyone a performance
You don’t have to post a tribute. You don’t have to call if it feels unsafe or triggering. You don’t have to show up at brunch with a smile pasted on your face while trying to suppress active wounds.
We spend so much time managing other people’s expectations, especially when it comes to family. But radical acceptance of painful truth comes with an upside: You don’t have to perform your pain away to make other people comfortable. You can honor the truth of your experience—quietly, loudly, and imperfectly.
3. Grieving the mother you didn’t have is a legitimate kind of grief
Some people grieve their mothers because they’re deceased. Others grieve their mothers because they never really “had” them to begin with—not in the way they needed. Maybe your mom was physically present but emotionally absent. Maybe she was loving one minute and lashing out the next.
Maybe she was trying her best… but her best still hurt you. An article entitled “Psychobiology of Attachment and Trauma—Some General Remarks From a Clinical Perspective” notes, “In an insecure attachment, primary caregivers have proven to be unreliable, poorly predictable, and hardly positive for the child.
This child subsequently shows a strong sensitivity and hypervigilance towards potential threats in the social environment.”
Your pain is valid. It’s not petty or dramatic to feel pain over unmet childhood needs. Grief isn’t reserved for funerals—it shows up whenever love was missing, misaligned, or conditional. And Mother’s Day can activate all of it.
4. You get to choose what motherhood means to you now
Whether or not you have kids, you are not doomed to repeat the past. The legacy you inherited does not have to be the legacy you pass on. You can re-parent yourself. You can create nurturing relationships. You can break cycles.
Maybe you have a chosen mom or a mentor. Maybe you’re learning to mother your own inner child. Maybe you’re holding space for both anger and compassion as you redefine what care, safety, and connection look like in your life.
You also get to grieve in a way that makes sense to you. The Journal of Death Studies states, “Despite the vast developments in research on loss and grief, dominant grief models fall short in reflecting the comprehensive issues grieving persons are facing.”
Sometimes the only path forward is the one we create for ourselves.
Whatever this day brings up, know this: You are allowed to step outside the script. You’re allowed to feel your feelings, hold boundaries, skip the brunch, cry, laugh, rage, or do absolutely nothing at all.
Read More Here: How To Not Be Like Your Mother: Heal Your Childhood Wounds Before It’s Too Late
Mother’s Day is complicated for a lot of us—and that doesn’t make us broken. It makes us human.
For more insights, Align Your Mind is coming in May ’25 from Penguin Random House. Pre-order your copy here!
References
Iyengar U, Kim S, Martinez S, Fonagy P, Strathearn L. Unresolved trauma in mothers: intergenerational effects and the role of reorganization. Front Psychol. 2014 Sep 1;5:966. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00966.
Lahousen T, Unterrainer HF, Kapfhammer HP. Psychobiology of Attachment and Trauma-Some General Remarks From a Clinical Perspective. Front Psychiatry. 2019 Dec 12;10:914. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00914.
Mai-Britt Guldin, Carlo Leget. The integrated process model of loss and grief – An interprofessional understanding. Death Studies. 2024. 48(7):738–752.
These were some of the truths about Mother’s Day. Not everyone is dreading the day, but some of us do have a hard time with it. Be compassionate, and allow for some personal space. If you agree, tell us in the comments below!
Written by Britt Frank, MSW, LSCSW, SEP
(Neuropsychotherapist and Author of The Science of Stuck)
Originally appeared on Psychology Today
Leave a Reply