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Not All Mother And Daughter Relationships Are A Bed Of Roses, And We Need To Talk About It

For most women, their mothers are sacred, safe, trustworthy, givers of love, who have their best interests at heart.

This is the mother and daughter relationship we’re sold from sitcoms to romcoms, in Disney movies and beyond. But what happens if your maternal bond doesn’t fit this mould? What if the relationship is strained and prickly? What if you were the parent to your parent? What if you had to parent yourself?

This conversation feels unsafe for a plethora of reasons, but paramount is the all-consuming guilt that has me biting my lip to save me from doing the unthinkable; critiquing The Mother archetype, the one who sacrificed and suffered to bring me into the world – how dare I?

Welp, in my work as a coach and healer, I have seen first-hand the lengths that we will go to protect our mothers. I’d argue that this ardent defence can sometimes hinder powerful breakthroughs in growth, self-trust, and self-compassion. The unwillingness to ‘go-there’ can keep women stuck in trauma that they have normalised.