Mothers mold us — often physically in the womb and always emotionally through their interactions with us. There are many types of mother-child relationships, including adoptive ones and mentoring ones. In a Christian worldview, the church is the family of God. The apostle Peter says as much in 1 Peter 2:17 where he commands us to “love the family of believers.” In Christ, we are a family and have spiritual parents.
And yet.
Many of us lose our mothers to illness or death. And what if your mother isn’t someone you’d WANT to use as a resource for help and advice? This leaves a deep wound. Psychologists have even named it the “Mother Wound.” Children (usually daughters, but sometimes also sons) are said to experience the mother wound if their mother:
- provided support by taking care of the physical needs of the children, but didn’t give love, care, and security
- didn’t provide empathy to mirror the child’s emotions and help them label and manage those emotions
- didn’t allow the child to express negative emotions
- was extra critical
- expected the child’s support with their own physical or emotional needs
- had suffered emotional or physical abuse themselves, didn’t process the trauma, and was therefore unable to offer love and nurture
- had an untreated mental health condition
- experienced alcoholism or drug addiction
On this episode, we talk to Danielle Cunningham and Bonnie Blaylock, both of whom lost their mothers long before they had children.
Tell us a little bit about your relationship with your mom growing up.
Hope Edelman, wrote a groundbreaking book in 1994 called Motherless Daughters and then in 2007 followed that up with Motherless Mothers. In these books she explored the unique grief and challenges faced by women who lose their mothers.
When new mothers are grieving their own mothers, the physical and psychological stress can be overwhelming: You’re suddenly in the role of the person you need most—who’s no longer there. “You’re also mourning the loss of your child’s grandmother,” says Edelman. If you become a mother after your own mother dies, you’re mourning what might have been.
Did either of you experience that type of stress with the birth of your first child? How did you cope if you did?
Edelman interviewed nearly 80 women and surveyed another 1,300 online for Motherless Mothers and found that motherless mothers share a number of traits. For instance, they tend to be overprotective, ultra-vigilant, and preoccupied with death. They’re also determined to give their children anything that may have been missing in their own childhoods.
Did either of you find yourself being overprotective or ultra-vigilant? How did it manifest? How did you guard against that?
In addition to being overprotective, motherless mothers tend to be strong and self-reliant; they often resist asking for help. Edelman’s research showed that 54 percent of motherless mothers got by without help from family, friends, or paid professionals—compared to only 15 percent of other mothers.
How did you feel about asking for help when the kids were/are little? What help have you enlisted? What advice would you give to moms who can’t or don’t want to turn to their mom’s for help?
Adapting to being a motherless mother is an ongoing, often uphill, battle. “Grief is a very personal, individual process,” says Edelman. “It’s not a linear process that we experience only once. It’s cyclical.” Edelman says that STUGs (subsequent temporary upsurges of grief) can emerge at your own life changes—a divorce, an illness—and your child’s milestones—first steps, losing a tooth, graduating high school, getting married. “Birthdays, anniversaries—times when families get together” are when STUGs often occur, says Empfield. “That’s why people who’ve lost a loved one often dread the holidays.”
When have you had one of those cyclical moments of grief? How do you handle it?
How have you kept your mother’s memory alive? Or how do you choose to remember her well?
What kind of story do you tell yourself about your relationship with your mom? What insights have you gained about the challenges she may have faced as a mom?
Do you have advice for someone who might not have a role model in her own mother but doesn’t want to re-run a negative story about her?
The model for good mothering is the model for all of life: God the Father. This may sound counterintuitive or very anti-feminist, but here me out. God is the source and sustainer of human life and He gives us clues to the feminine aspects of this in the name El Shaddai.
In Mary Foxwell Loeks’ book The Glorious Names of God, she notes that the traditional translations of Scripture have consistently rendered El Shaddai as “Almighty.” But to appreciate its full flavor, it will be helpful to examine it Hebrew roots. El is a shortened form of Elohim. It sets for the might, the strength, and the excellence of God. Shad is the Hebrew word for breast. Shaddai pictures God’s fullness or bounty, his tenderness, his generosity, his desire to nurture us and make us fruitful. In one name, God’s attributes of might and tenderness are brought together.
Some additional resources mentioned on the podcast:
Spiritual Mothering by Susan Hunt
Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lisa Terkheurst