When Mother’s Day Feels Off.
Come. Sit with me for second.
Inhale….Exhale.
I know. I notice it too.
It’s hard to grasp and understand. More importantly, it’s hard to explain in just one sentence. While everyone is celebrating Mother’s Day, there’s this gap that quietly sits there. Some days it feels like it’s closing; other days it expands so wide that the hope of repair feels fragile.
“I greeted my mom. I got her flowers. I did my part to be the ‘good daughter’… and yet things still feel off.”
This might feel familiar to some folks.
The relationship between mothers and daughters (maybe even the trifecta of grandmother, mother, & daughter) can feel so estranged while still feeling deeply connected. As an adult, there’s this constant push and pull: the obligation to be present while struggling to connect for so many reasons.
Maybe the relationship shifted because your values changed through parenting, politics, religion, or worldview. Maybe it’s the exhaustion of being the parentified daughter who became the caregiver, translator, babysitter, or emotional anchor. Maybe it’s the pressure of constantly performing expectations.
Girl, we can go on and on.
So you set boundaries. Maybe you even consider distance or cutting the relationship off completely. But then come the words people love to say: “But she’s still your mom.”
And in many cultures, like my own, going no contact doesn’t just feel difficult. It can feel like dishonor.
One thing I want to emphasize (Josie Rosario, a community healer, does such a beautiful job naming this) is how often this gets reduced to the phrase “mother wound.” In therapy spaces, there’s often an emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship, and yes, we absolutely need to acknowledge the harm and impact that exists there. We need to hold awareness of the larger systems surrounding these relationships. The larger systems like patriarchy, survival, migration, sacrifice, and the ways communities of color have carried generations of pain with very little support or accountability. Check out her substack on liminal spaces and the feeling of being in the middle here.
So the gap I mentioned earlier? This is often what lives inside of it.
There are parts of you still trying to protect the versions of you that carried too much.
Maybe it’s your 3rd grade self who kept getting told to behave and sit still. Or the middle school version of you who was made to feel like they were “too much.” Or the young adult who learned to take care of everyone else before ever learning how to care for themselves.
Sometimes these younger parts are still seeking to feel heard, chosen, nurtured, or loved. And because mothers are often our first experience of attachment, the ache runs deep. So deep that as adult it carries over to how to develop relationships within friends and partners.
That’s why it’s so hard to name.
Because yes, this can be grief. But grief rarely comes alone. There’s anger, guilt, tenderness, resentment, compassion, confusion, and longing. And they are existing…all…at. the. same time.
And when you begin doing the work, you learn that it’s about exploring the feelings instead of outrunning them. You slowly reach a place where nuance can exist. That you can sit with both parts right next to you and listen intently to the stories each part is sharing. Before we expand, I want to be clear that this nuance is for self awareness, and NOT a burden for you to carry.
This looks like awareness that anger is present while also holding awareness of her own struggles. This awareness isn’t meant to force forgiveness or dismiss the pain. It’s meant to help you NOTICE what you can hold space for.
The understanding that while you may have felt abandoned, there can also be a part of you that recognizes the pain she carried as a woman trying to survive her own circumstances.
Not to excuse harm. But to make space for complexity.
So yes… Mother’s Day can feel off. Because in a day where we are ‘meant’ to celebrate and post the picture to highlight our relationship…it can feel inauthentic. It feels like parts are pushed aside.
Because these relationships are rarely black and white. They’re complicated as hell. Painful. Loving. Layered. HUMAN.
So if today feels heavy. It makes sense.
Have grace for yourself and see if you can lean in to that discomfort with compassion.
Ingat lagi, Antonia Reflective prompts:
What stories have I told myself that tells me these things are my responsibility?
What about today that feels off and how have they showed up?
What are my younger parts needing to hear? If I can wave the magic wand, what would this look like?