(Un)Happy Mother's Day

Source: AI Generated

For some of us, Mother’s Day is complicated.

The holiday arrives wrapped in flowers, brunch reservations, pastel cards, and public declarations of gratitude. For many people, it is joyful. For others, it is sensitive because their mother has died. And for some of us who were abused, it brings something harder to explain: dread.

The cards say:

“Thank you for always being there.”

“You are my safe place.”

“Your love made me who I am.”

But what if none of that is true?

What do you do when the mother you are expected to honor was physically abusive, emotionally unsafe, neglectful, or absent? What do you do when society, culture, and family require you to show gratitude for someone who harmed you?

How do you honor a dishonorable mother?

Mother’s Day can become a psychological trap for people who grew up with unhealthy, abusive, or neglectful mothers. If you do not celebrate, society may tell you that you are bitter, ungrateful, or cruel. Your mother may tell you the same. If you do celebrate, it can feel dishonest. Like a betrayal of your own memory and experiences. Like you are abandoning the child in you who remembers what really happened.

Research gives language to what many survivors already know. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction, are associated with long-term impacts on health, mental health, and well-being. In fact, childhood maltreatment has been linked to later depression, anxiety, emotion regulation difficulties, and other mental health concerns.

So no, it is not “just a holiday.”

It is a symbol.

It can symbolize the pressure to minimize harm. To protect the family image. To be “the bigger person.” To pretend that motherhood automatically equals safety and unconditional love.

For many adult children, healing includes the complicated process of decentering a parent from your emotional life. Decentering may simply mean that you stop organizing your life around your mother’s feelings. You stop performing closeness that does not exist. You stop calling harm “love” just because the person who caused it gave birth to you.

And then comes grief.

Not always the clean grief of death, but a more confusing grief. Pauline Boss’s work on ambiguous loss helps explain the pain of grieving someone who is physically present but psychologically unavailable, unsafe, or unreachable. Ambiguous loss is painful because there may be no clear ending, no public ritual, and no socially accepted script for what was lost.

People whose mothers have passed may say, “At least you have a mother.”

But some people do not have a mother in the emotional sense. They have a person who occupies the title. They have a relationship that exists biologically but not safely. They have a living loss.

That kind of grief is often silenced. It is easier to stay quiet than to explain why a holiday filled with flowers makes your stomach twist.

So, what can you do if Mother’s Day is hard?

• Acknowledge that your feelings are valid. Dread, anger, sadness, numbness, relief, guilt, and grief can all coexist.
• Share your feelings only with people who have earned the right to hear them. Not everyone can hold this kind of truth with care.
• Make decisions that prioritize your mental and emotional safety. That may mean sending a simple text. It may mean avoiding social media. It may mean visiting someone who actually mothered you. It may mean doing nothing at all.
• Show up only in ways that feel authentic. Absence is an option. Silence is an option. Peace is a priority.
• Write it down. Journaling, therapy, prayer, voice notes, or honest conversation can help you sort through the feelings instead of swallowing them.

Mother’s Day does not have to be a performance.

You are allowed to tell the truth.

You are allowed to recognize the people who actually cared for you.

And you are allowed to stop pretending that every mother deserves to be celebrated.