Understanding how becoming a mother can awaken unprocessed experiences of being mothered, and why bringing these patterns into awareness matters.
Being a mother can change the relationship we have with our own mother in ways we did not expect. Conversations that once felt manageable can suddenly feel more emotionally charged. There can be tenderness, frustration, longing, or a sense of distance that is difficult to fully explain.
A mother may notice herself comforting her child and suddenly feeling overwhelmed by sadness. Another may find herself reacting strongly to something her mother says, despite having had the same conversation many times before. Someone else may become aware of how difficult it feels to ask for help or rest.
On the surface, these moments may seem unrelated but often they point towards something deeper.
This is something I have seen many women experience, particularly during matrescence, the developmental transition of becoming a mother. As we care for our children, earlier experiences of being mothered can rise up to the surface. We may find ourselves thinking differently about our mothers, but also about ourselves. About the beliefs we carry, the ways we learned to cope, and the relationship we have developed with our own needs.
No matter how it shows up in our experience, motherhood has a way to bring us into closer relationship with the daughter we once were.
Why does motherhood bring old wounds to the surface?
One mother shared with me how emotional she became while comforting her daughter after a difficult day at school. She was sitting next to her child, gently stroking her hair, when she was suddenly overcome with sadness as she realised no one had sat next to her like this when she was young.
There had been food, routines, responsibility. But very little space for vulnerability, sadness, or overwhelm.
Moments like these can feel surprising because they seem to arrive out of nowhere. Yet motherhood often places us in situations that bring us into closer contact with our own experience of being cared for. As we respond to our children’s emotional needs or support them through challenges, we may become aware of the needs, losses, or longings we had not fully recognised in ourselves.
This is part of why matrescence, the developmental transition into motherhood, can feel so emotionally layered. It is not only our relationship with our child that is changing. Our relationship with ourselves is changing too.
For some women, these reflections arise through interactions with their mother in the present. For others, they emerge through memory, grief, or seemingly ordinary moments of parenting. You may notice old feelings surfacing around expressing emotion, asking for help, or making mistakes.
While this can feel confusing, especially if you believed you had already moved on from these experiences, I do not see it as a sign that something has gone wrong. But rather, as an invitation into deeper awareness.
What is the mother wound?
The term “mother wound” is often used to describe the emotional imprints we carry from our experience of being mothered. While the term is often associated with painful relationships, I believe it can be understood more broadly than that.
The work of author and therapist Maureen Murdock has deeply influenced my thinking here, especially her exploration of the Heroine’s Journey. Her writing suggests that, amongst other things, we inherit from our mothers ideas about womanhood, care, worth, power and belonging.
For some women, the wound may be linked to criticism, emotional neglect, inconsistency, or instability. For others, it may be found in experiences of becoming self-sufficient too early or growing up alongside a mother who was overwhelmed, unsupported, or disconnected from herself.
Sometimes what shapes us most is not what happened, but what was absent.
I grew up watching my mother constantly busy, looking after everyone else but herself. We had a spotless house. Our clothes were always ironed and folded. Meals were thoroughly planned and prepared. Everything functioned like clockwork. But I cannot remember ever seeing my mother rest or take time for herself.
Years later, I noticed myself doing the same thing. Moving endlessly through the house after my child was asleep, doing chores that could have waited until tomorrow and in general putting myself last on my to-do-list, if at all. No one was asking me to. But somewhere within, rest felt unfamiliar and undeserved.
How our mothers shape the relationship we have with ourselves
Our relationship with our mother often impacts more than how we care for others. It can also inform the relationship we develop with ourselves as women.
Unconsciously, we begin forming ideas about what it means to be a woman through the messages we received and the experiences we went through growing up.
For some women, qualities such as softness, emotional need, or dependence can begin to feel uncomfortable, while competence, self-sufficiency, or staying in control may feel safer.
A mother once shared how uncomfortable she felt asking for help after the birth of her child. She was exhausted and desperately needed support, yet every time she considered reaching out, she felt guilty and weak. As we explored it further, she realised she had grown up believing capable women managed on their own.
What we learn about womanhood helps form the way we relate to ourselves and the ways we measure our own worth.
Why we sometimes become the opposite of our mothers
One of the more complex aspects of mother wounds is that sometimes we do not repeat our mothers’ patterns directly. Instead, we organise ourselves around not becoming like them.
Maureen Murdock wrote about how many women learn to distance themselves from aspects of their feminine nature when those qualities become associated with suffering, powerlessness, or overwhelm.
I think of the woman who grew up watching her mother remain financially dependent or unable to pursue her own dreams. Understandably, she may come to value independence very highly. She builds a successful career, becomes capable and self-reliant, and takes pride in needing very little from others.
For a long time, these qualities may serve her well.
Yet when she becomes a mother herself, things can begin to feel more complicated. She may find herself needing support in ways she never anticipated. She may feel uncomfortable receiving help or acknowledging her own limits.
If we stay curious about these moments, we may discover they are connected to something deeper than the practical realities of motherhood. Somewhere along the way, dependence may have become associated with losing yourself.
Many women absorb messages about which qualities are valued and which are unsafe. These messages come not only from our families, but from a culture that celebrates productivity, independence, and achievement above all else.
Mothers, daughters, and the wider system
Mother-daughter relationships are rarely influenced by individual personalities alone. They are also shaped by the cultural and social conditions women live within.
Sometimes, as women begin reflecting on their relationship with their mother, they find themselves holding two truths at once. The pain of what was missing, and a growing awareness of their mother’s circumstances.
One woman shared that after becoming a parent herself, she began seeing her mother differently for the first time. She realised how isolated her mother had been and how little support she had received.
This did not erase the pain she carried as a daughter. Some losses remained. But it did bring some perspective.
For the first time, she found herself looking beyond her mother’s actions and becoming curious about the woman behind them. What pressures did she live under? What expectations did she bring to the different roles she had? What were the wounds she may have been holding long before she became a mother herself?
As Maureen Murdock wrote:
“Society places enormous responsibility at the feet of mum, without giving her the financial support, prestige, and acclaim due to a job of such momentous import for the entire culture.”
This does not require us to excuse harm or dismiss our own pain. But it can create space for something beyond blame. A space where grief and sometimes compassion can coexist.
Making the patterns conscious
Awareness will not make inherited patterns disappear overnight but it can loosen their hold. It allows us to step back and become curious about what we have learned and what continues to influence us today.
I like this question posed by Maureen Murdock:
How did your mother feel about being a woman?
The answer may lead us to consider the messages she received about care, ambition, rest, relationships. It may also help us better understand some of the beliefs we have been carrying ourselves.
Some other questions that may be worth exploring:
- What beliefs about womanhood have shaped me?
- What beliefs about motherhood have shaped the way I mother?
- What expectations do I still carry even when they no longer serve me?
- What happens when I stop measuring my worth entirely through productivity, caregiving, or self-sacrifice?
The purpose of these questions is not to find someone to blame, nor to strive for perfection. It is simply to bring the light of our awareness to the patterns that may have lived in the shadows for too long.
The opportunity within the pattern
Motherhood can reveal our tenderness in ways that can feel uncomfortable and deeply humbling.
Alongside the love we feel for our children, we may also come into closer contact with our own unmet needs and losses. Maybe it’s the comfort we longed for. Or perhaps the encouragement that never came. The feeling of being seen, protected, or emotionally held in the ways we needed.
Understanding our mothers more deeply does not necessarily take that grief away. There may still be moments of longing for a different experience of being mothered. Compassion for our mothers and grief for ourselves are not mutually exclusive. Often, part of healing is learning to hold both.
My mentor, Jane Hardwicke Collings, often speaks about the moments in life when we arrive at a crossroads. A place where we become conscious of a pattern, a belief, or a wound that has guided our lives. From there, we have a choice. We can continue along the familiar path carved by that pattern, or we can begin, even imperfectly, to choose a different way.
Motherhood brings us to these crossroads time and time again. Standing there, we are invited to respond differently. To slowly learn to care for the daughter within ourselves differently. To offer her some of the understanding, protection or tenderness she may once have needed.
What if motherhood was not only about raising a child, but also about becoming more conscious of what we have inherited, what we wish to carry forward, and what we are ready to lay down?
If becoming a mother has stirred questions about your own experience of being mothered, you can learn more about my Motherhood & Matrescence counselling services here.