Mother-daughter estrangement is trending, and it begs the question: mother wound or mother blame? As women often do, I questioned my ability to see the difference. But as I wrote my trauma narrative from the shadowy depths of the mother wound, I began to understand the ways I’d been conditioned to protect my mother, and how doing so had silenced important conversations and critical examination of our mother-daughter relationship. I’d internalized a message, an ideology about mothers as near mythical beings. My mother gave me life, and I’d forever be indebted to her–or so I believed. These statements were the poison that rendered me paralyzed, trapped in a cycle of codependent behaviors. When is Mother-Daughter Estrangement Essential? It took me more than 40 years to pull the trigger on mother-daughter estrangement, a path my former self would have found inconceivable. Bearing the burden of devotion to my mother made it difficult to detach without shame. But writing my second memoir, a mother wound book, helped me navigate the process. One of the things I feared when I published Nobody’s Daughter (note, there were many fears), was creating a one-sided narrative that read more like a flashy exposé than the emotional account of a daughter struggling to heal the mother wound. It took careful consideration and self-examination to approach the writing with an open heart. I would reveal my mother’s sins as I wrote scenes about our conflict, her willful blindness, and her culpability in the abuse I suffered during childhood and beyond. But there were other sides of the story, other angles to hold up to the light. I had to be willing to examine my own actions throughout our relationship and those I’ve made as a mother to my own children as well. Doing the inner work and conscientious self-reflection was part of the healing process. It was, and still is, as much a right as a responsibility. Healing is Our Right and Responsibility: But What About Mother Blame? To ensure our motives are pure as we explore mother-wound healing, we must first understand our trauma and its manifestations. So what is the mother wound? The following are some examples of behavioral signs according to experts. Other signs include: Where the Lines Blur: How to Create Healthy Boundaries without Mother Blame For decades, I swallowed platitudes such as, “Your mom did the best she could with what she had.” People talked about how young she was, the toxicity of her marriage to my father, and the difficulties she faced. Statements like these, while true, dismissed the depth of my trauma and made me feel unjustified and ungrateful for my mother’s notable “sacrifices.” The fact that she worked hard and made pot roast on Sundays seemed to absolve her of the greater responsibilities to protect and nurture her children. Only after I allowed myself to assess the past critically, without fear of mother blame, was I able to see that my mother’s age, economic status, relationship struggles, character deficits, etc., were not my burden to bear. The truth is, we are all accountable for our own actions and responsible for our individual healing and growth. With this in mind, I was able to create healthy boundaries for my own wellbeing. A Cultural Shift: The Mother-Daughter Estrangement Trend Since Oprah released videos and intimate conversations with Brooke Shields about the mother wound, I’ve seen the topic go mainstream for better AND worse. The discourse on social platforms and blogs has mostly been thoughtful or reasonable, but I’ve seen overreactions as well– mothers blindsided by children who suddenly become outraged for seemingly minor offenses. In terms of estrangement, the pendulum swings in a dangerous direction, one that readily justifies going “no contact.” Headlines about mother-daughter breakups abound, and it makes me cringe. Whatever the circumstances, mother-child estrangement is always a tragedy to me. As an estranged daughter, I miss my mother in unfathomable ways. I think about her witty comebacks throughout the day, what she might say about this or that, and I ache to share my life with her. Yet, our separation is essential to my wellbeing. And while I applaud Oprah and Brooke for their insights and openness and I encourage women everywhere to find their individual paths to mother wound healing, I will never see estrangement as a cause for celebration. Can we stop the shitty mom memes? Seeing women so deftly share their painful histories and tell their mother break-up tales makes me both paranoid and proud. Paranoid about the popularity of estrangement as a proposed solution to mother-daughter drama. I consider my own motherhood failures, my blunders and bad behavior. Those times I cursed, used candy as currency for child labor, slept late while the kids fetched popsicles for breakfast, forgot school lunches, sprayed Lysol on an unwashed sports uniform, or said hurtful things when impatient or enraged. I lament my mistakes, and there are oh so many. None of us are immune. I hope, pray and appeal to gods of unknown deities that nothing will ever keep me from my sons. That we will never, for any reason, become estranged. According to author Rosjke Hasseldine, “there is an alarming increase of young adult daughters cutting off contact from their mothers.” Hasseldine says when she started working as a mother-daughter therapist in the late seventies, estrangement was rare, reserved only for the most abusive relationships. Hasseldine sees today’s estrangement trend as cause for alarm. I imagine all mothers in the hot seat, and I can only hope daughters and sons are able to see their relationships objectively as they dig down to the root of their pain. If mother-daughter estrangement is on the table, the decision should flow from a place of peace and wisdom rather than resentment or retaliation. In my experience, I needed to feel anger before I could get to a place of acceptance. Anger should come before our ultimate decision making. (Read more on the importance of anger). My choice to cut ties with my mother was guided by therapy and intense contemplation. I’d exhausted all other reasonable avenues and chose estrangement as an act of self-preservation. As noted in the last chapter of my mother wound book: “Mother blame only makes us victims, only prolongs our suffering. But we have the power to create a better life– to make space for love without hatred or resentment. Even if, that sometimes ends in estrangement.” Nobody’s Daughter: A Memoir of The Mother wound

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