Mommy Issues Quotes

“I thought about how I used to watch my mother sleep sometimes, how innocent she looked with her hands tucked under the pillow. In those moments, I saw her as a little girl, and I felt that nothing was her fault—just a chain of fears and feelings passed down from generation to generation. In those moments I thought, You can show her how to love you better by being loving to her. But it was easier to be loving when the person was asleep.”
― Melissa Broder, Milk Fed: A Novel

“One day my mother asked me what color my eyes were, The bank teller had just said something about a cat's green eyes, and my mother had immediately said that her eyes were green, too. A cat's eyes were green; her eyes were green; what color were my eyes? If they were green, too, then the teller might congratulate my mother on having guessed right. She had no idea that a normal person would find it insane for a mother to ask her only child what color her eyes were. But I sensed that she was also trying to see what it would be like to be that unattached to me. She was practicing, to see what it would be like to hurt me, a lot, to show how much she loved me. She had to be careful. If anyone found out that she loved me, we'd both be in trouble.
For a while I'd have to suffer, out in the open, the only girl without extra sneakers for gym class, but it was only because my mother's love was so much greater than all the other loves.
It was that much more dangerous, so she had to love me in secret, absolutely unobserved by anyone, especially me.”
― Sarah Manguso, Very Cold People

“The destiny of daughters burdened with an impossible mother is tragic. When they manage to develop a healthy indifference, people say they are heartless, and when they are devoted, people say they are masochists.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, Orlanda

“the first time i met my mother.
i knew she was not mine”
― Nayyirah Waheed, Nejma

“My mom is a mess, she doesn't always put me first, and I hate the positions I'm put in sometimes, but...I know she loves me. Not that it always feels like enough, but I know she tries.”
― Penelope Douglas, Hideaway

“Creo que algunas mujeres no están hechas para ser madres, simplemente. Y algunas no están hechas para ser hijas”
― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“I don't think my mum likes me very much. That doesn't matter, because I don't really like her either.”
― Alice Oseman, Solitaire

“Mommy, if you could only know how far gone I am, you would find another choice.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“I began to cry because I couldn't understand what my mother thought she would accomplish by saying these things to me. I was the one depressed, and somehow she managed to make it sound like I was supposed to feel sorry for her.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“You’d think he was here for a ritual disemboweling, not to be paid my annual salary for a few weeks of part-time work. All he has to do is stand there and tell people they’re failing to live up to their potential. My mum’s been doing it my whole life for free.”
― Lucy Parker, Battle Royal

“Whenever life pulled brutal pranks on him, Gon would think that life was like having your mom hold your hands one moment, warm and safe, then suddenly drop them with no explanation.

No matter how hard he tried to grab hold, he was always abandoned in the end.”
― Sohn Won-Pyung, Almond

“And she keeps saying, How can you do this to me? And I want to scream, What do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren't we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“She has disappeared in the universe, as I've always feared I might do, and it seems like I'm the only person who might be able to find her.”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“A partir de cierto momento, Hanna se sintió asfixiada de vivir tras la larga sobra de su madre y ese ''es por tu bien'' que ella solía decirle empezó a sentirse como una forma de opresión.”
― Lee Hee Young, Paint

“I’m not the Lucy you wanted, okay? I’m not. I get it and I’ve accepted it, and you need to as well. Sorry I can’t actually perform like you need so the Hua name can mean something again. At least you made some money off me. Dad is right: That’s all you want from me.”
― L.C. Chu, The Library of Flowers

“All I want is for you to be happy. I didn’t want you back home because of the store. I wanted you. I wanted to be in your life, the way all the other women in our family were in each other’s.”
For some reason, her low, sad tone infuriates me more. It’s like she refuses to understand that this is not all me or my fault, and the unfinished fury from the fight we had the other day surges back up. “Yeah, well, I wanted my mom. I wanted you to want me for who I was, not for what I could bring the family. I wanted you to love me, not what I could do for you.”
“I do, Luling.”
“Call me by my fucking name,” I snap. This is the first time I’ve sworn in my mother’s presence, let alone to her face. “I’m Lucy.”
“You were named Luling.”
“It doesn’t matter what I was named. I chose something different.”
― L.C. Chu, The Library of Flowers

“Mikey was just as bad! They both did that shit all the time! You were just too blind to see it! It could’ve been either of them! What would you say about Mikey, then? If he’d been driving that day instead?”
“You end things with that boy,” she said. “You end them today or else.”
“Or else what? What are you going to do? Cut me off? Send me away? I’m almost twenty-six years old!”
She looked right at me. I was trembling, but it didn’t matter. I still held her gaze.
“It’s your family or him,” she said. “You can’t have both. I won’t survive it.”
I shook my head. And then, before she could see me fall apart, I turned and walked away.
It was the easiest decision I’d ever made.”
― Lauren Okie, Tropesick

“Do you know what she said to me?" I turned to face him one last time. "The day Mikey died? She said that her life was over. That she had no reason to go on. So if you're wondering what she would've lost when you broke my heart into a million pieces, the answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
― Lauren Okie, Tropesick

“Her mother’s love usually never came without blood. But that’s how all love comes. That’s how you know it’s real.”
― Kayden Agnus, Bury Your Devoured