Maternal trauma: why do women ruin the lives of their daughters?

Resignation, passivity, inability to defend one’s boundaries – these qualities, which greatly interfere with living well, can be passed on from generation to generation, from one woman to another, says psychologist Bettany Webster.

In Finding the Mother Within, she talks about the transmission of maternal trauma and explains why some mothers want their daughters to be weak and quiet.

He also shares strategies we can use to heal ourselves and prevent our children from experiencing the same pain.

Maternal trauma: what is it?

Maternal trauma occurs in those women who grow up in patriarchal families and who are taught from childhood: “to give birth to children is your destiny”, “if motherhood is difficult for you, something is wrong with you”, “you have little time – it’s your own fault” .

Such pressure from parents and the environment causes a woman severe anxiety, emotional pain, anger, depression. And if you do not work through this negative experience, it will be unconsciously transferred to children – through passive (and sometimes aggressive) forms of emotional alienation. Only by acknowledging what we have experienced can we change everything.

Sympathy that gets in the way

As a rule, daughters are stronger than sons in sympathy with maternal trauma and its unfulfillment. They perceive the mother as a victim of male neglect. And this provokes girls to take pain on themselves, which leads to toxic fusion and prevents them from living a happy life.

Often this happens unconsciously. In order not to lose the love and support of the most significant person, the daughter appropriates limiting attitudes. This is a kind of devotion and the key to emotional survival.

A girl may think that it is dangerous to realize her full potential, because in this case her mother will reject her. She intuitively understands that her full self-determination will cause grief and rage of her mother, because she had to sacrifice herself.

Compassion for the mother, the desire to please her, and the fear of conflict can convince the daughter that it is safer to be inconspicuous and keep a low profile.

Weak daughter as medicine

Many mothers themselves support this state of affairs. They were once told that women should be successful, but not too successful; sexy, but not overly; strong, but not too strong; smart, but not too smart, and so on.

Now these attitudes are passed on to the next generation of girls. For a deeply traumatized woman, a weak daughter is the perfect cure for adversity, as she maintains the mother’s illusion of power without having to do the hard work of self-development and healing of trauma.

If the daughter is strong, successful, happy, and fulfilled, the traumatized mother is forced to face the challenge of working through her unlived pain on her own.

Outwardly, she may demonstrate calmness and goodwill, but under this facade one can see emotional deprivation, which manifests itself mainly in the presence of her daughter, on whom the mother projects her traumas.

The underlying message is: “Your self-determination is unacceptable.” The mother may perceive it as a betrayal, a personal insult, a hidden malice. She may unconsciously pressure her daughter not to speak out, downplay her suffering, limit her ambitions, and settle for less—doing all the things her mother was forced to do when she was young.

How does maternal pressure manifest itself?

All the points listed below are characterized by one thing: the mother seeks to gain power and control over her daughter. In the patriarchal paradigm, she had to give up personal power, now she seeks to acquire it in other ways.

• Mother throws out negative emotions on her daughter.
• She ignores her daughter, but uses her as a narcissistic extension to draw attention to herself.
• A mother does not need her daughter when she does not agree with her beliefs. Those who are not with us are against us.
• Mother throws tantrums: shows open hostility, intimidates, prone to outbursts of rage, runs away and slams the door, uses physical violence.
• Manipulation: cold alienation, rivalry with daughter, jealousy, pitting with other family members, outright threats and insults, criticism disguised as innocent “feedback”, sarcastic humor, and so on.

What to do?

When we realize and “digest” the truth about what we had to endure in childhood, we begin to see the mother as an individual, a person with her own history and her own lessons that she must learn.

We cease to perceive maternal dysfunction, pain and limitations as our own and understand that they have nothing to do with us. We begin to separate maternal attitude towards us from a sense of self-worth.

This is necessary for true self-determination and self-actualization. This process requires courage, resilience and perseverance. To take the first steps on this path, answer a few questions.

1. Do you feel the influence of the “patriarchal trap” in your life and the lives of the women you know? (Are there settings like “Be successful, but not too much”, “Beautiful, but not too much” and so on?)
2. Remember your childhood. How did your family deal with manifestations of negative emotions? Were they accepted or avoided? How are these acceptance/suppression patterns affecting you now?
3. How were the forces distributed between you and your mother in childhood? What has changed as you have grown up? Do you know the sympathy for your mother that prevents you from moving forward?

Working through a mother’s trauma does not mean blaming the mother for everything. By simply blaming her, we avoid responsibility. But the essence of working through the mother’s trauma is to take personal responsibility for your life. By doing this, we will render a service not only to ourselves, but also to the mother and to the whole world.