“Sometimes, I Just Want My Mommy”: Honoring the Quiet Ache of a Mother Wound

I sat across from a teenage patient today as she bravely peeled back the layers of her guarded heart. She told me about her mom—how people see her as sweet, warm, even lovable. Her siblings have a great connection with her. And among her cousins, her mom is the favorite aunt—the one everyone adores.

But for my patient, that warmth doesn’t translate. She struggles to feel close to her mother. There’s a wall between them—invisible, but undeniable. And as she shared her story, her voice cracked. Tears welled up. And then she said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“Sometimes I just want my mommy.”

My eyes didn’t water, but my heart did—because I knew exactly what she meant.

Not just intellectually. I felt it—deep in my body, in my memory, in my story. I knew that yearning. I know it still. There have been moments in my own life—quiet, painful moments—when I’ve found myself aching for a version of a mother I’ve never truly had. A mother who could sit with me in the mess, not rush me out of it. A mother who could see behind my strong face and say, “You don’t have to hold it all alone.” A mother who felt safe.

My mother is alive. She exists. She’s not cruel. Not intentionally absent. And in her own way, I believe she’s been loving. But it was a kind of love that didn’t reach me—at least not in the ways I needed. If you asked her, I imagine she’d say, “You know I love you. I’d do anything for you.” And maybe she believes that. But that’s not the reality I grew up in. Her love was real, but it wasn’t enough to make me feel seen, safe, or supported.

Because love without presence doesn’t feel like love. Support without emotional attunement isn’t support—it’s obligation. And you can’t expect someone who is disconnected from their own emotions to be fully in tune with yours. She isn’t emotionally distant in the traditional sense. She’s just... unaware. Unaware of how deeply I’ve needed her. Unaware of how her absence shaped me. As a child, I often felt neglected. That’s the truth of it. She chose drugs over me. And no matter how much healing I’ve done, that ache still lives somewhere deep inside.

I felt it then. And I felt it again—acutely—when I went through a recent heartbreak. A betrayal that blindsided me. One of those soul-cracking moments that leaves you gasping for air. I remember lying in bed one night, feeling the weight of grief, and thinking, I don’t have anyone to go to for this. No mother to hold me. No maternal figure to gather me in her arms and whisper, “Let it out, baby.” Just me. With my pain. Again.

A few weeks ago, I was at a bar and got into a conversation with a woman about heartbreak. I shared a bit of what had happened—how I had loved someone, deeply, and how I later found out I had been betrayed. She listened intently, then asked, “Oh my God… what does your mom think?” And I laughed. Not because it was funny, but because of how far that question is from my reality. My mom didn’t even know he existed. A whole year of love. Of hope and confusion. Of dreams and unraveling. And she had no idea. We’re not close like that. We’ve never been close like that. Because that kind of closeness—emotional, maternal, sacred—has never existed between us.

I still feel that ache. Not necessarily for her, but for the mother I never had. The one who might have held me, asked questions, checked in. The one who would’ve seen my pain and known what to do with it. It’s hard to want something you’ve never truly known. But I suppose the wanting itself is a kind of knowing. A kind of remembering. Of what should have been. And yet… sometimes, I just want my mommy.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about grief. The quiet kind. The kind we don’t always name, but feel in our bones. The mother wound is complex. It’s not always about violence or absence. Sometimes it’s about what wasn’t said. What wasn’t felt. The moments that didn’t happen. The touch that never came. The words that were never spoken. It’s the pain of being mothered by someone who didn’t know how to meet your emotional needs—and still doesn’t.

I think of my teenage patient and her brave words. And I think of myself, still healing. Still learning to mother the parts of me that never got what they needed. Grateful that I have been able to build a life where I can be the kind of mother—to myself, to my children, and to others—that I always longed for.

Maybe that’s the most tender truth of the mother wound: missing something you never truly had, and still aching for it anyway. Wanting to be held by a version of her that never existed. And learning, slowly, how to hold yourself instead.

If you’ve ever whispered to yourself, “I just want my mommy,” know this: you are not crazy. You are not too much. And you are not alone. There are so many of us who carry this wound—quietly, deeply, across generations. You are a daughter with an ache that deserves to be honored. And you are allowed to grieve what you never received.

To be continued… the wound runs deeper.