She’s my mother… and yet, nothing but criticism ever seems to leave her lips.
I’m forty-one—officially a grown woman with a husband, kids, a job, and a house to my name. But deep down, I’m still that little girl who stared into her mother’s eyes, desperate for a single kind word. Just something warm, something encouraging. Just once. But no. Decades later, I’m still nursing that same burning wound: the pain of never feeling loved by her.
There were three of us girls in the family. Me, the eldest. From the moment I could string a sentence together, I thought I’d be Mum’s pride—her sensible, dependable “good girl.” I was the firstborn, after all! Surely that counted for something. But Mum? Oh, she had other ideas. She made no secret of it. My middle sister was the “difficult” one—rude, truant, full of drama—but she got away with everything. “Oh, that’s just her character,” Mum would sigh. And the youngest? Mum’s little treasure. Quiet, docile, never a hair out of place. Mum used to say she’d wake up in the middle of the night just to check if the youngest was still breathing—she was so rare and delicate, you see. And me? Well, I might as well have been a potted plant in the corner.
I don’t blame my sisters. They’ve got their own lives, and none of this is their fault. But the anger—it festers, not at them, but at *her*. At Mum. I spent my whole life trying to win her approval. Top marks at school? Check. Never a single call-home for bad behaviour. I didn’t throw tantrums or whine for expensive toys. I just wanted her to be proud of me.
And yet, every visit, it’s the same script. “You’ve let yourself go.” “Honestly, love, you’re doing it all wrong.” “I don’t know where I went sideways with you.” I’d shrug it off, tell myself it was just her way—she was tired, or stressed, or simply didn’t know how to be warm. But when you’ve spent years juggling kids, career, and a household, only to hear, “Your cooking’s rubbish,” “Your house is a tip,” or “God knows how you’ve raised those wild children of yours,”—well, it chips away at you.
After I had my son, Mum practically shoved me out the door to get back to work. “You’ll turn into a vegetable if you stay home!” Then, the moment I was back at the office: “Oh, so now you’re too good for family life? Career-woman now, are we? Useless at everything, really.”
It’s a loop, this dance of hers. The comparisons never end. The youngest? A proper beauty. The middle one? “She’s got herself a decent bloke, hasn’t she?” And me? The mistake. So I stay quiet. I bite my lip, stare at the floor, swallow the tears. Because if I dare answer back, the dagger comes out: “Oh, so *that’s* the thanks I get? Nothing’s ever good enough for you, is it?”
Sometimes, I want to scream: *”Mum, why don’t you love me? What did I do wrong?”* But I can’t. I’m terrified. Terrified that if I let it all out, she’ll turn away and vanish from my life for good. And I couldn’t bear that. No matter how much it hurts, I can’t let go of that last, frayed thread between us.
My husband says, “Just tell her how you feel—maybe it’ll knock some sense into her.” But he doesn’t get it. For him, it’s simple. For me? Mum’s not just a person. She’s roots. She’s air. Without her, I’d feel like a tree chopped down to a stump. Even if she hurts me—she’s still my mum. And like a child, I still hold out hope that one day, she’ll say:
“You’re all right, love. I’m proud of you.”
And so I keep waiting. Waiting, like I’ve waited my whole life.
