Maternal Jealousy Explained

My mother could not celebrate me when I graduated with a Bachelor of Education from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. I had invited her to the graduation ceremony at the Christchurch Town Hall, and I know that she attended because she sat with my partner during the ceremony. We had agreed to meet up in the large atrium at the end of the ceremony, but as I waited in the increasingly empty atrium, I knew that she wasn’t coming. The next day, when I rang my mother to ask her why she had gone home directly after the ceremony without meeting up as we had agreed, she said that she had forgotten where we had agreed to meet up. My mother must have seen me waiting for her as she left the building.  

Even though this happened thirty years ago, it still hurts to remember how invisible and unloved I felt by her inability to celebrate me. I needed my mother to celebrate me and show me how proud she was. I needed her to recognize my superhuman achievement of having completed my degree with two small children. I needed her help with childcare without guilt-tripping me about how I was neglecting my children and husband by studying part-time. Incidentally, my mother provided childcare for friends. And I needed her encouragement during the tough times when it was all too much.  

Tragically, my mother could not celebrate me or provide the support I needed, and it is hard to not blame her for this. It is hard to not be angry and hurt. In therapeutic language, my mother’s behavior would be diagnosed as narcissistic. And even though this diagnosis is probably accurate, as Paula Caplan writes in “The New Don’t Blame Mother” and I have found through my life-long work with mothers and daughters, diagnosing a mother’s behavior and blaming her for being jealous of her daughter, for not being supportive enough, for not being emotionally available in the way a daughter needs, limits a daughter’s understanding of herself and her mother. Blaming my mother for being jealous, stops me asking why. It stops me from asking the following questions.  

1. What happened to my mother that made it difficult for her to celebrate me? 

1. What did my mother dream of being when she was a young woman? 

1. Did my mother receive the support she needed to realize her dreams? 

1. How was my mother affected by not being able to realize her dreams?  

1. Was my mother ever celebrated? 

1. Did my mother receive the support she needed as a mother? 

1. What did my grandmother, my mother’s mother dream of being? 

1. Did my grandmother receive the support she needed to realize her dreams?  

I have come to understand that maternal jealousy is an expression of a mother’s grief. Grief about not having done what they dreamed of doing, not having lived the life they wanted to live, not having had the support they needed to make their own choices, and not having received the love, care, and attention their hearts yearned to feel. When I completed my mother-daughter history map, an exercise I created and use with my clients, I uncovered how my mother and grandmother were not allowed to realize their dreams. (Instructions on how to map your mother-daughter history map are in my book “The Mother-Daughter Puzzle”.) I uncovered how my mother and grandmother were expected to fit into the sexist gender roles that their family and generation expected from them, and my grandmother never realized her dream of becoming a singer and my mother never became an archeologist. So, when I went back to college and retrained to become a therapist, I was showing my mother a reality she could only dream of.  Through my freedom to choose, I was showing my mother what she never was allowed to choose.  

My mother will always be responsible for her unkindness and lack of support, but her behavior did not happen in a cultural vacuum. Her behavior tells a story of her unshed tears of grief about what she never got to be and do. It tells the story of how little support and encouragement my mother received. It tells the story of how my mother and grandmother were rarely, if ever, celebrated, and that I need to end that generational theme for myself and my daughter. And it tells the story of the oceans of grief that have not been acknowledged or shed about the countless mothers and grandmothers who were not allowed to realize their dreams and give to society their talent and skills.  

It makes sense that my mother was jealous of my freedom and opportunities. That is a normal human response. Jealousy is a normal feeling when someone has what your heart is yearning for. Even though I needed my mother to celebrate me, I understand why she couldn’t. Her grief was too much. Her loss was too great. And I was too strong of a reminder of what she never got to be and do. And because I was young and hadn’t learned what I know now, and my family does not ask women what they are feeling and needing, my mother did not have the words or language or the opportunity to say how sad she felt about her unlived life. The only way she knew how to voice her grief was to walk away from my graduation ceremony.  

Imagine if we heard all the stories about our mothers’ and grandmothers’ unrealized dreams?  

Imagine if we heard about the support our mother and grandmother didn’t receive?  

Imagine what we would learn individually about our mother and grandmother?  

Imagine the truth that would finally see the healing light of day?  

And imagine how these stories would change the way women are viewed and treated!