An undermothered child is a child who is growing or grew up deprived of the warm, nurturing, loving care and emotional support from the mother or primary caregiver. In most cases, the primary caregiver is the biological mother.
An undermothering mother fails to provide the conditions necessary for the child to be securely attached to her for provision, protection, nurturing and care.
It is innate for all infants to attach and form an intimate connection with the mother or primary caregiver. This is because the protection and nurturing offered by a mother ensures the survival of the child.
It is also instictual for the mother to want to protect, nurture and care for her child. When the mother is attuned to the needs of the child and does her best to care, nurture and protect the child, the child experiences good mothering.
In undermothering cases, the mother is oblivious to the emotional, psychological and basic needs of the child due to reasons beyond her capacity and hence cannot provide them for her child.
Related: 7 Traits Of Emotionally Immature Parents
Related: How Children Interpret Parental Love
Some reasons why a mother is unable to offer mothering care to her child include:
1. Lack of know how. If the mother herself was undermothered, was raised by a narcissistic mother or an emotionally unavailable mother, she may not know how to provide the necessary mothering to her children.
2. Mentally ill mother
3. Prolonged illness on the mother leaving the infant with caregivers who are not well equipped to mother the child
4. Divorce
5. If the mother is the sole bread winner having multiple jobs or works protracted hours leaving her always exhausted with little or no capacity to be fully present and nurture her child
6. Personality e.g overly controlling or narcissistic parents
7. Presence of a sibling, spouse or a relative who requires a lot of the mother’s attention, emotions and other resources e.g time and money.
8. Emotional immaturity of the mother or caregiver
Because the child cannot articulate his physical, psychological and emotional needs, he develops coping mechanisms that help him survive without being mothered.When the child grows deprived of a mothers love, emotional connectedness and care, he grows up with an emotional void and might suffer from the following pains and struggles:
- The undemothered child grows up with low self-esteem
A child develops self-esteem when he feels he is valuable in the eyes of the mother or primary caregiver. If the child fails to get this assurance earlier on, he learns to abandon himself as he feels abandoned by the primary caregiver.
2. The undermothered child grows up feeling as if he does not have enough support
A mother is often the child’s first and most important cheerleader and fan especially earlier in life. If a child grows up with a lack if this encouragement to learn new things like walking, talking, sharing, playing with others, etc, he grows up feeling alone and without the support all children need to develop and become their own person.
Later on in adolescence, the child needs the encouragement and nurturing presence of the mother and parents in general as he forges his identity and personality away from his family. Much as teens do not readily admit to need guidance, they need it albeit in a different form from when they were younger. Mothering a child goes on for as long as he is under your care.
3. The undermothered child has difficulty in expressing and advocating for his needs
This is because the mother failed to validate the needs of the child when he expressed them, shamed him for having the needs or dismissed the child’s needs as unimportant or not urgent. The child thus learnt to minimise his needs because he was never nurtured to advocate for his needs.
4. The undermothered child feels emotionally starved
When children fail to get an emotional connection with the mother, they are unable to emotionally connect with peers or in their intimate relationships because the emotional need was never nurtured or acknowledged in childhood. No matter how many close friends the child makes, he feels little or no connection because he is unable to open up and allow others in.
Growing up, the child might have issues with being vulnerable with others because the same was not modelled between him and the mother. He grows up feeling like no one will ever understand him.
5. The undermothered child has difficulty taking in love and establishing intimacy later on in life
Children learn to love and accept love because proper mothering offers unconditional love and is receptive towards the loving gestures of her child. When a child grows without experiencing unconditional love, he is confused on how to give or accept love. The first intimate bond every human has is between him and the mother or primary caregiver. This attachment is the foundation of learning how to love and form deep meaningful connections and fulfilling friendships.
When the mother or primary caregiver fully supports the child on his quest for autonomy in developing friendships, the child then learns to love, receive love and form friendships with others without feeling inadequate, inferior or that he constantly has to prove his worth.
6. The undermothered child is crippled by pangs of loneliness and a feeling of not belonging
A nurturing mother will mostly take her child with her whenever she can. Be it a visit to the market, supermarket or visiting friends and family. This simple act makes a child feel included and wanted in an unfamiliar place and helps him interact with different people. A distant mother however may find tagging her child along as a chore. The child, always being left behind or not being introduced to other family members grows up feeling isolated and alone.
This isolation no matter how unconscious on the mother’s part, affects the child’s ability to develop a sense of belonging. It makes the growing child anxious when he is left out by friends or peers, or makes him do anything to be included on the group activities.
7. The undermothered child lacks the capacity to process his emotions
Children learn to process their emotions by observing how the mother or primary caregiver calms herself and from the teachings of the mother on how to self-calm. When. A child experiences different emotions, the mother nurtures the child to develop healthy ways to navigate complex and painful emotions such as anger, jealousy, envy, frustration etc.
An undermothered child does not receive this emotional nurturing and is unable to properly process and manage the difficult emotions as they grow.
8. The undermothered child grows up with a pervasive sense of scarcity
This happens because the undermothered child grows up deprived of basic and emotional needs. There is not enough love, provision of basic needs or psychological security to adequately meet the needs of the growing child. He therefore grows carrying this mindset into adulthood. This can be displayed by needing constant validation, insecurity of being left by a friend or romantic partner, accumulating excessive material wealth to attract recognition etc.
9. The undermothered child struggles feeling safe
This comes about due to the fact that there were many recurrent times when the child was afraid and scared but the mother or primary caregiver failed to offer protection, validation of the childs experiences or exacerbated the pains of the child. An example is a parent who failed to speak up when the child was abused by the other parent, teacher or other adult. Also, when the child fears e.g nightmare or feeling a dragon is hiding under the bed were dismissed or laughed at, the child might have shut up but carried the fear all the way to adulthood.
It is very important to validate a child’s fear alongside offering physical protection.
10. The undermothered child easily falls into depression or addictive behaviours
There exists no greater pain than that of feeling unloved, unwanted or unneeded by a parent. Some children numb this pain by being over achievers and high performers in academics, sports or arts.
This is because by displaying their talents and abilities, they get the recognition they do not get from the parent. Others upon growing, turn to drugs and other addictive substances to sedate the pain and hollowness they feel. Still, others believe that the only way to end the ever present pain of being unloved is to end their life hence persistent siucidal thought and attermpts.
All these are unhelpful ways to cope with growing without the loving, nurturing, guidance and care of a mother. In addition to the above, some undermothered children grow up with a nagging feeling of being disempowered. This happens when support and nurturing are replaced with constant criticism for failing to live up to the standards of the parent.
When the child internalises this constant criticism upon self, it slowly corrodes his self esteem, confidence and worth. The child therefore grows up with a great difficulty trusting his abilities, finding his authentic voice and developing a coherent independent self. This inevitably leads to codependency which is a dysfunctional relationship where the undermothered child takes the role of a caretaker in a relationship while his/her partner takes advantage of his inability to walk away, assert his/her needs etc.
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