At an art gallery recently, I noticed two women walking arm in arm, laughing. The younger one was about my age, and the older one had to be her mother, they looked so alike.
As I walked around the exhibition, I found myself watching them, studying their easy intimacy like it was one of the priceless paintings on the wall.
Indeed, to me, a mother-daughter relationship like that feels just as unobtainable and precious. The fact is, I haven’t spoken to my own mother in more than five years.
People are usually shocked when they find out I’m estranged from my mum by choice.
‘But she’s your mother?’ they will often say, shaking their heads in pity, as if the biological fact of her giving birth to me must trump any possible reason why we don’t speak. A few have patronisingly explained that nobody’s parents are perfect, or reminded me she won’t be around for ever and I surely wouldn’t want to have regrets.
Society fetishises motherhood so much that my decision not to be in touch with mine feels like the ultimate taboo, says the anonymous writer (file image)
No doubt it comes from a well-meaning — if privileged — place of having a good relationship with their own parents, but it’s exhausting to have to justify my decision constantly.
That’s why every time the topic of my parents comes up with someone new, I brace myself. Normally, I give an evasive answer like, ‘My mum’s not around any more’ and hope they presume she’s dead or get the hint that I don’t want to talk about her.
If the question comes up with someone I’m becoming closer to, I will try to explain why I had to cut off all contact with my mum, but it’s a hard thing to describe succinctly —and without crying.
So why are we estranged? The short version is this: we were never close growing up. Many of my childhood memories involve what I feel was neglect, often caused by my parents’ fighting, my dad’s drinking or my mum’s breakdowns (usually some combination of all three).
My parents divorced when I was 11 and my sister was 16. We lived with Mum in Yorkshire but four years later she left us to be with her new partner, and we had to go to live with Dad instead. It was right before my GCSEs and, although she asked me to come to live with her, I felt like that wasn’t an option.
I didn’t get on with my stepdad and I didn’t want to relocate to a completely new area where I knew no one. I remember packing up my childhood bedroom into boxes and sitting on my new bed at my dad’s feeling like my whole life had been turned upside down. I felt completely abandoned and alone.
Although my mother and I stayed in touch for many years after this — well into my 20s — the relationship was always strained. We would meet for a meal in a restaurant every few months and sit there making small talk about our lives.
Sometimes, I would get angry with her for what she had done and occasionally she would cry and apologise, but it never made me feel better. I would often wonder why I didn’t feel the love my friends had for their mothers, and presumed there must be something wrong with me.
Parental estrangement is surprisingly common. According to charity Stand Alone there are five million people estranged from their family in the UK
For a long time, I felt a deep shame that my relationship with my mother was basically non-existent. I remember one Mother’s Day, the glossy magazine where I worked asked everyone to write a tribute to their mother for a special issue. Everyone else had stories about the women who had inspired them, nurtured them, made them the women they were.
I made an excuse about being too busy, rather than have to tell my colleagues the embarrassing truth.
I now realise I have cultivated relationships with motherly figures in my life in lieu of that missing maternal influence. When I was younger I had many older friends, or became close to friends’ mothers, no doubt trying to create that mother-daughter dynamic for myself.
Eventually, at 34, having gone through my own divorce and six years of intense therapy, I began to unpick the fact that my mother leaving me when I was a teenager wasn’t my fault. I realised I had the power to decide who I did and didn’t want in my life. Because we had no formative bond, once I had processed my anger at my mother’s abandonment, there weren’t many emotions left for her.
I realised I felt the worst thing of all — indifference. Seeing my mother felt like meeting up with a stranger with whom I had little in common.
The last time I saw her — at an Italian restaurant in London’s Soho — I realised I was no longer obliged to put myself through these strange and awkward dinners. I went home and sobbed for hours, then decided to stop replying to her messages and then blocked her number. I felt liberated that I was taking control of my life.
She has written to me many times since (letters delivered via my sister, because she no longer has my address), and while she acknowledges the mistakes she made in the past, I don’t really believe she’s truly capable of change.
I’m happy that she seems to understand why I need space from her. She has a new partner now and lives in a different part of the country.
Society fetishises motherhood so much that my decision not to be in touch with mine feels like the ultimate taboo. Her behaviour also broke taboos, of course.
When I was young she often told me she wished I had never been born. She left her children. We don’t hold men to the same standards — and friends who have absent or errant fathers tell me they don’t face the same shock when people find out they no longer see them. Many celebrities, including Meghan Markle and Adele have estranged dads, but Davina McCall is the only celebrity I know who’s spoken openly about cutting her mother out of her life.
Yet parental estrangement is surprisingly common. According to Stand Alone, a charity supporting people with parental estrangement, there are five million of us in the UK.
Davina McCall is one of the only celebrities to have spoken openly about cutting her mother out of her life
Meanwhile singer Adele is estranged from her father after he separated from her mother
Less surprisingly, research from 2023 showed that adult children are four times more likely to be estranged from fathers than mothers, with daughters less likely to cut out their mum than sons.
There are several Facebook groups for people who have decided to become estranged from their family, and I find a lot of comfort and understanding there. These strangers on a screen understand me more than some of my closest friends. We talk so often about the purity of maternal love that when you spend most of your life without this fundamental bond it can feel like a very lonely place to be.
My non-relationship with my mum has had a ripple effect throughout my life. In my 20s, I felt ambivalent about having children and wondered if the lack of a good relationship with my mother was the reason why.
When all my friends started popping out babies, I felt frightened and daunted by the prospect of starting my own family. What kind of mum would I be, given the role model I’d had? Would I ever feel the unconditional love everyone talks about, when I hadn’t experienced it from my own mother?
In fact, ironically, it was only once I had severed all ties with my mum that I started to feel the first inklings of wanting to start my own family. It was as if the space and distance I’d created for myself by cutting my mother out of my life allowed me to imagine what kind of mum I could be.
When I met my partner, Josh, in 2019, he also found it difficult to understand why I didn’t see my mother — but he respected my choice. When we had our daughter, Natasha, in 2020, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed motherhood.
Kissing the soft part of her neck while she giggles ecstatically feels like the best drug in the world and it’s a privilege to watch her gain confidence and independence every day. In fact, I began to feel sympathy for Mum and the fact she seemed to experience no joy from having me.
Sometimes, I do wonder if I’m depriving my daughter of a relationship with her grandmother. When I see older women in the playground delighting in their grandchildren, I feel like I’m grieving my mum in a whole new way.
I feel jealousy and sadness when friends talk about how close they are to their mothers, and how they help them with the children.
I think about how nice it would be if my mum could tell me stories about what I was like at Natasha’s age, and I bristle when I read articles about studies that have found that children who have engaged grandparents have fewer emotional problems and better grades.
Natasha has a wonderful grandmother in Josh’s mum, but I imagine how nice it would be for her to have two. In fact, Josh — who has never met my mum — has offered to take her to meet my mum without me. This idea makes me feel torn and sad, but also full of admiration for Josh.
Yet I feel like I need to be in a good place with my mother, on my own terms, before I think about introducing anyone else to that dynamic.
Will I ever speak to her again? Until very recently, I’d have said no. I’m so much more content and at peace without her in my life, I’d surely be crazy to re-introduce someone who reminds me of the most painful times in my life.
Yet now that I’m about to turn 40, I’ve started feeling more philosophical about the time we all have left and how we choose to spend it. My father, who is in his 80s and living in a care home, is a stark reminder of that. Of course, I’ve imagined what it will be like when my mum dies.
I’ve wondered how I’ll hear about it and how I’ll feel. There will be sadness, I’m sure, but because I’ve already grieved the death of my relationship with her, there will also be relief. A friend who speaks to her mum every day told me she dreads her mother’s death because she knows she will be utterly devastated. At least that’s a pain I’ll be spared.
And yet, a few experiences recently have made me question whether I could find a way forward with my mum. A friend told me how redemptive she has found it to watch her father — with whom she had a very difficult relationship growing up — showering love on her two daughters. She says it has healed a rift she didn’t think could be fixed.
I also hear about the bond my mum has with my sister’s children, who are almost teenagers. My sister has also had a difficult relationship with our mum, but she has managed to put that aside so her children can have a grandmother.
Maybe there’s a way I could do the same? Perhaps I’m being selfish if I don’t. Becoming a mother myself has also made me much more sympathetic to what life might have been like for her when I was a child.
I’m lucky enough to be in a good relationship and have a job I love and access to plenty of therapy, but I can see that, without those things, family life might well be something you wanted to run away from. No doubt working full-time with two children and an alcoholic partner was incredibly difficult.
What’s more, I’ve always admired women who throw off societal expectations and pursue their own pleasure. In a way, deciding to live purely on her own terms is exactly what my mother did. It’s just a shame my sister and I were collateral damage.
Sometimes, I imagine how I would feel if my daughter Natasha didn’t want a relationship with me when she’s older, and the thought devastates me. But all I can do is try to be the best mother I can be and hope that doesn’t happen.
At least because of my own experiences, I know what not to do. I’m sure I’ll make lots of different mistakes as a parent, but I hope that Natasha always feels loved by me. That’s something I missed out on and which I know will mark me for ever.
In this way, my estrangement looms large over my life, no matter how well things are going. There are days I will always find hard — Christmas, her birthday, my birthday. And Mother’s Day, which I always used to dread, although since I had my own daughter the annual onslaught of daffodils and pink cards has taken on a new meaning.
Sometimes, too, I wonder what I would be like if I had been lucky enough to have a loving and engaged mother. How different would my life be if I’d always had that fundamental support growing up? Perhaps there’s another version of me, strolling around a gallery with a mother who I adore, and who adores me.
But you can’t change the past, and there are undoubtedly things not having my mum around has given me. I’m very independent and self-sufficient because I had to grow up fast after Mum left.
I’m also ambitious and determined, no doubt in part because I want to prove myself to her. At some level, I do care what she thinks of me and how my life is going, if only because I want her to know I didn’t need her and I’m doing fine without her.
My sister and I have a very close relationship, formed in order to survive our chaotic childhood.
The other poignant way that my mother is still in my life is that I see her in the mirror every day. Growing up, I never thought we looked that similar, but as I get older I often recognise her features in photos of myself or hear her voice in expressions I use. I also occasionally catch glimpses of her in my daughter, and that’s a bittersweet feeling.
My relationship with my mum has caused me many years of pain and giving myself space from her is one of the best — and hardest — decisions I’ve ever made. It’s a constant process, one which is always changing. But for now, I feel very strongly that I have a duty to protect myself, and my family, from the unhealthy patterns and feelings that she brings into my life.
If I’m honest, I can’t imagine how we could reignite our relationship after so many years.
If that’s hard to understand, then I envy you, lucky reader. You don’t know the pain of family estrangement.
