Help, My Mom Won't Stop Criticizing Me

It’s so challenging as a mother to feel like it is your job to help and fix, only to be rejected. It’s difficult for a daughter to feel like their every move is under a microscope.

If you’re reading this as a mother, you may feel like everyone is always so critical of mothers. We do it all, and we get nothing in return. And I would say yes, you’re right, and I understand why you would feel that way. I love this quote from Beth Bruno that illustrates this dichotomy in healthy mother-daughter relationships: “The message from our mother’s heart is, “I love you so much and I never want to see you struggle. I want to do what I did when you were younger — I want to smooth the way for you so you don’t have to suffer.” But, what our daughters may hear instead is, “You aren’t smart enough to do this on your own. You are doing this all wrong. You need your mom to tell you how to do it.”

I would also argue that we are extremely hesitant to point out the ways that mothers can be abusive and harmful to their own children. Some mothers are overly critical, and it is not coming from a place of love. Some mothers are inflicting real and serious harm on their daughters through their excessive criticism and control.

We have to strike the delicate balance between addressing how absolutely challenging it is to be a mother, how the lack of support for mothers makes it so challenging to be a good mom, and the many ways that mothers can negatively impact their daughters.

Are Mothers More Critical Of Their Daughters?

Throughout my career, I’ve spoken with more daughters about their mother’s criticism than I have sons. There are so many reasons why this may have been my experience, so I tried to find some data on the subject. There’s not a ton of research specifically about daughters, but I came across a poll of more than 2,500 mothers. This poll revealed that while half of mothers think it is wrong to treat boys and girls differently, 9 in 10 believe parents do so. The findings also showed that:

• Mothers are twice as likely to be critical of their daughters than their sons.
• More than one in four said they loved their sons differently than their daughters.
• Mothers were more likely to attribute positive personality traits to their sons than their daughters.

I also asked my Instagram community if they felt that their parents were more likely to criticize their daughters or sons and 85% of respondents said daughters were criticized more in their family. This data is limited, and it supports the anecdotal evidence many therapists report seeing in sessions and online. We clearly need to do more research on this.

Do I Have A Critical Mother?

All of us have been critical at some point, and our family relationships are often where we feel we can be the most critical. Those relationships are also some of the most triggering and can lead to increased criticism.

Please do not read this article and come to the conclusion that any criticism or negative feedback from your mother is toxic. All mothers must carefully and compassionately give their children feedback as a means of teaching and guiding them. What matters is how that criticism and guidance is delivered. An overly critical mother is not someone who occasionally disagrees with you or offers a different opinion. Every mother on this planet is going to express doubt, offer a different perspective, or challenge their child. Sometimes this is necessary, and it is a key component of good parenting.

Overly critical parents exhibit these negative signs consistently, and they rarely deviate. Their criticism has a major impact on the developing child and continues into adulthood.

Here are some signs of an overly critical mother:

• She has mood swings that make you walk on eggshells. You’re unsure of how she is going to react to news, a mistake, or other events.
• She rarely, if ever, has something positive to say about you. It feels like nothing is ever good enough.
• She mocks you or deliberately makes fun of things that are important to you or areas you are struggling in.
• She criticizes all of your choices like clothing, friends, your job or degree choice, etc.
• She is always dismissive of your feelings or shames you for feeling.
• She consistently blames you for everything bad that happens to her and in her life, even when it is not your fault or you have no involvement.
• She is very passive-aggressive and will expect you to know how she feels or what she wants.
• She is unable to show you warmth, love, understanding, or approval.
• She feels that you are unable to make your own decisions and that you are incompetent.
• She is never satisfied with any of your accomplishments or decisions.

Some Reasons Why Mothers Criticize Their Daughters

• The mother is a perfectionist who is projecting her standards onto her daughter.
• The mother has never been able to accept her own flaws, so she cannot accept the flaws she sees in her daughter.
• The mother falsely believes that criticism will save her daughter from becoming her or becoming a version of a woman she does not like.
• The mother experiences her daughter’s failures or shortcomings as if they were her own.
• The mother was never allowed to make mistakes and does not allow her daughter to make mistakes.
• The mother sees her daughter as an extension of her and criticizes anything she does not like in herself.
• The mother sees her daughter as competition.
• The mother sees her daughter as her pet or personal project.
• The mother does not have the emotional capacity to understand that her daughter’s interests, needs, and/or personality are not a reflection or extension of her.
• The mother sacrificed herself completely for her daughter and does not like when her daughter won’t do the same for her.
• The mother is trying to live her life through her daughter.
• The mother grew up in an unequal, abusive, and/or oppressive family/society/culture where she was forced to do things she didn’t want to do and believes her daughter must experience the same fate for a variety of reasons.
• The mother has a mood or personality disorder that is unmanaged and makes it difficult for her to form a true, loving relationship with her daughter.
• The mother was deeply criticized by her own mother and believes that is how a mother shows love.

Why It Hurts When Your Mother Criticizes You

Your mother is meant to be your protector. She is one of the first people you interact with when you enter the world. It makes sense why your mother’s criticism would hurt worse than any other criticism you receive. It hurts because, at your core, you probably deeply care about what your mother thinks of you and want to make her proud.

In a recent study, youth were scanned while listening to criticism from their own mothers. Hearing their mother’s criticism recruited brain regions previously implicated in subjective negative emotions, cognitive control of emotion, and social cognitive processing. Criticism from parents was associated with heightened negative responses and difficulty regulating negative emotions. This study illustrated how adolescents may experience a strong negative emotional reaction, have difficulty cognitively controlling this emotion, and may also find it challenging to understand the parent’s perspective or mental state when they are being criticized.

If you are sensitive to your mother’s criticism, you are not alone. It’s normal and expected. But when your mother cannot compassionately provide you with guidance without being overly cruel and critical, you may have to find a way to protect yourself.

How To Respond To Your Mother’s Criticism

You are an adult now, and you can set a boundary with your mother’s criticism. This isn’t easy, but it is necessary and possible. Here are some ways you can respond to criticism:

• Decide what you are willing to tolerate. Make a list in your journal or with a therapist of the areas where you feel really criticized by your mother. Are there any areas that seem to deeply impact you? Are there some areas where you could work on becoming stronger and less sensitive?
• Discuss it with them. If you haven’t tried yet, I would attempt to safely bring this up with your mom. You need to tell people how you feel and give them the opportunity to change. Try to have a productive conversation and use “I” statements: “When you criticize X, I feel Y.” How your parent responds will tell you how you need to proceed.
• Set boundaries. Evaluate when your mother seems to criticize you and what topics she focuses on. You can then decide where you need to set boundaries. Boundaries are not about telling her what she can and cannot do. Instead, I want you to focus on what you are going to do. If your mother always criticizes your success, you might decide that you are not going to call her when you have something exciting to share. You are setting a boundary and making sure she cannot stomp on your excitement.
• Respond in the moment. If you feel up to it, you can respond in the moment. If your mom says something like, “Wow I can’t believe you would wear that,” you can respond by saying, “I love this skirt,” and change the subject. Sometimes this is enough to disrupt the cycle and stop their criticism before it gets out of control.