Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance

by Kelly McDaniel

without early maternal nurturance, we grow up hungry for touch and belonging. Without early maternal protection, we are constantly anxious and afraid. Without maternal guidance, we lack an internal compass directing our choices. These are the symptoms of Mother Hunger.

Mother Hunger is a term I created to describe what it feels like to grow up without a quality of mothering that imprints emotional worth and relational security.

Many of us mistake Mother Hunger for a craving for romantic love. But in truth, we are longing for the love we didn’t receive during our formative moments, months, and years.

As a child, if essential elements of maternal nurturance and protection were missing, you didn’t stop loving your mother—you simply didn’t learn to love yourself. This is the essence of Mother Hunger.

the daily interactions and nighttime comfort between mother and child “are the neurobiological glue for all future healthy relationships.”

For a baby, feelings are facts. If baby is afraid or hungry and a sensitive adult responds to her cues, all is well. If no one is there, all is not well. Separation from a familiar caregiver means danger. Emotions are stored in the body and create a certain reality or belief system: The world is safe and so am I or The world is scary and I’m all alone. Stored sensations like these become implicit memories. Unlike explicit memory that is conscious and has language, implicit memory is unconscious and has none. Implicit memories reside deep within the limbic structures of the brain, silently whispering messages of safety or danger to the rest of the body.

The first environment each and every one of us experiences is our biological mother. In utero, her emotions and nutrition inform us about the world we are entering and how to live in it.

Neuroscience informs us that the brain doesn’t differentiate emotional pain from physical pain.

Fortunately, mistakes don’t create Mother Hunger. Mother Hunger comes from unacknowledged damage to nurturance, protection, or guidance.

Mother Hunger thrives and endures in a climate of loneliness, fear, and shame. These stressful emotions regularly need addictive relief, which is why, for so many, food, sex, love, work, exercise, or spending can become addictive.

A tuned-in mother observes what calms her baby. A nurturing mother adjusts her touch in ways that her baby likes. She looks for hints that indicate her baby is lonely or scared. A tuned-in mother gives her child space when the little one seems satisfied. These are the powerful yet simple gestures that create a relationship. Attunement is a verb and an active expression of love.

Insecure attachment can lead to symptoms of anxiety. Trusting others is difficult, as is concentration. When kids reach middle school age, insecure attachment may show up as depression, indecisiveness, procrastination, social isolation, disordered eating, or addiction. Attachment science tells us that about 50 percent of the population has an insecure attachment style.11

Mother Hunger is the term that describes what insecure attachment feels like—a hunger for belonging, for affection, and for security that doesn’t go away despite all kinds of psychological gymnastics.

As adults, anxiously attached women lack the inner structure to be comfortable with themselves and others. They crave closeness with friends and partners but are easily jealous and quick to anger. Adapted to deprivation, they have learned there’s a limited love supply.