Motherhood Will Bring Up Your Childhood Wounds (And How Therapy Can Support You Through It)
Something we don’t talk about enough when it comes to motherhood is how common it is for childhood memories, relational patterns, and unresolved wounds to resurface. For many moms, becoming a parent brings up emotions and experiences connected to their own childhood in unexpected ways.
It can feel confusing, and even shocking, to be met with these feelings, especially during such a vulnerable season, when you’re already moving through a complete transformation of mind, body, and spirit. In my own experience, it took time to understand what was happening because I truly believed I had already worked through much of my past trauma.
(Hi, by the way—I’m Leanne, a mom of two and an art therapist for moms in Denver, CO.)
If you’re experiencing anxiety, emotional triggers, or old patterns surfacing in motherhood, please know this: you are not failing. When you’re ready, your experiences can be an invitation for deeper healing and support.
Why Motherhood Brings Up Your Childhood
Becoming a parent doesn't just change your schedule and your sleep habits; it transforms many areas of a person’s life. Parenting activates parts of your brain and nervous system that are directly connected to how you were cared for as a child.
The Science Behind It, Made Simple
This is rooted in something called attachment. Essentially, attachment is the blueprint for love, safety, and connection that was formed in your earliest relationships. Whether your caregivers were warm and consistent, overwhelmed and unpredictable, or somewhere in between, your nervous system absorbed all of it. That blueprint shapes how you show up in relationships as an adult, including the one you have with your own child.
When you become a parent, it’s as though a mirror gets held up. The way you were held, soothed, spoken to, or not — all of it can start to echo in the present. And the sleep deprivation, loss of control, and sheer weight of responsibility that come with motherhood make it harder to keep those echoes at a distance. Things that once stayed below the surface start rising up, sometimes without warning.
Why You May Have Thought You Were "Over It"
Before having children, it's actually very common to manage emotional wounds without even realizing it. Life keeps moving, you stay busy, and those tender places stay tucked away. You might have done real healing work and genuinely felt like you'd moved through it. And then motherhood arrived and cracked something back open.
That doesn't mean the work you did didn't matter. It means motherhood reaches places that everyday life simply doesn't touch. The identity shift, the loss of your old routines, the feeling of being emotionally raw in ways you've never experienced — they're signs that your nervous system is signaling it needs more support.
In my own experience, I truly believed I had already worked through much of my past — until I became a mom and realized there were layers I hadn't yet reached. If that resonates, know that you are not failing at motherhood. When you are ready, the unresolved wounds are an invitation to go deeper with your healing.
Common Ways Childhood Wounds Show Up in Motherhood
In my ten years as an art therapist for moms, the most common question I hear is some version of: "Why do I react this way when I know better?" The answer almost always traces back to childhood, and it rarely looks the way you'd expect. For most moms, it's not dramatic or obvious. It shows up in the way you react to your child's emotions or the anxiety you feel about getting it right.
Emotional Triggers You Can't Explain
One of the most common ways childhood wounds surface in motherhood is through emotional triggers that feel disproportionate to the moment. You might find yourself:
Flooded with rage when you can’t soothe your baby or when your child whines
Completely shutting down during conflict with your partner
Feeling an overwhelming wave of emotion that doesn't quite match what just happened
This is often because your child's needs, emotions, and behaviors can unconsciously activate your own unmet childhood needs. When you weren't taught how to handle big emotions as a child — or when your own emotions were dismissed, punished, or ignored — your nervous system never learned what to do with them.
So when your child expresses those same emotions, your body responds as if you are the child who was never soothed.
Understanding why you're triggered is the first step toward responding differently. This is one of the core areas art therapy for moms addresses — helping you trace the trigger back to its root so you can begin to heal it, rather than simply manage it.
Anxiety Around "Doing It Right"
Another common way childhood wounds surface in motherhood is through anxiety around “getting it right.” If you grew up in an environment where mistakes weren't safe, where love felt conditional on performance, or where you simply didn't have a consistent or present mothering figure to learn from, you may have entered motherhood carrying an invisible pressure to do everything perfectly.
This can look like:
Hypervigilance around your parenting decisions
Constantly second-guessing yourself
A low hum of anxiety that never quite goes away
Over-researching baby products
Comparing yourself to other moms
Feeling like you’re not enough, no matter what you do
The painful irony is that motherhood is inherently unpredictable and messy. There is no handbook. No perfect way to do it. And for a mom whose nervous system learned early on that mistakes have consequences, that uncertainty can feel unbearable — because your body was never taught that it's safe to not have all the answers.
What I want you to hear is this: the anxiety you feel around getting it right deserves compassion and care. And learning to tolerate the beautiful imperfection of motherhood is some of the most meaningful healing work there is.
Difficulty Regulating Your Own Emotions
One of the most surprising things moms tell me is that they were great at managing their emotions before having a baby, and then motherhood changed everything. The coping skills that used to work lose their effectiveness. The self-care routines that kept them grounded feel impossible to maintain. And suddenly they are more reactive, more overwhelmed, and more emotionally raw than they'd ever felt before.
If that sounds familiar, here's what I want you to know: this is not a personal failing. Sleep deprivation, total responsibility for another human, and a complete transformation of your identity would push anyone to their limit. Your nervous system has a capacity, and motherhood has a way of exceeding it daily.
This can look like:
Snapping at your partner over something small and feeling shocked by your own reaction
Crying unexpectedly and not being able to explain why
Feeling completely numb or shut down when you're overwhelmed
Going from calm to furious in seconds when your child won't stop crying
Wanting to run away or escape when things feel too big
Feeling like you're barely holding it together and one more thing will break you
Window of Tolerance
A helpful way to understand this is through something called the window of tolerance. Think of it as the zone where you feel grounded and able to respond. When life pushes you outside of that window — through exhaustion or overwhelm — you either become anxious and reactive, or you shut down completely. Motherhood, especially in the early years, pushes most moms outside that window regularly.
Co-Regulation
What makes this more complex is something called co-regulation: the way your nervous system naturally attunes to your child's. When your child is having a meltdown, your body feels it, too. But when a parent remains grounded, the child can “borrow” their nervous system and learn how to regulate their emotions over time. It’s a beautiful thing.
If your own emotional needs weren't consistently met in childhood, regulating yourself in these moments can feel even harder. Your nervous system simply never learned it was safe to ride out big feelings. The good news is with support, you can build new patterns, and motherhood itself can become one of the most powerful opportunities to do exactly that.
Grief for the Childhood You Didn't Have
One of the most tender and unspoken experiences in motherhood is grieving the childhood you deserved but didn't receive. When you become a parent, you don't just learn how to care for your child — you're confronted with how you were (or weren't) cared for. And that comparison can be revealing to the younger version of yourself who who is watching it all unfold.
This grief can look like:
Crying after soothing your baby because you realize how simple it would have been for someone to do that for you
Feeling resentful or empty after comforting your child, even though you chose to
An unexpected surge of anger when your child expresses a need you were punished for having
Noticing how naturally tenderness comes to you with your baby, and aching over why it didn't come to you
What makes this particularly painful is that you're doing the very thing that triggers the grief. You want to be the parent you didn't have, and that's beautiful. But giving your child what you never received forces you to witness what was missing. Every time you tell your child their feelings matter, you might remember how often yours were dismissed. This is your heart finally recognizing what should have been there all along — and that recognition can hurt.
Remember this: You can grieve your childhood and love your child fiercely at the same time. You can be angry about what you didn't receive and proud of breaking the cycle.
And acknowledging this grief isn't dwelling on the past — it's honoring the truth of your experience so you can begin to heal. Motherhood offers something profound: learning to re-parent yourself with the same tenderness you now offer your baby.
How Therapy Can Support You Through It
If you're recognizing yourself in any of this, you might be wondering what actually helps. The good news is that these patterns aren't permanent. With the right support, you can heal childhood wounds, expand your window of tolerance, and show up for your child in ways you weren't shown up for — without constantly feeling triggered or overwhelmed.
What Trauma-Informed Therapy Offers
Therapy that understands how childhood shapes motherhood helps you heal at the root (not just manage symptoms). This means:
Understanding why you react the way you do (so you can stop blaming yourself)
Learning to recognize when you're triggered and what your nervous system actually needs in those moments
Processing the grief, anger, or sadness that's been waiting beneath the surface
Building new patterns of self-regulation so you can stay grounded even when your child isn't
Breaking cycles so you don't pass these wounds down to your own children
Why Art Therapy Works for Moms
One of the unique things about art therapy is that it bypasses the part of your brain that tries to explain everything away or minimize your experience. When words feel impossible or inadequate, creative expression gives your nervous system another way to process and release. This is the language of your emotions and experiencces.
In my work with moms, art therapy offers:
A way to express what you can't put into words
Permission to be messy, imperfect, and human
Access to feelings and memories that talk therapy alone might not reach
A creative practice that becomes a form of self-care and regulation
Tangible evidence of your healing journey
You Don't Have To Mother From a Place of Woundedness
If you made it to the end of this post and recognized yourself in these patterns — in the triggers, the anxiety, the grief you didn't know you were carrying — You are not alone. You're not broken. You're not failing. You're a mother doing her best while carrying wounds that were never yours to begin with.
Recognizing that your childhood is showing up in your motherhood is awareness. And awareness is the first step toward healing. There's another way. One where you heal the wounds alongside your child, where you learn to manage your emotions differently, where you break cycles instead of repeating them.
That's the work I do with moms in the Denver area. Through trauma-informed therapy and art therapy, we create space for the grief, the anger, and the healing. You deserve support that addresses not just your current struggles, but the deeper story beneath them.
If you're a mom in Colorado navigating the emotional challenges of motherhood, I'd love to support you. Book a free intro call and let's talk about what you've been carrying.
