Grieving your past isn’t linear.
SUMMARY
Becoming a parent often opens a door to grief you didn’t know was still there — grief about your own childhood, the parenting you didn’t receive, and the gap between what you’re giving your child and what was given to you. This is one of the most common and least-expected aspects of parenting for women with relational trauma backgrounds. This post explains why it happens, what it means, and how to metabolize it without letting it derail you.
As cute as that Australian phrase – “Done and dusted.” – is, grief doesn’t work like that.
Not with concrete, tangible losses (such as the death of a loved one) or with abstract, intangible losses (such as the loss of a capacity, the loss of an experience, etc).
Grief is not linear, nor does it necessarily have an endpoint.
We grieve and mourn and feel our feelings about the source of our grief for as long as it takes.
And, moreover, this grief and mourning can be triggered again and again. Long after we think we’ve done the bulk of our grieving for our childhood. And even when we become parents.
Specific to the abstract grief of our painful, adverse, and lost childhoods, I’ve written before about what small moments and experiences can unexpectedly trigger us, but in today’s essay, I want to explore what, perhaps, the biggest trigger of grief about our own lost childhoods can be: becoming parents ourselves.
Table of Contents
- Why is becoming a parent triggering my own sadness about my childhood trauma?
- Becoming a parent can retrigger old wounds from childhood trauma.
- Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
- Being triggered isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
- It’s a therapy cliché: we cannot heal what we cannot feel.
- The emotional pain on top of the physical pain of new parenthood can be a lot to handle.
- Navigating Retriggered Grief Through Parent-Focused Trauma Therapy
- Wrapping up.
Why is becoming a parent triggering my own sadness about my childhood trauma?
“Why is having my own child making me feel so much more rage and anger towards my parents? I thought I was done feeling angry but now I can’t even answer their Facetimes because I feel so much anger. What’s wrong with me?”
Triggered Grief
Triggered grief refers to grief that surfaces in response to a present-day experience that mirrors or contrasts with a past wound — in this case, becoming a parent and witnessing what your own child receives activates mourning for what was absent or harmful in your own childhood. It is not a sign that something is wrong; it is a sign that something real is asking to be acknowledged.
If you’ve felt surprised by the resurgence of your sadness and anger towards your own caregivers after becoming a parent yourself, there’s a very good reason for this.
Most people who become parents experience a sense of unconditional love, devotion, and fierce protectiveness towards their child – feelings that, hitherto in life, nothing has ever rivaled.
Becoming a parent is a profound experience.
To love someone so much and to feel the gravitational orbit of your psyche and life shift from wrapping around you, to wrapping around them, it’s literally life-changing.
Becoming a parent is the biggest and richest human experience many of us will ever have.
And for many new parents, the love and devotion that they feel for their own child can kindle within them a greater appreciation for their own parents and how well they were loved.
But for those of us who come from relational trauma backgrounds, this experience of loving someone else so wholeheartedly can sometimes trigger different feelings for the people who raised us: renewed anger and grief.
Why?
Because our love and devotion and self-sacrifice for our child can more sharply contrast what we ourselves didn’t receive.
Becoming a parent can retrigger old wounds from childhood trauma.
When you feel such profound respect, care, and concern for your child and attempt to do everything – literally everything – in your power to make them feel loved, safe, accepted, respected, and well-cared for, this can evoke explicit and implicit memories about how you yourself didn’t have these very things you’re working so hard to provide for your child.
And as these memories are evoked, as this contrast is highlighted, thoughts and questions may bubble up:
“How on earth could they have possibly done that? I would NEVER let my child experience that.”
“I don’t remember her ever cuddling with me the way I cuddle him – that’s so sad.”
“In a hundred years I would never leave my daughter alone with a strange man in a room. Where were they? How did they let that happen?”
Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
Take this 5-minute, 25-question quiz to find out — and learn what to do next if you do.
“If this is what love is, did they even love me?”
Experiencing love, devotion, and fierce protectiveness for our own children can painfully, acutely highlight the difference between what we experienced and what we hope to give to our children.
That contrast, that deficit, those questions and thoughts, all of it can trigger renewed sadness, anger, and anguish about our own dysfunctional, neglectful, or outright abusive pasts.
Grief that we honestly thought we were done feeling.
(I know this renewed grief well myself.)
But being triggered, having this resurgence of grief, of anger and sadness, doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
In fact, I think it can be a very good thing.
Being triggered isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Being triggered after becoming a parent, having a resurgence of grief, of anger and sadness about your own childhood, may be uncomfortable, but it’s actually very important for your own healing.
Why?
Because experiencing a re-trigger and resurgence of grief and anger invites you to go a layer deeper in your healing process.
Back to the top of the essay, grief isn’t linear and it’s not one-dimensional.
At different points in our healing journey, we access grief in ways and layers that we have access to and that we’re equipped to confront at that time.
Becoming a parent and feeling a resurgence of your grief and anger is you at a different stage in your healing journey. Being invited to dive a layer deeper into your grief again. So that you can feel all your feelings, metabolize them in your mind and body. And heal even more from your painful past.
It’s a therapy cliché: we cannot heal what we cannot feel.
And so when renewed grief is evoked – as it so strongly is when we become parents ourselves – this is your portal, your doorway into feeling more and thus healing more.
When you can support yourself to allow these feelings and appropriately express them, you can free up more somatic, mental, and emotional energy for yourself. Allowing you to, perhaps, feel better in your body and mind. To see reality more plainly. And make any choices and decisions you need and want to make to protect you and your own child now.
Feeling and experiencing a strong resurgence of grief – of anger and sadness – after becoming a parent is, of course, uncomfortable and painful.
And I have to mention that you’re probably feeling this emotional pain about your past in tandem with the physical pain so many of us new parents experience. Pain that comes from sleep deprivation, vaginal birth and c-section recovery. Breastfeeding, pumping, and other biological deprivations and strains.
And you may even be experiencing the emotional pain of grieving your past on top of postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety. (If this is you, I want you to reach out to a therapist ASAP.)
The emotional pain on top of the physical pain of new parenthood can be a lot to handle.
The physical pain parts of new parenthood are fairly inevitable, and they will pass.
But I honestly genuinely wish that you – like myself and so many others – didn’t have grief about lost childhoods on top of that unavoidable new parent pain.
If I had one wish from a genie I would wish that every child on the planet had the experience of a safe, stable, loving, and emotionally nurturing childhood.
But the reality is that many of us didn’t get that kind of childhood experience.
And now we have to grieve that now and for as long as it takes.
Doing this – actively grieving our past – will better equip us to give ourselves the best adulthood possible (despite our adverse early beginnings).
Moreover, this will better equip us to show up for our own children with more regulated nervous systems. And more capacity to act from a place of choice versus emotional reactivity as we parent them.
Navigating Retriggered Grief Through Parent-Focused Trauma Therapy
When you sit across from your therapist, exhausted from night feedings yet overwhelmed by rage toward parents you thought you’d forgiven, you’re experiencing one of parenthood’s most profound complexities—the love for your child that simultaneously heals and wounds, proving that learning how to actively grieve your past becomes even more crucial when you’re breaking generational cycles.
Your trauma-informed therapist understands that becoming a parent doesn’t just change your present; it fundamentally alters your relationship with your past, creating new access points to grief that wasn’t available before you knew what parental love actually felt like. Together, you explore the specific contrasts triggering you: the patience you show during tantrums versus the violence you received, the co-sleeping that feels natural versus the isolation you endured, the fierce protection you provide versus the exposure to danger you survived.
The therapeutic space becomes essential for processing this grief without it overwhelming your capacity to parent—your therapist helps you create boundaries between processing time and parenting time, teaching you to metabolize these feelings in doses your nervous system can handle while caring for an infant. Through approaches like EMDR to reprocess activated memories, somatic work to release grief held in the body, or narrative therapy to integrate your story, you learn to hold multiple truths: that your parents failed you profoundly AND you’re capable of providing differently, that you can grieve what you didn’t receive WHILE celebrating what you’re giving, that feeling triggered doesn’t mean you’re broken but rather brave enough to feel what needs feeling.
Most powerfully, parent-focused trauma therapy helps you understand that this retriggered grief is actually a gift to both you and your child—by processing these wounds now, you’re clearing inherited trauma from your lineage, ensuring your baby won’t carry the unmetabolized grief you’ve carried. Your therapist witnesses you doing the heroic work of simultaneously grieving your past while creating your child’s secure future, understanding that every tear shed in session is both mourning what was lost and watering what’s growing—a new family tree rooted in consciousness, choice, and the kind of love you always deserved.
Wrapping up.
One of the things I’m most passionate about in the world is supporting those who come from relational trauma backgrounds. To heal from their adverse beginnings. So that they can have a beautiful adulthood, yes. But also so that the next generation of children after us doesn’t have to experience what we ourselves went through.
And now, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below:
Did you relate to today’s essay? Did your sadness and anger about your own childhood get triggered/re-triggered when you became a parent? What helped you cope with those big feelings?
Please, if you feel so inclined, leave a message in the comments below. Our monthly blog readership of 20,000 plus people can benefit from your wisdom and experience.
And please, remember this:
If you came from a relational trauma background and didn’t have a good childhood yourself but are doing everything in your power to give your own child a childhood they won’t need to recover from, you’re a hero in my eyes.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does becoming a parent trigger grief about your own childhood?
Because parenting puts you in direct, daily contact with what a child actually needs — and that contact can illuminate, often for the first time with full clarity, the gap between what you needed and what you received. Giving your child what you never had is both healing and grieving simultaneously.
Is it normal to cry unexpectedly about your childhood after having kids?
Completely normal, and very common among parents with relational trauma backgrounds. The arrival of a child — particularly during the infant and toddler years — often catalyzes grief that had previously been managed through busyness, achievement, or simple distance from the original wounds.
How do I grieve my childhood without it affecting my parenting?
The key is to process the grief in appropriate containers — therapy, journaling, trusted friendships — rather than inadvertently processing it through or with your child. Your child is not equipped to hold your grief. This doesn’t mean hiding your humanness from them, but it does mean having places to metabolize the harder material.
What if I’m grieving a childhood that wasn’t ‘that bad’ objectively?
Grief doesn’t require proof of severity. What you needed and didn’t receive is real, regardless of how it compares to others’ experiences. Minimizing your own pain because ‘others had it worse’ is a form of self-abandonment — and often one of the earliest lessons your relational environment taught you.
How can I use this grief productively?
Grieving your own childhood as a parent often breaks old intergenerational patterns — because when you acknowledge what happened to you, you’re less likely to unconsciously repeat it. The grief, when fully metabolized, tends to deepen your commitment to and appreciation of the parenting relationship you’re now able to offer your child.
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You deserve a life that feels as good as it looks. Let’s work on that together.
