Separation Anxiety - Not Just For Babies.
Separation anxiety is well documented in babies and toddlers, we can all visualise the crying toddler being dropped off at nursery, or the way your babies face crumples when you get up to go to the loo, as if you’re heading off on a one-way trip never to be seen again. But what about us as the caregivers? The people who are meant to have enough emotional development and maturity to understand that we will see our child again come 5pm once we’ve finished work. The person who’s meant to be the rational one, the voice of reassurance.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be going away for the weekend, for the first time since my son was born. It’s difficult to articulate how I feel about that. Excited, upset, anticipating a fun weekend whilst dreading being apart from my child. Motherhood really doesn’t make sense at times. How can I be so desperate for a break, yet as soon as my child is even merely asleep, I miss him terribly, there is no logic. The so-called rollercoaster of emotions truly is turbulent, the irrationally of emotion encapsulating both what it means to be human, and more specifically to be a mother.
Beyond surface level
Maternal separation anxiety extends beyond missing your child, it penetrates to a biological and hormonal level. We’re wired to want close proximity to our offspring by the bonding hormone oxytocin, and when separated cortisol levels increase, causing stress. The emotion may not be logical, but the feelings are tangible.
Maternal separation anxiety can also be due to societal pressures, women are conditioned to believe that taking any kind of time away makes them a bad mum, who’ll miss key moments with their child. Toxic positivity quotes are rife in the parenting world. We’re told to “enjoy every moment”, in this “magical time we’ll never get back”. The underlying sentiment is well-meaning but ultimately invalidating, and creates an exuberant amount of pressure that we really can never step away.
The rational, irrational fears
Separation anxiety is a developmentally appropriate response for a child, but it can also be indicative of a primal, protective characteristic in the mother. That’s not to say people who don’t experience separation anxiety don’t care, just that it is also a valid response from a parent, even if you can rationalise your child is safe in your absence.
Navigating maternal separation anxiety is an on-going process, I don’t have all the answers and its messy and hard. But understanding that its normal helps enormously. That opposite thoughts and feelings can co-exist, and ultimately, that like much of motherhood, I am not alone in feeling this way.
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To (2025). Calm Blog. [online] Calm Blog. Available at: https://www.calm.com/blog/separation-anxiety-in-moms [Accessed 25 May 2025].
Wyatt, Z. (2AD). The Dark Side of #PositiveVibes: Understanding Toxic Positivity in Modern Culture. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zoe-Wyatt/publication/383871051_The_Dark_Side_of_PositiveVibes_Understanding_Toxic_Positivity_in_Modern_Culture/links/66ded25eb1606e24c21b2c67/The-Dark-Side-of-PositiveVibes-Understanding-Toxic-Positivity-in-Modern-Culture.pdf [Accessed 25 May 2025].