The notion that “a mother is only as happy as her saddest child” is a saying that some have heard, and surprisingly some have grossly misinterpreted.  I do have a friend who I don’t speak to often, but when we do, she always asks me how my son is doing.  She then often repeats this famous quote to me.

What does it actually mean?  And is it really universally true?

From my understanding, this saying about a mother only being as happy as her saddest child is a testament to the enduring soul and emotional connection a mother has with her children, perhaps even decades after the umbilical cord has been severed.  And since I experience periodic existential despair, I can relate all too well to this popular saying.

I have a harder time than most people, being carefree and even “elated” in a world where there is so much human and animal suffering.  The suffering in the world does influence how I relate to any victories, achievements or milestones in my own life.   It’s like that old saying, “there by the Grace of God go I.”  I sometimes feel lucky and undeserving.

And so, if a mother has more than one child and one child is doing fantastic while another is doing poorly, the mother’s mood or reference point is with the saddest child.  We can experience this in so many different ways. As well, siblings of a mentally ill brother or sister can experience “survivor’s guilt” in that they “came out normal” while their sibling did not.

It would probably be a good exercise in mental health, if a mother with more than one child could really counter her sadness with the joy and good feelings around the child who is excelling in their life and perhaps some mothers can do that.   But we also know that negative actions often gets more attention.  If a mother has one child graduating from Harvard, while another one sits in jail in a psychotic stupor, the mother is not likely to feel all that wonderful.  The negative can cancel out the positive. She will be emotionally tied to the saddest child.

For years, as my son went from one psychotic episode to the next, if we got lucky it resulted in a hospitalization. I remember the expressions on the nurses faces when they would ask me if I had any other children. I know they wanted to make me feel better, by asking me to tell them about another child who may have been doing really well in their life, perhaps to even take my mind off the emergency at hand.   Once the nurses realized that I had no other children, they looked embarrassed that they asked, and their next attempt to make me feel better was to say, “well, he’s young.”  The implication here was that, in time and with the natural process of maturation, my young-out-of-control son would eventually calm down and be more stable.  Fortunately, that day did eventually come a decade later, but it was not through a natural process of becoming more mature.  It was only when my son received high-level private care, and no more at the mercy of the broken public mental healthcare system, that the tides were turned in our favor.

For some mothers, that day never comes. Another friend of mine knew that her son was “different” at 18 months.  He died suddenly in his early forties. For her, it was 40 years of non-stop worry and drama.  In her own life, and as a cancer survivor, she could only being as happy as her saddest only son.

 

Kartar Diamond is a Mental Illness Advocate for fellow family members and the author of Noah’s Schizophrenia: A Mother’s Search for Truth