Mothers that were, Mothers that weren't.

If you're caring for an ageing mum, Sunday is rarely the warm, uncomplicated day the cards in the supermarket are advertising. It's another day with a hospital update on your phone, a text from your sibling that isn't quite a question, and the small adjustment of putting her shoes on before yours.

This article is for the readers Mother's Day rarely speaks to:

• The mum who's still here, but the relationship has quietly flipped
• The mum who wasn't there, and is now somehow your responsibility
• The mum you've lost, to death, or to dementia, or to estrangement
• The mum you've quietly become to your own mum

By the end, you'll have permission to skip the Mother's Day script, and a few practical things to lean on for whichever Sunday you're actually walking into.

Sarah Macdonald is the host of Club Sandwich, the podcast for the people holding it all together. She's also the daughter of an ageing mum. (You can listen to the full episode here. It's a good one.)

On the most recent episode, recorded with clinical psychologist Jo Lamble in the lead-up to Mother's Day, Sarah named what most of us in this stage of life feel but rarely say out loud:

She talked about helping her mum get dressed. Doing up her seatbelt in the car. Feeling the strangeness of helping with things her mum used to do for her when she was little. She talked about her mum reading every road sign the way her own kids did when they were learning to read. She talked about the eye doctor's waiting room and a comment about Vikings that left half the clinic stunned. (You can listen. It's a good one.)

And she talked about the moment Jo described as universal but rarely articulated:

If you've felt that flip, gradually then suddenly, you're in the right place. The next section is for you.

If your Mother's Day doesn't look like that, keep reading. The flip is just one of four Mother's Day stories this article tells. The other three are next.

This is the largest group. Mum is alive. She's ageing. The relationship has quietly inverted, even though neither of you has named it.

You're worrying about her in a way she used to worry about you. You're booking her appointments, reading her test results, checking she's eaten. Sometimes she calls and you don't recognise the number because she rang from the ward.

What's actually happening: the role hasn't disappeared, it's expanded. You're still her kid. You're also now the person who books her cardiologist. Both are true. Holding both at once is hard.

What helps

• Stop performing "normal." The relationship has changed. Pretending it hasn't is exhausting. Naming it, even just to yourself, is the start of finding the next version of it.
• Notice the protect-each-other paradox. She's probably trying to protect you from worrying about her. You're probably trying to protect her from worrying about you. Jo Lamble's tip: gently call it out. "Mum, that's not the deal anymore. You don't have to protect me from this. I'd rather know."
• Expect the firsts to keep coming. First time you do up her seatbelt. First time you book her in for a haircut. First time she falls. Each one is its own quiet shock. It's not weakness to feel it. It's recognition.

For some readers, Sunday is harder still, because the mum at the centre of it didn't show up the way you needed her to.

Maybe she left. Maybe she stayed but wasn't reachable. Maybe she was unwell: depressed, addicted, lost in her own pain. Maybe the relationship was just complicated for reasons that don't fit a card.

And now she's older. Maybe frailer. Maybe asking for help. Maybe just appearing in your life again after years.

What you're actually being asked to hold

The strategies you used to keep yourself safe (distance, deflection, protective humour, polite vagueness) may not work the same way anymore. As mums age, filters drop. Wounds can re-open. Old scripts come back in HD.

You may also be asked, quietly or directly, to do the caring she didn't do for you.

There is no single right answer here. There is your answer.

What you can offer (a menu, not a checklist)

• You can refuse. If your wellbeing depends on staying out, that is a valid form of care for yourself. You don't owe anyone, least of all on Mother's Day, a rewrite of your own history.
• You can show up partway. A weekly phone call. A monthly visit. Practical care without intimate access. "I'll drive you to your appointment. I'm not going to stay for tea." Both halves of that sentence count.
• You can show up fully, on your terms. Some sons and daughters describe the late-life caring relationship as the most healing one they've had with their mum. Others describe it as the hardest. Both are real.

Where to put the pain

Jo's advice on the podcast was simple: don't try to drop the hurt. Put it in a compartment. Open it deliberately, when it's safe to. The shower. The car. The pool. Sarah Macdonald goes underwater and screams. (She recommends a private one. Council pools tend to notice.)

What helps a lot of readers in this group: a friend who can hold the and. "And she did real damage and I'm still showing up and I'm not sure I should be." A sibling who'll let you be honest, not the one who tells you to "give Mum a break."

For more on the practicalities of caring for a parent when the relationship was hard, read It's Complicated, and You're Showing Up Anyway.

If your mum has died, Mother's Day is loud whether you want it to be or not. The supermarket aisles. The brunch ads. The text chains you can't quite bring yourself to mute.

We don't talk much about the stages of grief anymore. Most clinicians describe it as waves instead, and Mother's Day is a strong one. Sometimes the wave hits two days before. Sometimes Sunday itself is fine and Tuesday levels you. There's no order to it. There's no graduating from it.

What helps a lot of people: stop trying to put her down. Let the spirit of her walk with you instead.

Practical permissions for Sunday

• Write the card anyway. Not "Happy Mother's Day." Write what you'd actually say to her right now. What you miss. What you're angry about. What she'd be proud of. What you wish she could see.
• Light something. A candle, the lamp she gave you, the smell of the soap she always used.
• Cook her meal. Or watch her film. Sarah was rewatching Mermaids this week. You could do worse.
• Tell her something. Out loud, in the car. Hear what she'd say back. Most of us still can.

If the loss is recent

The first Mother's Day after she's gone is its own category. You may not feel anything. You may feel everything. You may make plans and cancel them at the door. All of that is normal. Grief in the first year doesn't run on a calendar.

For more on grief that arrives before death (the slow loss of a mum to dementia, the parent who is here but not quite), read The Dementia Paradox: Why the Hardest Conversations Need to Happen Early.

For grief after, read After Loss.

This is the one no one warns you about.

You haven't given birth to anyone in twenty years. But over the last few you've become, without ever signing up for it, the mother to your own mother. You're the one with the medication list, the GP's number, the spare keys, the schedule of who's calling when. You're the one who knows what's in her fridge.

You are the carer. Even if no one in your life uses that word.

The quiet ledger

This is the role that doesn't show up on Mother's Day cards. There isn't a song for it. There isn't a brunch booking that recognises it. But it's the relationship most of the women in this audience are quietly running, alongside everything else.

A few of the things this work costs, and rarely shows up on a Hallmark card:

• Two-thirds of primary carers in Australia are women (ABS, 2023).
• 65.8% of working carers reduce their hours; 45.1% miss out on promotions (Carers Australia, 2022).
• The average primary carer forgoes around $392,500 in lifetime earnings, and a further $175,000 in superannuation, by retirement (Carers Australia, 2022).
• 82% of Club Sandwich listeners are women aged 45–65. The adult child making the call, not the parent receiving the care (Club Sandwich Listener Insights, Q1 2026).
• And the load is only growing. Australia is on track for a 400% increase in people over 85 by 2032.

You don't have to feel grateful for this. You don't have to feel anything in particular about it. You just have to be allowed to see it.

If you remember nothing else from this piece, remember this: Mother's Day doesn't ask you to be perfect. It asks you to be human.

A few practical permissions for the day, depending on which mum you're walking into:

• If she's still here and you're doing the caring: plan ten minutes of scream time. Jo Lamble means it literally: the shower, the car, the underwater pool moment. It isn't dramatic. It's how you stay in the room afterwards.
• If she wasn't there for you: decide before Sunday what you can offer and what you can't. Write it down for yourself. You don't have to announce it to her. You just have to know it.
• If she's gone: write the card. Light the candle. Watch the film. Let the wave arrive.
• If you've quietly become her mother: do one thing for yourself on Sunday that isn't her.

You don't have to perform anything. Ten minutes of scream time counts. So does the cup of tea you make her without being asked. So does the message you don't reply to. So does the candle you light. So does the day you spend in bed with the curtains closed.

You're doing the work that Mother's Day has never quite known how to name.

You're allowed to feel it however you feel it.

There are mothers that were. There are mothers that weren't. There are mothers who are quietly disappearing into dementia, and mothers who have already gone. There are mothers we never had and mothers we became. Most of us are walking into Sunday with at least one of them, and often more than one.

You don't owe Sunday a single feeling.

You owe yourself a real one.

Pick one moment to give yourself this Sunday. Just one.

It might be ten minutes alone. It might be a phone call you've been postponing. It might be a card you write but never send. It might be the long version of a hug. It might be an hour of nothing at all.

Whichever Sunday you're walking into, the day, the wave, the role reversal, the long quiet, Vera is here for it.

• Carer Gateway: 1800 422 737. Free counselling, peer support, and emergency respite for carers.
• Lifeline: 13 11 14. 24/7 crisis support.
• Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636. Mental health support.
• Dementia Australia: 1800 100 500. Counselling, conversation support, family mediation.
• Griefline: 1300 845 745. Free grief counselling.

• → You've Noticed Something
• → It's Complicated, and You're Showing Up Anyway
• → You're Running on Empty
• → After Loss
• → The Midlife Guilt Loop: Why It Feels Like You're Failing
• → The Art of the Difficult Conversation