https://www.scarymommy.com/parenting/devouring-mother-paren…

A Therapist Reveals Signs That You Might Be A "Devouring Mother"
The internet chimed in with their own devouring mother anecdotes.
Mother-child relationships are complicated. There is really no work-around for somehow screwing things up with our kids one way or another during the journey of parenthood. We’re humans. It happens.
However, there is a subsect of mothers who do little to nothing to try and counteract those mistakes we make as moms. In fact, they do everything in their power to make things as toxic as possible. In the psychology world, these types of parents are called “devouring mothers.”
What is a devouring mother?
In a now-viral TikTok, content creator and licensed therapist Jim Brillon expands on signs that you have a devouring mother or possibly are one yourself. The devouring mother is a psychological archetype that describes a mother who is overbearing, controlling, and manipulative towards her children. This personality disorder is often seen in those with borderline personality disorders or narcissism.
A devouring mother doesn’t want her children to spread their wings and fly. They want them dependent, downtrodden, and constantly in need of their mother. She essentially wants to “devour” them whole in order to keep their kids as close as possible with no chance to develop an identity of their own.
“It's an analytical term referring to kind of this shadow side of the mother archetype. It's somebody who consumes their children psychologically and emotionally instilling guilt in them for leaving or for becoming an independent autonomous human,” Brillon explains.
According to Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, the mother archetype is usually associated with qualities such as nurturing, love, compassion, and protection.
However, there is also the devouring mother archetype, the shadow aspect of The Mother, which is a “manifestation of the negative aspects or shadow side of the mother archetype.”
To Sigmund Freud, the devouring mother wa…