my analysis of the mom’s character and internal motivations behind her whirlwind appearance

i think the mom was abused/neglected as a child, grew up and was sent by uncaring parents to marry a cold and uncaring husband who was harsh and lashed out (bc at the time yaetatsu was heartbroken and also healing from his own trauma growing up with his abusive dad). She continued her affair with the person who she actually loved, got pregnant, and probably didnt know what to do or if she’d be kicked out or what. she wasnt, she had the baby and her husband said he would claim it and that was probably the nail in the coffin for her that he would never truly love her or care for her, just be cold and play his role of head of household. when her lover asked her to run away she probably was thinking that was her best shot at living a life with even a smidge of warmth. idk why she left her own child - altho i suspect based on that tiny bit in the field that her current lover and husband is not as financially stable or secure and maybe she thought leaving the baby in an actual house she could inherit would be better? but overall likely bc it would be too hard to raise this child on the go like that, and bc she didn’t have faith in her own parenting abilities. also, post partum depression and psychosis exist! she may have been in a space hormonally that leaving her child behind made perfect sense (and sometimes its actually safer for a mother in psychosis to not be with her child unsupervised until she has healed, so maybe this was for the best!). but it seems like she was always thinking about o-ten, even if just as a cloud of guilt and worry over her head, wondering if she left her child to grow up in a household like the one she grew up in, cold and distant and unloving. so when she and her husband have tension at home she thinks “ah! this is my chance to go rescue my daughter from her potentially shitty home at chieda-ya, and maybe that dynamic shift will overwhelm any of the problems we’ve been having at home too”. (not sound logic imo but its been established that she’s not a great decision maker). or maybe (im gonna say most likely to give her a small benefit of the doubt) she’s been so worried about her child all this time that her husband is sick of it and thats why they fought. maybe he told her “if you cant stop thinking about her then go get her! stop being so damn sad all the time!” idk lol. so she leaves her husband mid fight to go find o-ten and then meets yaetatsu who wont let her see him. as a child of neglect and abuse she might have assumed the worst: maybe he’s locking her daughter up in a back room somewhere, what if she’s not well at all, what if she too is being forced to pretend to be happy with life while living in misery? so she freaks out and runs through the house wanting to see with her own two eyes how her child is. she cant at this point yet imagine that her daughter would be living a joyful and loved life, it literally never occurred to her that this wasnt a rescue mission. and then she sees the truth and decides to bow out. o-ten is living a happy life with her adopted father and she might not have so much joy in the moms household. she also probably got hit in the face with shame/self-hatred as she fully recognized that SHE was the cold, neglectful parent who abandoned her kid, not the man she used to be married to and hated so much. she became the parent she hated. so she decides to leave, likely forever, but then runs into o-ten in the hallway. mom had to make a quick decision about how to explain her presence while trying to consider o-tens baby mind and emotions, and she’s already been described as being a little flighty, unstable, and not good at decisions. she probably thought it was better to say o-ten’s mom loved her but is no longer around than to have to emotionally burden her with the knowledge that she is alive, didn't love her enough to keep her, and will never return after this day now that she knows she is safe. so she chose to close the door forever to not string o-ten along.


this is my character analysis and the only way she makes sense in my mind. i can have empathy for the character and her circumstances and emotional state of being but i do think she has poor judgement and her reactionary impulses hurt people. its probably best that she can just have confirmation that her daughter will be ok so her mind can be at peace on that front (beyond the guilt/shame of abandoning her kid, which she’ll probably have to sit with for a while), and then leave them all alone forever.