How Amy Schumer Grew to Understand Her ‘Loving’ Yet ‘Narcissistic’ Mom

Amy Schumer now has a better understanding of the ups and downs in her dynamic with her mom Sandra.

Asked on the Kelly Corrigan Wonders: About Your Mother podcast about three words she’d use to describe her mom when Schumer was a teen, the comedian said “loving, narcissistic and inconsistent” — and now, at 42, Schumer said they still ring true.

“I can’t say that those three words would change that much. I just have major empathy for all of them, and I see all the same things in myself,” continued the Life & Beth actress, who’s mom to 5-year-old son Gene.

“Just know that the expectations and the pressure we have for our moms, it’s unrealistic, and it’s like a pipe dream. And there’s just no way to get it right,” Schumer added.

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The episode is part of About Your Mother, a special five-part series of Kelly Corrigan Wonders that features Corrigan and co-host Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts, with guests like Jennifer Garner, Cindy Crawford and Bono, who reveal intimate details about the relationships with their moms and the life lessons those women passed on, with a goal of raising $100,000 for EMC.

On the podcast, Schumer recalled journals she had written as a child that she later read when she was 30 “and I was like, ‘Oh my God. I was totally brainwashed into worshiping [my mom].’ ”

“I was so lucky — I grew up feeling so extremely loved and appreciated and seen — and then when I was 30, I kind of questioned all of that, looking back,” she said.

Schumer also talked about an incident during her adulthood when she and Sandra hadn’t talked in about a month, so she invited her mother over.

“She came and she wanted to know what the big problem was and I said, ‘Did you come here today because you wanted to make sure I was okay, or because you wanted to be okay?’ And she said, ‘I came because I wanted to be okay.’ She recognized that for a second,” the Trainwreck star said.

Calling the latter reaction “the whole issue,” Schumer continued, “That’s what hurt me, that her first priority wasn’t … and sort of reconciling with that and understanding more about just being a human, and a woman and a parent. I just understand it more.”

Schumer has opened up about her relationship with her mom in the past, including in her 2016 book The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo. In one essay, she chronicled her world turning upside down at age 13, when Sandra admitted to having an affair with a married family friend — who also happened to be the father of Schumer’s best friend.

Without naming any specific incidents, Schumer said on the Kelly Corrigan Wonders: About Your Mother podcast, “My mom is really apologetic about some of the decisions that she made, and she also knows that I have forgiven her, which is a gift to me.”

“I don’t hold onto any anger for her,” the comedian continued. “I can still feel hurt by her and she can annoy me, but it’s like, she had a mom, and she had a mom, and it just goes back.”

At the end of the day, “she’s always there,” Schumer said of Sandra. “She is my person. She’s my biggest fan. She’s also let me down in huge ways, and now [that I’m] a mom and just a woman in her 40s, it’s like, of course. Who gets through life without doing that to their kids?”

Every Mother Counts works to help make pregnancy and childbirth safe for everyone, everywhere. To donate, go to everymothercounts.org/donate. Listen to the special five-part podcast series, created in partnership with Kelly Corrigan Wonders, wherever you get your podcasts.