The Feminine Fire: Why Women need to step into the Conversation on Boarding School Trauma

At the premiere of Boarding on Insanity, the energy in the room was palpable. As the credits rolled and the Q&A began, I felt a powerful force emanating from the women in the audience. It was more than just engagement—it was a call to action. That call did not go unanswered; my inbox received messages from women who had been deeply moved, women who wanted to do more.

On the train ride home, a male friend who had attended the premiere turned to me and said, “I think it’s women who are going to push this conversation forward.” And I think he might be right.

One reason for this could be the stage of life at which many women begin to recognize the true impact of their schooling. Perimenopause, that often-overlooked transition, strips away the conditioning of people-pleasing. As Oestrogen levels drop, so too does the suppression of long-buried rage. Women start to care less about societal approval and become more willing to engage with the fire in their bellies—the very fire that together with the male voice might be needed to drive change and make people take notice.

A Mother’s Dilemma

Many of my clients struggle to understand how their mothers could have chosen to send them away to boarding school, an act that appears to go against maternal instinct. For generations, women were raised to serve their husbands, often placing their needs above their own desires or those of their children. Financial dependence, societal expectations, and the deeply ingrained notion that men held the ultimate authority meant that many mothers simply followed the path laid out for them. Some had attended boarding school themselves, further disconnecting them from their own feminine intuition.

Now, as more women begin to reclaim their voices, we need to speak openly about what it truly means for girls to grow up in institutions, away from their families. We need to talk about what it means to not have a mother present every day—a consistent, loving presence that no school, however comfortable, can replace.

The Unspoken Severance

When a girl is sent to boarding school, something profound happens. In order to survive, she must detach. She must stop needing her mother, stop crying for her, stop longing for her. It is a coping mechanism, much like the controlled crying technique when a baby stops crying when they realize no one is coming. This severance may happen on the first day or months later, but once it does, reattachment becomes extraordinarily difficult.

Years later, this disconnection comes to a painful head when the mother ages and the daughter is expected to care for her. Why should I care for you when you weren’t there to care for me? The resentment, often unspoken for decades, rises to the surface. The wounds of boarding school run deep, shaping not just the individual, but the mother-daughter relationship for life.

A System Built on Patriarchy

Boarding schools are structured along patriarchal lines, valuing independence, resilience, discipline, and competition above all else. These are traditionally masculine traits, and in such an environment, girls learn to separate from their inner feminine qualities. The impact of this disconnection often emerges later in life, particularly when they become mothers themselves. How do you nurture when you were never nurtured? How do you mother when your own experience of mothering was one of absence?

Breaking the Cycle

We need to be louder. We need to share our stories, our experiences, and our truths. We need to reach the mothers who are considering sending their daughters to boarding school and make them aware of what their daughters—and they themselves—stand to lose.

Healing starts with conversation. Change starts with awareness. And perhaps, as my friend suggested, it is now the women combining with the men who will contrubute to this charge, fueled by a fire that has been waiting far too long to burn.

"Boarding On Insanity" is due to be released online on Saturday March 15th.  To find out more and receive information about how to access it, please subscribe on this link.