Why does Elizabeth feel as if her mother let her down in the novel, Want?

Elizabeth feels as if her mother, a lawyer, didn't show her the sort of love and affection she needed as a child. She grows frustrated when Elizabeth does not succeed, and then, when Elizabeth is in college, and her depression worsens, Elizabeth's mother fails to support her. Though she pays for her therapy, she does not try to understand Elizabeth, and believes psychoanalysis is a waste of money.

In the present, after Elizabeth visits her parents in Florida, her mother calls her, threatening to take her children away from her. Though Elizabeth is disturbed, this is not the first time her mother has suggested something similar. By the end of the novel, however, her mother seems to have softened.