Two French novels, La vie devant soi by Romain Gary and L’Amant by Marguerite Duras, are used to examine how mental illness in the parent, in this case the mother figures, influences the development of the children, Momo and “je.” As its points of departure, this paper employs attachment theory, developed by Bowlby and Ainsworth et al., as well as family systems theory by Murray Bowen and Michael Kerr. The impact of the mother figures’ behavior toward their children is analyzed based on three factors: the parent-child relationship, the child’s desire for closeness with the parent, and the child’s desire to distance him/herself from the parent. A comparison is made between La vie devant soi and L’Amant to identify the differences and similarities in how the mother figures’ conduct influence Momo and “je.”