The existing scholarship on Langston Hughes contains few detailed studies of his relationship with his mother and its effect on his creative writing. This chapter addresses this omission by looking at the tension between Langston and his mother, Carrie. It is rooted in the call made several years ago by the eminent biographer Arnold Rampersad to infuse Black life writing with more psychological analyses. Using Murray Bowen’s family systems theory as a heuristic, the chapter explores the central issue of their familial arrangement: how physical and emotional distance affected their love for each other and the makeup of his art.