Encountering disability can produce an experience of the uncanny in non-disabled people. ‘Uncanny’ refers to a psychological experience which is frightening, arousing a sense of uncertainty, dread, and horror; yet the observer is also left with a sense of familiarity. This article explores the phenomenon of the uncanny for mothers of children who are visibly physically disabled. It is argued that the gaze of others provokes a particular maternal response. Mothers see their own children through the eyes of the other, others who experience a disabled child as unfamiliar. Accordingly, maternal ambivalence is amplified. Maternal attempts to manage these various feelings and complex experiences so as to maintain love for their children are explored. The mothers’ continuing process of psychic development vacillates between integration and unraveling, as they sit on the boundary of their own sense of the uncanny. The article includes a discussion of how the women used the disabled author, at times also perceived as uncanny by the mothers, in an attempt to cope with their discomfort.