Though American fans generally found "Mother's Little Helper" lacking when compared to the band's previous singles, contemporary reviewers described the song in favourable terms.

Keith Richards composed the music to "Mother's Little Helper" in September or October 1965, before the Rolling Stones left the UK for their fourth North American tour.

[9][10] Written in the Aeolian mode, it is an early instance of modal experimentation in rock music,[6] helping provide the song with an Indian feel.

[nb 1] Dave Hassinger, the main recording engineer for the album, later recalled asking his wife to bring some depressants to the studio, and she brought several small pills, likely Valiums.

[28][nb 4] Author Andrew Grant Jackson suggests the riff was Richards' attempt to imitate the sitar heard on the Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", which had been released on the album Rubber Soul the week before the Rolling Stones began recording.

[11] Wyman's bass guitar contribution includes distortion made with a Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone, and authors Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon describe his playing as reminiscent of the Memphis sound-style.

[36][37] The first pop song to address middle-class drug dependency,[38] it was one of several tracks on Aftermath which contributed to listeners interpreting Jagger and Richards as anti-feminists,[39] while also helping to establish the band's reputation for cultural subversion.

[42] To help promote Aftermath, the band appeared on the British television programme Top of the Pops the day before its release, miming a performance of "Mother's Little Helper".

[45] Keith Altham of the New Musical Express (NME) opined that the song was one of three on the LP that could have been released as a single, highlighting its bass, lyric and rhythm.

[53] On 23 June 1966, after arriving in New York City to begin their tour, the band promoted the releases by holding a press conference and party aboard the yacht of their manager, Allen Klein.

[59] The day of the US single's release, the review panels of both Record World and Cash Box magazine selected "Mother's Little Helper" as a "Pick of the Week".

[60][61] Cash Box's reviewer wrote that, with "Paint It Black" still in the top ten of the magazine's singles chart, they expected "Mother's Little Helper" to do similarly well.

[78] Author Chris Salewicz sets it in the context of a mid-1960s trend of the younger generation disparaging the older,[79] while David Marchese of Vulture writes it was part of Jagger's "great lyrical leap", employing the satire and irony which would characterise much of his later songwriting.

[82] Author Philip Norman and Eric Klinger of PopMatters each describe the songwriting of "Mother's Little Helper" as reminiscent of the work of Ray Davies,[40][83] as do Margotin & Guesdon, who compare it to the Kinks' 1965 song "A Well Respected Man".

[14] Richie Unterberger of AllMusic focuses on the guitar sound, writing its "folk-rock-like strum" is similar to both "A Well Respected Man" and another of the Kinks' mid-1960s singles, "Dedicated Follower of Fashion".

[87] Critic Jim DeRogatis counts "Mother's Little Helper" among several of the Rolling Stones' mid-1960s singles whose titles or themes drew from the band's experiences with drugs, including "19th Nervous Breakdown", "Paint It Black" and the 1966 compilation album Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass).

They suggest the song expresses compassion to a housewife who has become reliant on pharmaceutical drugs to cope with her daily life, while also more broadly connecting modern society to feelings of unhappiness.

[94] Andrew Grant Jackson sees it as a warning to stressed housewives, writing it is one of the few times in the Stones' discography where they advocate against drug use,[32] something Unterberger similarly describes as more moralistic than was typical for the band's music.

[95] Friedan discusses the "trapped housewife" phenomenon, made up of mothers who felt unfulfilled with their daily lives and the societal expectation that they remain at home.

[100] As had occurred with the Beatles' Rubber Soul, numerous tracks on Aftermath were covered soon after its release,[101] including an April 1966 version of "Mother's Little Helper" by Welsh singer Gene Latter.