Let's Quit on Mother's Day
I love being a mom...and, also, let's abolish Mother's Day.
I have had a few memorable Mother’s Days. Maybe you have, too. Mine are unrelated to the shiny image of Mother’s Day.
On my very first Mother’s Day, I waited to see what my husband was going to do. What had he planned for this momentous day? “What?” he said, when I finally asked. “We’re not doing anything. You’re not MY mother.” (He’s better at celebrations now, and I’m better at not waiting.)
Then there was the year my young daughter threw the contents of her room out into the hallway in a rage. I spent the afternoon cleaning it up, sobbing because I was evidently a terrible mother. (Lesson: the behavior of the kid and the quality of the parenting do not equal each other. In either direction.)
Mother’s Day cards all look similar, and the ads for Mother’s Day all have shiny mom clones. We expect a certain kind of day. Cue Anne Lamott: Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
In real life, there are sick moms, distracted moms, and people mourning for their mothers. Some moms will spend the day at the cemetery, or in prison, or in hospital rooms. Some will be working their second or third job. Some are celebrating the journey of their trans kids, and also feeling complex grief about the child they don’t have any more. Some people are longing to be parents, and others never should have been.
No wonder people take the day off, and stay in bed until it’s over.
Mother’s Day is a day set aside to relieve our neglect of mothers. It’s supposed to balance out the 365 days when there’s not enough paid leave to recover from having or adopting a child, when we don’t pay caregivers enough for affordable child care, when we don’t have health insurance and food security for all moms. It lets us off the hook for the way we expect mothers to be endlessly patient and self-sacrificing. It relives us from wondering why Black mothers still have a tremendously high maternal mortality rate.
One Mother’s Day I rode the carousel – alone – because my daughter refused to ride with me. I love carousels so much I’ll ride anytime, anywhere. I sat next to a young girl whose eye was fixed on an invisible point in the distance. She didn’t seem to see the woman waving to her. “Your mom is waving,” I finally mentioned.
“That’s not my mom,” she announced. “My mom died.”
Oh. Ok, then. That put all the Mother’s Days into perspective.
Let’s abolish Mother’s Day as we have it now. It’s too much stress for everyone.
Make your own fun on Mother’s Day. Get your own pancakes, buy the flowers you love, lounge in your joggers, go to the park. Or, stay in bed with your BFF, Netflix. Send love to the mothers in Gaza and Israel and Ukraine and everywhere. Whatever does or doesn’t happen, you will have had a peaceful day – or simply made it through. And then let’s work to make life easier for all mothers every day.
Want to give someone a better Mother’s Day? One place to do that is Black Mama's Bail Out. The money goes to get people awaiting trial who can’t afford cash bail, and gets them out of jail to be with their kids, work and hold onto their lives.
Original image via Pexels. Altered by me.
It would be lovely to return to that call to peace. Blessings on your Mother’s Day.
I generally end up hosting or making the plans for Mother’s Day as a daughter mother and grandmother - in part because I work on Sundays so everyone needs to come to me. This year I’m drawn to the original purpose of Mother’s Day which was a call to peace. (I’ll be seeing my daughter and mother at different points this week but don’t have any plans on Mother’s Day)