Ok I need to be perfectly clear here, I am not bitter or angry or hate being a mom and abhor the very reminder of the fact that I am a mother. In fact, I love my three children with wild abandon and count them as my greatest accomplishments and blessings in life. Likewise, I do not have some horrific tale of horrible mother figures who did me wrong. I have an incredible loving mother who I can only hope to emulate and have been blessed with countless amazing mother figures as examples throughout my life.
So why ya gotta hate on Mother's Day Magdelyn?
Glad you asked. You see, I have had some very close friends and family who have a very hard time with Mother's Day. They all had different reasons, whether they lost their own mothers, lost a child, had infertility issues, or were still single and desperately wanted to be married with children. But the end result is the same for all of them, Mother's day is an embarrassing, awkward, heart-wrenching reminder of how different they are. I have sat with a friend and cried with her as she poured her heart out about how inferior she feels and she doesn't even go to church on Mother's Day and tries to pretend it doesn't exist. So, although I love and appreciate all the sweet Facebook posts of "Happy Mother's day to all the moms I know!" I also cringe for my friend.
I also don't like the 'pressure ' of Mother's Day, like it is supposed to be awesome and all about me and my awesome-ness. It's probably because I am a pretty competitive person, but I often judge my Mother's day against others and feel I fall drastically short. As I read the sweet Facebook post so-and-so writes about how his wife is the best mother ever and he's so lucky and small birds braid her hair every morning since she's obviously as perfect as a cartoon princess etc etc I smile at the utter sweetness. Then I think Wait! My husband didn't write a short novel about how wonderful I am! Does he not adore me or appreciate me like so and so? I also love to hear how cute husbands and kids let the mom sleep in and make her breakfast and homemade cards. I can picture it like a Hallmark card commercial. Oh wait what did I get this morning? My husband accidentally waking up the baby at 4:30 am as he leaves for work and a child who didn't sleep well so everyone is cranky and tired and it's not even 7 am. I would kill just to sleep in and have my children dressed for church without world war 3 breaking out, forget breakfast or homemade cards. Sometimes, I feel quite inferior on Mother's day too.
Suffice it to say, when they announced that all the women would be meeting for a special meeting today, I did not have a cheerful disposition about it. I didn't want to leave my Beehives( 12-13 year old girls) I teach who think I'm awesome to go hear about mothers who truly are awesome and remarkable and feel like a failure. But, as often happens to me and my stubborn self, I was humbled by the amazing talks. They didn't talk about Mothers or how to do a + b to be a perfect mom. I don't think they even talked about being a mom. They talked about women and how amazing and unique we are. They talked about how we all have an influence over everyone we come in contact with and if we listen to the Lord we can know how we can best influence others. And we will all influence each other differently because we ALL are different. And that's a beautiful thing. But I think the most profound thing I heard was that we need to be patient with ourselves. We are all so endlessly patient and forgiving of others shortcomings but so hard on ourselves. We aren't fair to ourselves. We women are incredible and capable of so much more then we give ourselves credit for.
So I might come around to the idea of Mother's day. But, I submit that we change the name to "Women Are Awesome" day or "Women Rule The World" or "Love Yourselves Silly Women!" Day. They all work for me and are really the crux of what this day means to me. It is not about if you are a mom, will never be a Mom, or even what kind of mom you are. It is about appreciating the woman you are today because of your life experiences to this point and the one you can continue to become.
Also, I think there should be at LEAST a monthly " Women Rock" day. Once a year? Really? Haven't you heard how fabulous we are, that needs to be celebrated more.
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