Mother's day is here, and although my own child is completely unaware of this event, (yep, she has a tendency to be a little selfish like that), I've been thinking some about the day. Honestly, I kind of think celebrating motherhood on a day like this is a little weird. It's like, take every positive emotion you've ever experienced for the women in your life and channel it into beautiful poetry, cheesy hallmark products, and, of course, corsages. Because nothing says "thanks for wiping my bottom all those years" like a flower pinned to your clothes.
Generally speaking, I wouldn't consider myself a terribly sentimental person. (Go ahead, be shocked here.) Of course I have my moments, a lot of the blame here goes to my kid, as she is most certainly responsible for quadrupling the frequency of these. But truthfully, things like those flowery framed statements "Always kiss me goodnight" or "Home is where your heart bursts out in feeling with mushy perfect beautiful family lovey-loveiness that would make the Brady Bunch feel like the Manson family", well, let's just say there's a lot of eye rolling and dry-heaving involved there. Oh, and those Facebook status things, "repost this if you are or love or know or met once at a party a '24/7' mom", oye. I think I'm getting a migraine.
The truth is, as an aspect of my lack of sentimentality, I also have a tendency to not view many things through rose colored glasses. There's no perfect person, so there's perfect family, perfect relationship, and despite what all the marketing leads you to believe ::Gasp:: no perfect mom.
Now, I love my mom. I think she did a pretty great job. We have a strong relationship, we've gone through things, we've learned, we've both done good, and we've both made some mistakes. And I LOVE being a mom. And just like my own mom, I think I'm doing okay, I'm learning, I do some things well, and I make mistakes. Contrary to those viral facebook posts and every Mother's Day card I've ever seen (oh GOSH you have no idea how I hate those cards and there blatant and pathetic attempts at tear-jerking) I've never met a perfect mom, and I'm not going to be a perfect mom. I'm going to do my very best, and then I'll pay the therapy bill to clean up whatever messes I make. But the point is, I'm going to be humble enough to accept that I will (and have) made those messes. I'm going to work hard to be a good mom, but I'm not going to assume that motherhood is somehow magical or miraculous and use it to elevate myself to some sort of glowing sainthood.
Of course, that's not to say I'm going to turn down a little extra attention and pampering from the hubs. I've cleaned up enough poop out of places where poop was never meant to be already. There's just no way I'd deny an excuse to take a day off.
Happy Motherhood y'all!
Stories and gripings about exercise, dieting, life, and what it's been like learning to leave the love handles behind.
I'd like some discussion on theological justification behind Mother's Day. The roots of Mother's Day is in pagan worship of their goddesses. The church took the holiday over (as they did for Christmas and probably Easter) and made it about "mothers". Where as I can accept Christmas and Easter - because it's for all, I'd like the Biblical justification for celebrating "mothers"; it's both exclusive and cruel to men, the single, and the barren. How does this exclusivity demonstrate the gospel message and God's heart towards ALL ... even all women? So ... needless to say it's a sucky day for the likes of me ... and ... discuss ...
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of interesting, I sort of got into this discussion earlier today with a couple of people at church. A few people had told this one young woman "Happy FUTURE Mother's Day" and I'm pretty sure she actually responded, "What if I was barren?!?" We have loads of people who have dealt with fertility issues at our church, and it's something maaaybe more people should consider.
ReplyDeleteNow I hadn't known that the roots here were all the way back to some Greco-Roman rituals, I assumed it was more Hallmark than anything. I guess the idea is "parenting can be a thankless job, let's thank people for it", same reason why we have secretary days and what not. But as Christians, well, if we're going to "boast in anything", functioning uteruses (uteri?) is probably not that one thing, and if this stupid Hallmark-day serves to divide and injure more than it does uplift and unite, then I say, trash the damn thing. But that's just one lady's thoughts. Love ya sis! Hope you survived the day without punching TOO many new holes in the walls of your chic upscale New York apartment!