Anyone who knows me or who reads this blog regularly will probably not be surprised by what I’m about to say:
I’m not a fan of Mother’s Day.
I plan to discourage my kids from getting me Mother’s Day gifts (outside of school-sanctioned homemade crafts, I guess. I can’t exactly refuse those).
First off, I just hate obligatory gift-giving based on holidays in general (Valentine’s Day and even Christmas likewise irk me). I’d much prefer we gave each other gifts when we’re moved to do so, either because we see a need or we happen to see the perfect gift and just have to buy it. But none of this “Oh crap it’s [Holiday], what are we going to get [Loved One]?” I don’t want to put that on my kids.
But I also have a problem with Mother’s Day because, as Anne Lamott puts it, “It celebrates the great lie about women: that those with children are more important than those without.” (I recommend the rest of the article in the link, by the way).
Lamott puts it well, I think, when she says, ”I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or severely damaged children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure.”
I know a little bit what she’s talking about: I’ve endured two Mother’s Days as a would-be mama. I understand how that this holiday can be an extremely painful day for infertile women, or women who have lost babies to miscarriage or stillbirth or other tragedies. These women may not be recognized as mothers, or may feel like they haven’t earned the right to be called mothers. And that’s unfair.
I would have less of a problem with Mother’s Day, I suppose, if more people saw it the way blogger Donielle does in this article. I came across it last Mother’s Day and it brought tears to my eyes: she sends special greetings to mothers who have lost babies and to mamas-in-waiting.”Today is for you as well, as you already carry the heart of a mother,” she writes.
So if we must celebrate Mother’s Day, I feel we should celebrate all women . . . because we’re all mothers in some sense.* Some of us have given birth to children, while others perhaps want to have babies but can’t. Mamas-in-waiting have already started nurturing their future children (whether biological, adopted, fostered, or surrogate). Many women “mother” plenty of other young people, too: their friends’ kids, their nieces and nephews, their students, the babies they smile at in strollers in the grocery store. Then there are women who choose or are destined never to give birth or raise children, but give birth to and nurture other things — works of art, social movements, projects, communities. These women ought to be celebrated on Mother’s Day, too.
I like how this idea is expressed in New Feminism: since (all) women are physically structured to be mothers — to develop and nurture life within their bodies — this physical capacity gives rise to psychological, spiritual and emotional characteristics that women would need to be mothers. As a consequence, being a woman means being a mother, whether or not our bodies bring forth biological children.
If you’re a woman, you’re a mother, too. You have the heart and soul of a mother. You are worth celebrating every bit as much as a woman who has given birth to children. If we must say it, I want to echo Donielle and wish you a Happy Mother’s Day, too.
But let’s please not give each other chocolate and flowers. These gifts are kind of lame.
*Update: After considering comments, discussing the issue with friends, and thinking over the issue in the last couple of days, I’ve decided I’d like to ammend my original opinion. While I don’t think motherhood is necessarily a more honourable, difficult, or meaningful vocation for a woman than some others, I do believe that motherhood is a special and unique vocation that shouldn’t be undermined. So a day set aside to celebrate motherhood seems valid. I still stand by my conviction, however, that many women can and do “mother” even if they are never called Mother, and these women deserve to be recognized on a day that celebrates motherhood, too.
Image courtesy of Arne Hendriks.