Mother’s Day 2021
Oh man, I was just looking at the calendar and I simply don’t know what to do. I had originally planned on writing a post on Mother’s Day for the beginning of the month and then I realized I would miss May Day and Cinco de Mayo. I’m now questioning all of my life decisions. I’ve been thinking about Mother’s Day for so long I don’t know if I feel prepared to switch topics. So, here’s what I’ll do. My intention is to keep this blog going for a long time at least longer than a year. So I will focus on May Day and Cinco de Mayo in future years because let’s be honest I will need things to write about in the future too. Right now, I feel like it will be easy to run out of things to write about, so I have to save some for the future. I know that that’s not really realistic at least at this point but you know what I mean (hopefully).
My History
Mother’s day has always been a difficult holiday for me. Not for what seems like an obvious reason. I don’t feel like I have a lot of happy memories around Mother’s Day. As a child I felt like I often let my mom down for the holiday. I remember making my mom “paper things” for Mother’s Day which were not usually what she was hoping for. I remember the first Mother’s Day after my parents got divorced, I spent it with my Dad instead of my mom. We had previously always went hiking for Mother’s Day with my dad’s family. My dad asked if it was ok if we still went hiking with his family, I didn’t know how to say and realize that I probably should have spent that day with my mom. That was a really bad Mother’s Day for her and I felt like it was all my fault. It left me feeling sad and angry. Those feelings have pretty much become my default feelings around Mother’s Day. As an adult I’ve come to realize that more than likely it wasn’t specifically my fault that she didn’t have great Mother’s Days. It was more likely a representation of the relationship she had with my dad. Now as a mother myself and having a spouse, I realize that any “real” gift that my children give is because of my spouse or on rare occasion myself. As an adult I have also learned a little about love languages and I believe that my mom’s love language wasn’t being spoken. As a kid I was limited by what I could and couldn’t do because of my dad and what money we did (or didn’t) have. My mom often felt overlooked, unappreciated and unimportant. None the less, my fault or not, I don’t look forward to Mother’s Day. I often feel a lot of anxiety towards Mother’s Day as I put a lot of pressure on myself for the perfect gift but still end up feeling like I have failed and given a horrible gift. Moms can be hard to shop for. Now that I am a mother myself, I don’t feel like the holiday has gotten any better. I love my spouse like nothing else but they have a difficult time keeping track of time and planning things ahead of time so I often don’t get “celebrated” on Mother’s day the way society tells me I should. Mostly at this point in my life, I have decided that I can’t stand Mother’s Day. It causes me too much stress but I still feel obligated to celebrate it. It has nothing to do with whether or not I appreciate my mother or the other mothers in my life. It’s just the unhealthy expectations I have come to associate with it.
Mother’s Day for Others
I feel like I am not alone in my feelings for Mother’s day. I imagine there are many different situations that cause people to dread Mother’s Day. In life we can be cruel, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. While I don’t agree with this, I know that there are some who believe that if you don’t have human biological children then you don’t get to celebrate Mother’s Day. As a rule follower myself, sometimes people are just too obsessed about so called rules. We never know anyone’s story and should really do a better job of being considerate. It is not our right to know everyone’s story but we have to remember that everyone has a story. Someone may not look forward to Mother’s Day because their mother has died, they may not know their mother, or they may not have a good relationship with their mother, or they could just have a past that leaves them with a negative feeling at Mother’s Day. It doesn’t have to be profound. On the other hand, someone may not look forward to Mother’s day because they are unable to have children themselves, they may have lost a child, through miscarriage, still born or other unfortunate life events, they may be a foster mom or adoptive mom that is not related biologically to their child(ren), or they haven’t finished the legal process, maybe their child has come to them through different situations where they are a sibling, or friends child. The bottom line is that life is different for everyone, we don’t get to tell them who gets to celebrate and be celebrated or how to celebrate or be celebrated. Be kind my friends, be open to situations we may not understand.
Mother’s Day History
I decided to look up the history of Mother’s Day and boy howdy am I glad I did. It literally was never intended to be celebrated the way that it currently is. The very first sentence on Wikipedia says, “Mother’s Day is a celebration honoring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.” I feel like that sentence right there proves my point and I don’t really need to go any further but you know me and I know I want to hear more of the history of Mother’s Day. In the United States, Mother’s Day was initiated by Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis. Julia was a peace activist and suffragette. Anna was also a peace activist. Julia first made her Mother’s Day proclamation in 1870, while Anna started her campaign for Mother’s Day in 1905 when her mother died. Julia Ward Howe urged the creation of Mother’s Day to celebrate peace and to promote “amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace”. Anna wanted to honor this and argued that a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world”. While the proposal was originally rejected in 1908 by 1911 all states were celebrating Mother’s Day. It was in 1914 that Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation making Mother’s Day the second Sunday in May. It didn’t take long for Anna to regret founding Mother’s Day. By the early 1920’s Mother’s Day had already started to become commercialized, with Hallmark selling Mother’s Day cards, with the candy and flower industries followning suit. Anna eventually started protesting Mother’s Day. While Mother’s Day was a success in the United States other countries were concerned with the narrow definition of Mother’s Day focusing on biological definition. Constance Adelaide Smith advocated for a Mothering Day instead.
Who to Celebrate
I don’t know about you but after having written all of that I’m not really encouraged to celebrate Mother’s Day. That wasn’t my goal, so how do we fix this? I think that it’s important to go back to our roots and what the spirit of the holiday was originally, not the current limiting commercialization of the holiday that it has become. Anna argued that Mother’s Day should be celebrated by expressing your love and gratitude by hand writing letters, not by buying gifts and pre-made cards. The holiday was also originally meant to celebrate peace and each specific mother to a family, not just mothers in general. What that means to me is whoever your “mother” is, is who you should be celebrating. Ignore the people that try to tell you the person you are celebrating isn’t a mother in their definition. Did your sister raise you, regardless of the reason? Celebrate her this Mother’s Day. Do you have a mother and a step-mother that helped raise you? Celebrate them both. Did you have an Auntie, a foster mom, an adoptive Mom, a female figure that you looked up too? What about a single Dad that did both rolls? I say celebrate them and show them all that you are thankful for. Are you or your spouse a foster mom with no biological or adopted children of your own? They deserve to be celebrated too. Have you or a spouse lost a child and no longer have any living children? I believe they need to be celebrated too. Do you have to celebrate Mother’s Day even if you have a strained relationship with your mother of choice? That’s up to you, not anyone else. The point is to celebrate the person that has helped you most in your life and to help celebrate and support peace.
Revamping the Standard
So, how do we celebrate these awesome people who have been through so much for us? One of the easiest ways to celebrate Mother’s Day is to modify the standard way that we celebrate our Moms. If you usually get your Mom a card, try following Anna’s suggestion and write a hand written letter instead. If you usually get your mom flowers, try supporting a local small business florist or help her plant a native plant in her yard. If you like to get chocolate for your mom, again try to get the chocolate from a local confectioner or place an order from a sustainably and ethically run company. I don’t have a company that I personally use at this moment but I did find these articles for a reference, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/sep/28/food and https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/fair-trade-chocolate. If you usually take your mom out to dinner, try going to restaurant that supports local growers and organic growing practices, or even make dinner yourself using organic and local food sources. If you usually buy her a gift, try purchasing from a local creator or artist, support a local small business or even make something yourself. There are many different ways that you can show your mom that you appreciate her in the way that she may be used to but in a more ethical, local and sustainable way. Another good way to celebrate your Mom is to make memories, spend quality time with your mom. If you are further away and can’t visit, or if there are medical reasons that keep you separated give her a call or even set up a video chat. If you are able to visit them, offer to help her with yard, house work, or errands. You can even just go to her favorite place to shop. You can take her somewhere special to create memories as well. Does she enjoy spending time outside? Maybe taking her for a nature hike or a game of mini golf is the way to go. If she’s more of an inside person, maybe she would appreciate a movie day or a trip to a museum or art show. There are so many ways to celebrate and appreciate our moms, sometimes we just have to put forth a little effort.
I feel like I am missing so many more great ideas. I have thoughts in my head but once I try to organize them into a logical format I feel like I forget things. What is your favorite way to celebrate Mother’s Day? Do you have a unique way or more of a traditional way?
As always, stay positive and much love