Saving our children from Mother's Day?

A few years  back writer Anne Lamott wrote an article for Salon.com which has since gone viral.  Today’s post is my comments to her article.  I’ve included some of the original article here, but feel free to click on the link below to hear the whole rant.

   http://www.salon.com/2010/05/08/hate_mothers_day_anne_lamott/

I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate Mother’s Day. … Mother’s Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. …

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. …
It should go without saying that I also hate Valentine’s Day.  

Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, but I am still opposed to Mother’s Day. It perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents.
…
But my main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat.

I appreciate the perspective Lamott, but it definitely irked me from two approaches:  

Pablo Picasso's "Unhappy Mother and Child"

1.) Mothers' Day is just another Hallmark holiday.  Like Valentine's Day (as she did mention).  Feeling less of a person because of society is a cross we all bear.  Every.  Single.  One of us.  Whether a mom (or non mom) on Mother's Day, or a high school drop out on Graduation Day, an old maid or bachelor on Valentine's Day (why does bachelor sound so much nicer than old maid?), or a kid being outed because of an ill placed birthmark, a high IQ, or standard social awkwardness. . .

What I don't understand is why Mother's Day is any different from any of these other instances throughout time and space, and why as mothers we should feel it unfair that others celebrate us.   

2.) I'm disturbed by the fact that she feels mothers aren't special.  Mothers (and fathers) are special.  Simply because they ARE.  If I learned anything with the experience of losing a close friend recently who was also a mother, it was that no matter what I do, I am special and I am important … simply because I'm a mom.  Even if I'm a crappy mom (and yes, I feel that way often).  My friend's two young girls wake up every day without a mom, and lives will be eternally be different because of that.  No one in the world can take that place.


That's not to dismiss mother figures either. When my mother chose a vacation rather than spending Mother's Day with her children, I celebrated my boyfriend's mother (despite the fact that we never really got along).  I did not hate Father's Day because I had an absentee father.  Instead I adapted and learned to honor the men in my life who could never take a dad's place, but treated me well.  Later in life I did not rue Mother's Day even after I had lost two babies.  Instead I took it as an opportunity to be grateful for the moments I had. I celebrated alone and quietly as easily as I could have chosen not to celebrate at all.  
 
Our experiences are clearly our own - and not the result of society.  True, Mother's Day is a commercial holiday, but so is Christmas.  If we feel guilty for not saying Happy Mother's Day than it's our chip, no one else's.  If we feel guilted into buying gifts that's our cross to carry, as is feeling sorry for ourselves because our mother may not have been good to us.  Perhaps those who feel they must do something for their mothers on Mother's Day have a mother issue they need to resolve.  It's their issue, not society's. Likewise a mother who feels the need to protect her child from some unseen horrors of celebrating her clearly has her own issues to resolve as well.  To insinuate that the holiday causes pain in certain (or all) individuals is a blatant and sad disregard for our own personal power.

This Mother's Day I will be happily doing nothing while my family waits on me hand and foot. Does that make me a bad mom?  Maybe.  But who cares?

Want more for Mother's Day?
Saving our children from Mothers’ Day (Danielle Rose)
The Real Emancipated Woman (by Tamara Rokicki)
Make sure the kids wear coats: A Mother’s Day Blog (by Charla Dury)POSTS 5/6/15
The Goddess Connection: Mothers and Maeve (by Tara Ann Lesko) POSTS 5/7/15
In a Nutshell: On Mothers (by Danielle Rose) POSTS 5/8/15

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