Thoughts about Mothers Day

Some days it feels as though even the simple things in life have become complicated.  You don’t just order coffee ….. it’s tall, grande, or venti, which of six blends and would you like that with skim milk, half and half, or cream?  Shopping is no longer only about convenience or affordability or value, it’s also about organic and fair trade and ethical business practices.  Sometimes holidays feel as though they’ve morphed into a lot more than just, “which family will we celebrate with this year?”

Marketing and commercialism has changed the way we look at holidays, certainly.  But how much has our social life shaped and influenced what happens today?  I’m a big proponent of social media and seminars and learning about relationships; after all, relationships are the most important part of our life.  Sometimes, it feels as though perhaps we get it less than ever.  Or maybe a little bit as though everything has mushroomed too fast and too publicly and we’re not quite ready to deal with all the information we’ve been given.  Maybe this has been going on all along and I just wasn’t old enough to realize what was happening, but it feels as though our ready access to information has made us more aware, but not necessarily always wiser.  Take Mothers Day, for example.  I don’t know what it was like for you, but growing up, we loved Mothers Day.  I have no idea what happened when we were really little; but I distinctly remember one of the first times we girls took it into our own hands to celebrate.  Mom and Dad were gone overnight (I think I was fourteen), so we cleaned the house and planned a menu to surprise her the next morning for breakfast.  I remember few of the actual details except that we gave her two mini rosebushes (quite a splurge in those days), and we had orange juice (also a splurge item) at breakfast, and a pretty angel food cake with layers of pie filling and cool whip and cream cheese.  I remember how much thought we put into pink details for the table and how much fun it was to surprise and honor mom all by ourselves.  Sometimes there were Mothers Day messages at church; sometimes there weren’t.  What felt like a big event to us was mostly a small, very private affair.

Today, Mothers Day is still about honoring our moms the same as it has always been.  It’s also become the day we take pictures of ourselves with our own children celebrating our own motherhood.  I wish I had pictures with my mom in those early years.  (Anyone lucky enough to have those?)  Mothers Day is a day of gratefulness.  It’s also a day of reflection, of new resolves and that fresh commitment to make the most of these years whether it’s the time left with our mom or grandma or with our own children.

What feels a little different is that Mothers Day gets splashed everywhere.  Instead of a few sales ads or a big poster over a few aisles at Walmart, we get bombarded with ads on the radio or online.  It’s like the all important day in May or until the next marketable holiday.  It all sounds kind of happy and fun, right?  On the flip side, what about the women who aren’t mothers either because they never had the opportunity to marry or because year after year, they battle with infertility and or miscarriage?  What about the women who said goodbye to their mother in the last year?  What about the women who grew up with an abusive or absent mother?  What about the women who were rejected by their mom?  Not for a second do I think it was any less painful twenty years ago to grieve those losses in silence when people didn’t talk as much about personal losses.  We’ve come a long, long way from the days of the pioneers when everyone bucked up and stayed strong and showed no emotion and I think we’re further ahead by a long shot.  But some days I wonder what it feels like to be one of those women when Mothers Day has become such a big deal.  I wonder if our moms went to church and talked about Mothers Day and if they did, did they talk about their own moms, their children, or both?

When the pioneers crossed the country, they rarely heard news that happened outside of their own little town.  Letters from family members could take weeks to arrive.  Today we can hear about an earthquake in Bangladesh, a bombing in Boston, horrific abortions by a Dr. Gosnell, sex trafficking in Thailand, cancer diagnosis for a friend of a friend’s two year old, slave labor in Asia, and a hemorrhagic stroke in a thirty-five year old in about the same amount of time.  While this information is empowering in some ways because it allows us to pray for specific situations, to get involved where previously we walked by ignorant, or to make wiser choices in our own day to day living, is this type of information in any way overload for our brain?  Do we actually know how to process this well?  On a smaller scale, there is a lot more awareness of the pain of infertility and miscarriage.  There are books and magazine articles and blog posts and workshops at seminars clearly defining what it feels like to walk that road by women who have been there.  They talk about Mothers Day, about remembering due dates, about being aware of women who are hurting.  While I think there is much less stigma for women now because of it, have we really learned how to care for people in pain or have we just uncamoflaged the elephant in the room?  What if they’d rather be left alone on the day we choose to talk?  Is it possible that we will push women back into the closet of silence because too much knowledge has made life socially awkward?

I love seeing the vibrant photos of happy moms filling up my newsfeed on facebook today.  I love seeing women celebrate the joy of being a mom.  But does my photo feel like in your face celebration to the woman who is bereft?  Is it right that women who cope with the loss of their dreams get bombarded with every other woman’s lovely little family?  Is it right that women should feel like they need to refrain from posting because they don’t want to hurt someone?  Is it fair that the woman who can’t get pregnant has to hear what feels like every pregnancy announcement under the sun?  Is it fair that the woman who is bursting with joy because she is pregnant feels as though she needs to downplay her excitement because she is afraid of hurting her friend who still isn’t?  How is knowing so much information about everyone changing the way we live our lives?  Is it making us more empathetic or is it making us feel overwhelmed?  Is knowledge making us caring or hesitant, validated or wanting to run for cover?  Do we know what to do with our own small-scale information overload?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.  I’m certainly not suggesting that we go back to the dark ages of not talking about charged emotional issues.  I’m not insinuating that we’re getting it all wrong; I’m just curious about whether we’re getting it right.  It would be a shame if we’ve finally unsealed the can of worms we’ve all known is in hiding … but now they’re squirming differently than we expected and we don’t quite know what to do with them.

Funny.  I sat down to write about the way my view of motherhood has changed in the last couple of years and this came out instead.  Don’t you hate it when that happens?

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