I have been in a bad mood the past few days. After thinking about it for a while, I realized what it was. I hate Mother’s Day.
Just to be clear here: I love my mother. This is not one of those sordid tales about my terrible childhood, and how it’s all mom’s fault. Once I became a mother, I immediately stopped blaming my mom for ANYTHING. Even the stuff that she clearly was wrong about.
Being a mom is hard. Everyone expects us to do everything right. And we are the first to get the blame when our kids don’t turn out perfect. We all do the best we can and we all screw up. My kids will probably need years of therapy to recover from my mistakes. The least I could do was let my own mother off the hook for hers.
No, my hatred of Mother’s Day has nothing to do with my mother. It has to do with my feelings about being a mother, which, you may have gathered, are not all positive.
No one likes to talk about this stuff, the bad side of motherhood. When people talk about motherhood, it’s always stuff like this,
Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. When you were born, I saw your face and knew I was in love… Before you were an hour old, I knew I would die for you…To this day, I will. ~With Mother’s Day approaching, repost this if you have children you love more than life.
Via facebook, what else?
Hey, guess what? Before my children were conceived, I didn’t want them. I never wanted kids. The whole time I was growing up, while other girls were dreaming about fairy tale weddings, happy endings, and being mommies, I was not. I was dreaming about being successful, never getting married, and living alone in a killer loft in NYC. Seriously. And I never consciously changed my mind. My birth control failed. I got pregnant at 19. I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing, which means, I had a baby.
On that note, I think it’s time for more facebook wisdom.
It doesn’t matter that the sun isn’t shining or if it is snowing outside, being a mother is our sunshine every day in our heart.
Excuse me while I retch.
Being a mother is most certainly not sunshine everyday in my heart.
Yeah, I love my kids. I even like them, most of the time. And being a mother has made me a better person in so many ways. Honestly. It has made me more patient, persevering, and selfless. I was going to say caring and nurturing, but I think I have always been pretty caring and nurturing. Maybe it has made me more so. It’s hard to say, since I have been a mother almost my entire adult life.
But, sunshine? Every day? Not so much.
And for saying that, I am a rotten person, no doubt.
We, mothers, are just not allowed to say that. It has to be all unicorns and rainbows when we talk about motherhood, but motherhood kind of sucks sometimes when it isn’t your calling.
And, that puts me in a bit of a precarious situation when it comes to Mother’s Day. I most certainly will not partake in the reciting of saccharin-laden Mother’s Day platitudes. And I most certainly will not let on that I think motherhood is one of the most difficult, painful, emotionally draining experiences one could ever be subjected to. So, I mostly say nothing and suffer in silence.
Before you all flay me, let me just say that motherhood not all bad. It’s incredible watching the kids grow up and become their own people. When they accomplish something or figure something out for the first time, it is really great to be there and see that. And my youngest is still a little snuggle bunny sometimes, so that’s obviously wonderful.
There are definitely great things about being a mom. It’s just not all great. And I don’t love it the way society says I am supposed to. So, when a day comes that all the other moms are talking about how wonderful being a mom is, it doesn’t really fit with my own experience, so I kind of hate that day.
But Mother’s Day isn’t all bad. I got some nice home made cards and a bouquet of wild flowers that my sons picked themselves. And my husband made pancakes, which was awesome because that doesn’t happen on just any old day.
