Mothers Day
Had a great Mother’s Day… as well as can be expected anyway. It’s funny because the more kids you have and the older they are the less impressed you become with ‘Mother’s Day.’ It’s not that I don’t enjoy an entire day devoted to mothers and the appreciation thereof, but truly, moms are overworked, underappreciated, and definitely underpaid. One day a year is hardly sufficient to show the true appreciation we have more than earned and definitely deserve.
My mom and I have decided that next year we will leave the children with their fathers and just disappear for a day of spa treatments or shopping at the beach or something without children. I am fifteen years older than my younger brother and he is just six months older than my son. Both are 13 and attend the same school. At times, my mom and I are truly kindred spirits in ways beyond that of just being mom and daughter. From my point of view I can now fully appreciate what my mother went through, not only to bring us into the world, but to raise us and endure all of the heartache and bliss that having children brings.
This is another truth of Mother’s Day that you don’t realize until you have children, it changes the relationship between you and your mother. No longer are you a daughter, you are a fellow parenting soldier, you share the unique view of the motherhood trenches and as such can finally express freely sentiments that only mothers can share and understand.
Only a mother can understand the love you have for your children while having a distinct and overpowering desire to disappear out of their grasp for just a day or two. Only another mother can understand the ability to love and adore a child even while suppressing the desire to drop-kick said child into the parking lot after the delightful little imp has bitten you for the second time while you are shopping. And, only another mother can appreciate the love and affection a mom has for her children while truly appreciating and rejoicing in vasectomies and the appropriate use of birth control.
To say that motherhood is challenging is like saying that it’s rather breezy when in fact there is a tremendous hurricane blowing outside. It’s not to say that I don’t enjoy being a mother, I happen to love it, it’s truly the roller coaster that I could never have missed riding. That’s not to say that it doesn’t make me incredibly queasy at times and at others make me feel as if my heart is pounding in my throat.
While searching for quotes to add to the cards I made for Mother’s Day I found one that I think is the absolute epitome of motherhood, “Making the decision to have a child - it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body” - Elizabeth Stone. That’s it exactly, motherhood in a nutshell. A sentiment so vast that to choose just one day a year to pause and appreciate it is really too small a gesture.
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May 11th, 2005
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Posted in: Personally
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