Mother’s Day musings

Of holidays in the year, the one that causes me the most discomfort is Mother’s Day. Ever since I became a mother six-plus decades ago, I’ve felt a tad fraudulent.

For openers, the qualifications required to be a mother are not rigorous. You don’t have to study or demonstrate skills or pass tests or promise to do your duty.

Think about it. You need more qualifications for practically any job on the planet than for taking on the world’s most important job–being a parent and therefore sharing responsibility for the survival of our species.

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Mother knows best? I don’t recall ever feeling sure that I knew best. I was just doing the best I could, from a state of complete overwhelm.

In those days, as now, advice was available from everywhere. Today’s advice is available from more sources. However, as in the olden days, advice is conflicting. Who do you believe?

“Trust your instincts,” somebody said. I didn’t know if I had any instincts. The expectation that I should know best–when I knew I did not – was hugely intimidating.

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When I became a mother, I experienced for the first time how profoundly we cannot ever be totally in control. Once you’re pregnant, your body will do what your body will do. Whether you take prenatal classes or watch videos or read information or don’t do any of that, your labour and delivery is going to be what it’s going to be. If you’re fortunate, you can arrange for a helpful environment. You cannot control how your body handles the process.

A humbling but useful life lesson: do not expect that you will ever be able to control every aspect of your body or your life.

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I’ve listened to stories of men and women whose lives have been enriched or even saved by the actions and words of their mothers. I’ve listened to stories of women and men who have been harmed beyond words by the actions and words of their mothers.

I’ve spent time with young mothers, mostly in their teens, who were trying to get off the streets. When I listened to stories of what these young women had been through, I ached for them. I marvelled at their fierce determination to provide a different world for their babies.

One young mom was inundated with desperate calls from her mother who was homeless again and wanting to couch surf with the daughter. The daughter wanted to help her mother. She also knew that her alcoholic drug-addicted mother would be destructive to the young mom’s fragile living arrangement with her baby.

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Motherhood taught me that pure joy shows up in unexpected forms, in moments of delight that you could never have created intentionally.

Motherhood taught me that some things cannot be fixed. You can’t click a “reset” button and make things like they were before.

When I became a mother, I became more compassionate of my own mother.

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Here’s what I’ve concluded–tentatively!

Whether by choice or by accident, the majority of women become mothers.

Most mothers love their children as best they can, shaped in part by how they have or have not been loved.

Most mothers do the best they can with what they know and what they’re capable of and what their children present to them that nobody could have predicted.

On Mother’s Day, let us honour our mothers in a way that makes sense for us–including not at all! Let us have compassion for mothers and children doing the best they can.

On Mother’s Day, for those of us who are mothers, let us appreciate the gifts that motherhood has given us. Let us be at peace with ourselves and however our children choose to recognize the day–including not at all!

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