How to Have a Happy Mother's Day
Mother's Day is tomorrow and every store in town is selling flowers, chocolates, wine, and a mix of cutesy and heartfelt cards. The downtown florist even had a graffiti artist spray up its walls with huge blue and violet bouquets and names for mothers the world over (at least the positive ones). My mom friends are already expressing their wishes and feelings regarding this Day of All Days. My sister-in-law recounted for me her plans: go to church alone, workout alone afterwards, meet friends for an afternoon drink. So, I say, basically you don't want to be with your kids for Mother's Day? Well, yeah, she says. Sounds just about right, I reply. A friend I go to church with bemoans the church's choice to offer a Mother's Day breakfast at 9 am. Getting to church an hour early with her four kids is not a treat--she wants nothing more than to luxuriate somewhere in solitary silence. I know from past Mother's Days how this day can affect mothers whose children are grown. I have heard grandmothers note with bitterness (or sometimes just sadness) that they didn't even get a phone call from one of their children. Or that they only got a phone call, no card. Or that they only got a card, no phone call. Or that they got a phone call, a card, but no visit.
I conclude that if you're a mother still caring for children, all you really want for Mother's Day is a break. And if you're a mother whose children are grown, all you really want for Mother's Day is to have your children back for the day. Either way, too often moms end up having a kind of crappy day because what they want--be it a relaxing kid-free break or a mini family reunion--they don't get.
I know because I've had a few crappy Mother's Days myself. My first Mother's Day could have been my worst. While driving home from a wedding across Texas with my 8-month old daughter and a friend, I felt our aged station wagon pull suddenly to one side and then heard a regular THUMP, THUMP. A shredded tire. We were too far from civilization to get help from AAA, so with the help of many friendly folks, we made our way so very slowly to a tiny town where we scored a set of used tires. My exhausted baby and I pulled home late at night to a not-even worried husband, who had not registered the fact that it was my 1st Mother's Day. I didn't care much--my baby and I were home and I had a great story.
That day my attitude was better than subsequent Mother's Days because I had zero expectations of The Day. Later, after I had settled into the whole motherhood thing--after I had been ground into the dust by the whole motherhood thing--I began to expect some sort of special treatment. These were the years that I began The Day feeling entitled to some sort of special love and a generous rest in recognition for how damn hard I was working on behalf of my kids. Sleepless nights, poop, more poop, sibling bickering, lack of funds, hours spent slaving in the kitchen making multiple dinners for multiple picky eaters, more sleepless nights, a sticky house, inconvenient public meltdowns, lunches of apple skins and bread crusts. The more kids you have and the longer you've been at the motherhood gig, the more these hardships and sacrifices pile up. Hence, the young mom's desperation for a little rest for the love of pete.
But my children always began The Day with a different plan. Breakfast in bed for Mom! Homemade cards for Mom! A trip to the park with Mom! I suppose someday I'll join the ranks of grandmas who would love all this attention for Mother's Day, which just shows that what a mom wants she can't have and what she has (too much of!) she doesn't want. Herein is a recipe for many unhappy Mother's Days. And I've had a few.
Speaking with my own mother earlier this week, I somewhat jokingly explained my new theory for how to have a happy Mother's Day. "For every kid you have," I explained, "You lower your expectations for the day." Whether those expectations are for a rest or a festive reunion, you lower the expectations because it'll be easier to bear disappointment. Decreasing of expectations in the face of an increasing brood is counterintuitive because your motherly sacrifices have increased with every kid you have. But my new theory for a happy Mother's Day is partly serious because it is made in recognition of the truth that motherhood does not compute. It does not reduce. It is not a mathematical equation. The family is not a small economy; it is bound by love not necessity.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not acting in love every single second with my kids. When I'm searching around in the dark at 3 am for someone's special blanket that has fallen out of bed, it's not love I'm feeling for my child. Nope. That's not the feeling. But I wouldn't be stumbling around in the dark at all if it weren't for the fact that I love this child so completely.
And isn't that tired, dark search the perfect metaphor for the hard work of motherhood? Your needy child has come to you once again, so here you are fumbling and bumbling around muttering a few bad words and longing for rest, yet you do it all from a deep disposition of love that you adopted long ago when you first held your child in your arms. Sure, you give and give to this little person sometimes to the point of having nothing left, less than nothing left. But, on reflection, you see that you can never give as much as you have been given when you were given a child. Only when you can wrap your mind around what a gift it is to be given a child to love and care for, do you have your key to happiness on Mother's Day.
I'm saying this to myself more than anyone else: do you want to know how to be happy on Mother's Day? Start by realizing that YOU are the one who should be grateful. You're a mother.
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