I was all set to write about how we don’t do much on Mother’s day, how my first Mother’s Day I felt that Frank didn’t do “enough” to celebrate it for me and I had a hissy fit but one of the next two Mother’s Days, I got over myself. I was going to say how I don’t like the fuss people make over it because it’s hurtful to some people, adult and child alike — first mothers, mothers of loss in many ways, children (adult and non-adult) of loss in many ways. That holidays like this — including Valentine’s Day — just seem to magnify the loss of people who aren’t included in the celebrations.
I was all ready to write all of that, but then my sweet boy, covered in dirt practically from head to toe, came in the door with a white gift bag, his name on it, and a poem dedicated to mothers on it. Obviously they had worked on this at school today. Inside of it was a picture of Nate with a frame that he made, obviously with the teacher’s help. On the back of it is a magnet. I’m going to take it to work with me. Also inside was a little plant that he planted in a little blue container. He told me that it’s a marigold plant and proceeded to overwater it. I just melted.
Typically at our house, we don’t do much for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. When Nate asked me a few days ago what I wanted for Mother’s Day, I told him that something that he made would be great. What he gave me was just perfect, and I truly don’t want or expect anything from Frank. For one thing, I’m not his mother. Besides, I just don’t need a lot of presents.
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I thought that would be the end of this post, but it seems that Mother’s Day just isn’t as simple as even what I wrote above. No, now I hear from Erin of Seriously? that NBC has deemed us adoptive mothers non-moms although now they’ve changed the category to “The Adopting Mom,” probably due to a plethora of complaints. My issue is that they had the category “The Non-Mom” to begin with and included adoptive mothers in that category at all.
Not cool, NBC, not cool at all.
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Honestly? Even though I did absolutely melt with my son’s early Mother’s Day presents? — I still have this unease with these celebratory holidays that leave too many people out or that have the potential to cause too much hurt to too many people.
I remember many years after my father died how I felt on Father’s Day. Everyone was celebrating their fathers and I had no father to celebrate; it just seemed to magnify my loss. Even when Frank and I were married, neither of us had fathers to celebrate, so we just kind of said to each other, “Oh yeah, it’s Father’s Day. Hmmm . . . . . so, when did your father die?” Kind of morbid, no? It wasn’t until we adopted Nate six years ago that we were able to celebrate Father’s Day again.
I think the same thing about Valentine’s Day, about all of those people who don’t have someone and for whom their loneliness is magnified on a day like that.
For us, most of those days are pretty low-key just because that’s how we are and because that’s how we were raised. Since I’ve met mothers of loss — loss of various kinds — and children of loss of various kinds, the point has been driven home to me that Mother’s Day isn’t a happy day for a lot of women, for many children.
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Did you know that the first proposal of any kind of Mother’s Day in the United States was by Julia Ward Howe?
It was a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother’s Day for Peace.
(Mother’s Day article)
Now, that kind of Mother’s Day I could get behind!
Tags: Mother's Day
