The Many Faces of Mother's Day

Here we go again

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash.

Another Mother’s Day has passed. If you’ve been reading Flower Child for a while, you know I’m not a fan of Hallmark holidays like this one.

What’s wrong with Mother’s Day?

I’m all for celebrating mothers, but I have an aversion to being told what to do or feel on a specific day. And to sentimentality. And to propping up capitalism. Mother’s Day comes with its own special problem: the day that’s meant for mothers highlights how badly we treat mothers in this country.

Would I like Mother’s Day if I were a mother? Maybe, but I think it would still make me uncomfortable. A day that tells you how to feel, that comes with hard-to-meet expectations, that brings up negative emotions for so many — how could I get behind that?

I always feel like I have to qualify this by saying that if you enjoy Mother’s Day, I’m happy for you. Really. I do appreciate the idea of taking time to appreciate mothers, who certainly deserve our appreciation. But Mother’s Day provides only a token appreciation, one that doesn’t seem to outweigh its many issues.

The day isn’t even in line with its original purpose, which was more about women’s empowerment and a movement to end war.

Heather Cox Richardson

, in her usual fashion, educates us on its origins: “Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change society.”

Its current incarnation definitely goes against my grain.

As a non-mother, why do I care?

I have mixed feelings about not being a mother. Mostly, at the age of 62, I’m reconciled to it, though I would have liked to have children. But if I’d had them with my first husband, it would have felt almost impossible to leave that marriage, something I needed to do. If I’d had them with my current husband — well, we would have been rather old parents, and I probably wouldn’t have felt like I could make a career change from tech to clean energy, which came with a big pay cut. So, here I am, a woman who will never be a mother.

As a woman who will never be a mother, it’s hard not to feel devalued in this culture. Even in 2024, there’s pressure for women to be mothers. Motherhood is elevated and revered (at the same time that our culture does the opposite of supporting it). Women talk about motherhood as the richest experience of their lives, and it’s one I’ll never have. It feels like a club I’ll never belong to. Motherhood is such a mantle of identity for so many, and it’s one I can never wear.

At our Mother’s Day brunch last Sunday at Drake Terrace Senior Living, my mother, my sister, and I were each handed a chocolate rose. Did they assume we’re all mothers? That seemed to be the implication, as the men didn’t get roses. It felt off to me. People kept saying “Happy Mother’s Day” to me, which also felt weird.

Hey, at least they put the apostrophe in the right place!

I recently took an online writing workshop given by a woman who started her writing career as a mommy blogger — though a rather irreverent one. I don’t know how I stumbled upon her, but I loved her blog, even though I’m not a mother. I couldn’t relate to anything in her book about overcoming alcoholism and drug addiction as a young mother, but the story was riveting and the writing was fabulous. Although her workshop was great, I did sometimes feel a bit like an outsider, an interloper: everyone else in the class seemed to be a mother.

But here’s the thing: although I’m not a mother, I’m interested in human experiences, and motherhood is a big one. I’m interested in culture, and how we raise children is a big part of our culture. So even though it’s not part of my daily experience, I’m fascinated by how we raise children in our culture, how it’s done in other cultures, how we treat mothers (and fathers), how we could do it better.

That mommy blogger moved with her husband and four kids from California to the Netherlands. She desperately misses everything about California and longs for home. At the same time, their life in the Netherlands is so much better that she can’t imagine leaving. It’s not just about motherhood; health care, urban mobility, the sense of community, and so many other aspects of life are also better there. But it’s so much easier to raise a family in countries like the Netherlands than in the U.S. Here, mothers often feel like they’re on their own.

It’s time we stop glorifying motherhood and provide real support for mothers. But that seems to go against everything in our culture. So we continue celebrating Mother’s Day once a year and leave it at that.

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I wrote about my feelings about Mother’s Day a year ago and am linking to that piece here; it all still applies, and I still feel like saying it! More links follow to some pieces by other writers about the day, and about motherhood in general.

Other women on Mother’s Day and motherhood

I appreciated these eloquent pieces by writers far better than me. Check them out!

• Why I Hate Mother’s Day, by Anne Lamott.

• Spare Me the Flowers and Chocolate This Mother’s Day, by Kerala Taylor.

• I Became a Mother, and Died to Live, by Janelle Hanchett.

• The Birth of My Daughter, the Death of My Marriage, by Leslie Jamison.

• On Pandering, by Claire Vaye Watkins. Not strictly about motherhood, but this excellent essay gets into how the experience of motherhood hasn’t been considered worthy of literature — and how we all internalize the patriarchy.

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How do you feel about Mother’s Day? Do you have thoughts on motherhood? Let me know in the comments!