Mother's Day

Growing up, Mother's Day was always the day when my sister and I would give something special to our mum, often something handmade - wonky, handsewn items, or crudely painted things - and make her breakfast.  Compared to Christmas, Easter, and Birthdays, it was a very low-key holiday.  Just a little commemoration, rather than a big celebration.

In the past three years Mother's Day has, obviously, grown to have new meaning for me, since I am now a Mother myself.  My first Mother's Day was only a week before our daughter was born, and I remember thinking "Now this day is for me, as well."  

In the past year, though, my perspective has changed yet a little more.  With more reading, more researching, more attention to news stories, more commiseration with other mothers and birth advocates, more awareness of the trials visited upon pregnant mothers, birthing mothers, breastfeeding mothers, depressed mothers, stay-at-home-mothers, working mothers, pumping mothers, unsupported mothers, apartment renting mothers, publicly nursing mothers...I have also become aware of the importance of honouring mothers.  It isn't that mothers are more deserving of respect or honour than any other woman, but we are most definitely not deserving of any less.  What is sad, though, is that mothers are routinely and systemically dishonoured and disrespected.  So on this one day of the year, when mothers are noted and celebrated, perhaps we can draw attention to the ways in which we, as a society, are failing mothers, or are making motherhood anything other than what it should be.

And I look forward to being a mother on Mother's Day, too, to seeing families celebrating with their mothers in restaurants and on patios, knowing that I share with their mothers a common bond and a common experience.  Motherhood is a primordial experience.  I'm so proud to be a mother.