Last year I read an essay by Anne Lamotte about Mother’s Day that I disagree with profoundly. She is a great writer, however, so some of the things she said stuck in my head and resurfaced periodically all through this past year. Essentially, she said she hated Mother’s Day because it perpetuated the lie that mothers are superior beings merely because they are mothers, and that it made all non-mothers, and daughters of dead mothers, and mothers of dead or damaged children feel left out.
Here’s what I have to say in response. Parents are not superior beings simply for being parents. Lord knows, parents have the capacity to inflict great harm. And many people who are not parents care for children — and others — with a love and devotion that is surely equal to the love and devotion shown by the greatest parent. It’s also true that many people can’t be parents, or feel that they have failed as parents, and that causes them deep grief.
But, even though not all of us are mothers, every person in this world had a mother — good, bad, present, absent, known, unknown. In almost every culture and religion, a mother’s love for her children is held up as one of the greatest forms of love a human being can express. Christians honor the love Mary bore for her Son. Pantheists speak of the Earth as our Mother. Though we humans constantly fall short in practice, we recognize a mother’s selfless love as an ideal. How about honoring that and encouraging it on Mother’s Day?
A church or a restaurant can give a flower to every mom without conducting a background check to see whether each woman is truly deserving, because part of what we’re doing is recognizing motherhood as a noble calling. We imperfect mothers can accept those flowers as encouragement to be the best mother we possibly can, not merely for own children, but for all people in need of mothering who cross our paths. We can give flowers and cards to our own imperfect mothers, appreciating their love and forgiving their mistakes, knowing that we wouldn’t be here without them or the chain of mothers that came before them. We children of dead mothers can wear a white rose or other token to remember them, and whether our memories are joyous or painful, we can do something kind in their memories for someone living. Finally, we can treat Mother’s Day as an occasion to honor all those women and men who fill the role of a good mother in our lives.
Mother’s Day, like other holidays, can turn into a guilt-ridden, shallow pseudo-celebration if we let it. So don’t. Use the day to do something sweet for a mother, or in memory of your mother, or for someone who needs a little unconditional mother-love. Honor good mothering in all its guises. That’s something we all need and can all celebrate.
• Ann Gifford is a mother, daughter, sister and auntie living in Juneau.
