Happy Mother’s Day?
In the run-up to Mother’s Day when I was almost 16, I declared to my mother that Mother’s Day was just a creation of consumerism in which I was no longer going to participate. She would be getting no card, no present and no breakfast in bed. Of course, the same applied to Father’s Day. Mum and Dad respected my beliefs and never made a fuss about not hearing from me on the second Sunday in May or the first Sunday in September. However, for many years after that, I usually made a point of telling them I loved them at some point in the weeks prior to those consumerism events.
Perhaps you are thinking that once I became a mother, I realised the importance of Mother’s Day - but you’d be wrong. Although I still can’t stand the consumerism aspect of it, I now find Mother’s Day quite difficult – and so do many others. I thought about my own mother today and her long 11 year decline from first symptoms to death from dementia. It was agonisingly cruel for her to have to endure. It wasn’t easy for me to watch either.
Today I also thought of the adult children of a lifetime friend of mine who died two years ago. They will no doubt still be finding the ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ wishes hard to reconcile with their reality of deep loss.
I thought of women who are unhappily infertile or have just miscarried, and who remain desperate to become a mother. They have to endure the social media streams of fertile friends who now define themselves as soccer mums, or proud mums or busy mums. Facebook and Instagram are nothing other than storyboards for creating fictional depictions of happy families. How much better would social media be for many of us if people told the truth online?
And then there are the mothers who are unhappy 365 days a year: those of any age whose children have died or are missing, or those who are in abusive relationships with no way out. Happy Mother’s Day? I don’t think so.
I especially think of the people who attend my Family Drug Support group on Monday nights. A disproportionate number of us are mothers of sons who have addiction issues. We meet to talk about our loved ones and to remember that we have to look after ourselves, so we can get out of bed every day and live with a small amount of hope that our sons will emerge relatively unscathed from this part of their lives. We’re unlikely to be happy most days, let alone on a day when children are supposed to express their thanks for having such a great mother who has been a guiding light in his life. Mostly, we don’t expect this will everhappen, let alone on a specific Sunday in May.
As bad as it’s been for we mothers, I also think of the few sons and daughters I’ve met at group whose mothers have been addicted to drugs or alcohol for all of their children’s lives. I’ve heard their stories and I can’t imagine how they’ve managed to endure growing up surrounded by the chaos that addiction brings to families. What was Mother’s Day like for them growing up? It must have been sad and difficult.
My wish to everyone is for a peaceful Mother’s Day. I hope that every day, in every year, has some level of peace in it for all who are enduring sadness, grief, loss, fear or chaos. Peace to you all.
© Teresa Russell 2024