I heard yesterday that Mother's Day was invented by a woman -- Anna Jarvis -- and that she didn't even have children. She wanted to honor her own mother, and thought that everyone else should honor theirs, too. After it got hijacked by the wheels of commerce -- the florists, chocolatiers, greeting card companies -- she tried to get it repealed, to no avail. She ended up broke and in a mental hospital. That's pretty depressing.
For what it's worth, these artificially propped-up holidays can be too. When I was a child, my Daddy would always make sure that Mama had a corsage for that day. When I married, he would get me to order those and bring them to church for her. When my house began to fill up with our little ones, I remember the last year I did that...I said, "Daddy, this is kind-of hard to wrangle on Sunday. I have four small kids to get ready for church and it just seems like a lot now. Can you do it next time?" He had gotten accustomed to the earlier arrangement. And had almost forgotten that I was also very much a mother now. For a few years after that, he would pick one up for her and for me. That was sweet, but it really wasn't his job. That was when the guilt set in.
There's a manufactured pressure in society, one that is calculated and guaranteed to churn out money and purchases. Not just Mother's day, but Father's Day, Valentine's Day (boy, do I feel sorry for the dudes on that one), and really even Christmas. All these holidays have gotten so inflated, driven by the retail market. They play on our heart strings and yes, our latent guilt, to make loads of money. I don't have a problem with capitalism or making money, no, it is a needful part of living. God bless the rich people -- they employ the rest of us. But we shouldn't take the bait about over-the-top buying for our loved ones, when what is truly needed is the thought, the acknowledgement, the appreciation for that person, all along the way and not just because someone designated a "Day" for it.
Yesterday was Mother's Day and we went to church. I got some texts from our children and then our eldest and his wife took me out for lunch. We went home, took naps and ended up on the front porch. I was feeling sorry for myself, second-guessing my Motherhood. Was I not a good enough Mother? Did my children get all that they needed from me? Are my children angry at me? Why was nobody over here to visit me? I should've invited everyone over for lunch -- why don't I like to cook? Am I too lazy? What is wrong with me?!
All this silliness, well maybe, and then my neighbor walked up to our porch, needing help retrieving her cellphone. She and I spent an hour walking around, calling her phone, calling other people, sitting and chatting before we found the location of her device. We started talking about Mother's Day and I found that she had the same conflicts about it as I did. We started laughing and enjoyed just being real as we finished our time together sitting on her porch. Right about then, I saw a car pull into our driveway and a couple of lithe, spritely kids jump out. They had picked roses from their own yard and made me little homemade cards.
Too many times, it's too much about poor ole me. What about my three daughter-in-loves and my daughter, who are all in the actual trenches, wrangling complicated lives with teenagers, rug rats and babies? Then there's the ones who have not been able to have babies or have lost them...where does that put them?! And then next month, we have the Daddy guilt coming down the path. Oh boy... I'm getting over myself right now.
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