Mother's Day is for Mothers

What does that mean?

Today is Mother’s Day. Yesterday, I came across a post on X that said Mother’s Day was for mothers, ie people who had gestated and birthed a child. Pet mom’s and others need not apply.

I can see her point. We should absolutely be celebrating the act of child-bearing! It is a huge sacrifice and too many of us who were deluded by feminist ideology didn’t and now we’re headed for a population crash. That’s the worst consequence, but not the only one. There are millions of people who will get old and die without family around them. I know a lot of them. People who did have children, often only had one and that leaves one person do elder management. I’m doing that right now. Mom is 94 and lives in another state. I’m very, very lucky. She set herself up with long-term care insurance, and her brother was wealthy, and his wife makes up the difference in her care. [Gods bless the woman!]

I haven’t been fond of Mother’s Day in 20 years. My mother was a feminist. She discouraged me from having children and because she had terrible experiences with men - perhaps even worse than she ever admitted to - she set me up to have bad relationships until it was too late to have children of my own. It wasn’t her fault and I do not hold blame toward her. My life is my life. No one else is responsible.

No one.

The other reason I’m not fond of Mother’s Day is that I’m a step-mother of a very broken human. I had hoped that my husband’s children could be mine. That we could have a close relationship. His son is thoughtful, caring, and conscientious. He and I get along well and I’m proud of him.

The other one - that I raised - was too broken for us to fix. Gods know, I tried, and no one in the family thinks I could have done more than I did. But that don’t stop the pain, and it has to be even worse for her parents.

Yes, it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. How much worse would the world be if no one tried?

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That doesn’t stop me from grieving, and not just for me. I try to avoid self-pity but won’t deny it sneaks up from time to time. The trick is to look outward and see if there’s anyone I can help. There are a lot of women like me who had no children and are now looking at careers that didn’t satisfy. Men build. Women gestate, birth, and nurture. Careers don’t fit that model very well.

So we end up with pet parents and metaphorical ‘children.’

Most Mother’s Days I cry. I have cats and I won’t lie and say that I don’t partly fulfill my need to nurture with them. But I’ve also had to watch them die. Domestic animals don’t live as long as we do. Having biological offspring means you get to watch them move forward in time. Cat moms, dog moms, and horse moms don’t get to do that. So every Mother’s Day I am reminded that I am a biological dead end.

All that is left is for me to seek meaning in spirit. I have a friend on Substack

Wendy Elizabeth Williams

who writes about this from a Christian perspective. We hold grief in common and reach upward. The alternative is falling into despair, and that’s a deep pit.

Humans are built to experience the divine, the unseen world, the sacred. We have evolved inclinations to treat things as special and untouchable, and somethings as profane. We have a place in our brains to allow us to merge with all that is. Call it what you will, but believing in something greater than ourselves and reaching for that makes us better people. Better Humans.

So on Mother’s Day, I thank the gods for the opportunity to help others. I can nurture more than my cats and my husband [because relationships always need to be consciously nurtured] I can even gestate ideas, writing until I can give birth to a book, or an organization that might outlast me. I can nurture friendships, and relationships that allow for positive changes in my town and my state. And when it’s time, I will do that last thing that all mothers must: Let go.

I think the woman who declared Mother’s Day to be for biological mother’s only is fair. We can always find exceptions: adoption, step-parenting, foster parenting. If a family feels a woman deserves acknowledgement for her nurturing role, then nothing stops them from doing so. There’s no law about that. My husband makes sure he does something nice for me on that day, and usually gets me a card with paw prints all over it, and something pretty and frivolous. [I don’t do frivolous much.]

But we need to honor the women who have chosen to sacrifice in order to raise children.

For those of us who did not: What are you gestating? What are you birthing? What are you nurturing? What are you letting go of?

You’re needed.

I’ve looked for and found guidance in making my life better. Here are some newsletters that might make yours better.

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Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; three boyz. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, and How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition, and The Storytellers: a Journey of Discovery.