This Sunday just gone was Mother’s Day. A day that comes with growing recognition that there is a complexity beyond the surface level idea of buying a card and gift for your mum and perhaps taking a moment to recognise the contributions she has made to your life.
Even the history of Mother’s Day it seems is complex. Some references will share that it was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 becoming an official holiday in 1914 - and that Jarvis later denounced the commercialisation of the day. Others refer back to celebrations of mothers and motherhood dating back to the Greeks and Romans and then to a Christian festival known as Mothering Sunday. Others credit the day to Julia Ward Howe a an abolitionist and suffragette who in 1870 wrote a “Mothers Day Proclamation calling women to unite in promoting world peace. You can go down the rabbit hole of reading more about the diverse histories of the day here - https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/mothers-day.
A writer and survivor advocate I follow Nate Postlethwait wrote a powerful piece about holding the tension of Mother’s Day being a good day for many - but rife with triggers for others … https://natewrites.com/healing-mothers-day/
I loved his highlighting of some of the groups who can find this day incredibly complex:
survivors who didn’t get what they needed from their mothers
mother’s who hurt their kids and now don’t know how to repair
children who never felt like enough who are now reparenting themselves
Children of abusive parents who are breaking cycles every day parenting differently to how they were parented
and those who’s mothers have died …
And there’s increasing awareness of how hard the day is for
Those who’ve experienced the loss of a pregnancy or death of a child
Those trying to become mothers and battling infertility
Those who would have loved to be mothers but aren’t
Those who are step-mothers
Those who give their beautiful maternal energy in other ways to the world - caring for humans and animals they don’t live with but don’t get recognised
Single mothers who don’t have anyone to help their kids “spoil them”
Mothers estranged from their children and children estranged from their mothers
Those who don’t know their mothers
Trans and non-binary mothers and mother figures
And even as I write this I feel so conscious that there are probably people I should have considered and noted who I haven’t …
Like so much of life Mothers Day is complex. It can bring up a lot of feelings and pain, it can be equally be beautiful - and shine a light on the parts that are healing. Feeling all of this is important the day can be both joyful and can trigger all kinds of stuff. I hope that on this Mother’s Day just gone you were gentle with yourself and that you were seen and celebrated for the caring maternal energy you put out into the world - while also being able to recognise those who provide the same to you …filling gaps in your heart.
Let’s connect in the comments about the good and the difficult things about Mother's Day …
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