Mothers' Day - Is It Really that Great?

Mother’s Day - Who Needs It?

It’s my observation that for 51 weeks of the year, mothers are generally the brunt of jokes about possessiveness and guilt.  They are accused of emasculating their sons and coercing their daughters.  Mother is the stereotyped heavy (both physically and emotionally) of every sitcom.  

Then for one week in May, the TV ads and greeting card aisles are filled with sentimental sayings about how Mom always did what was best for you:  fed you the best food you ever ate, picked you up when you didn’t make head cheerleader or quarterback, made you the wonderful person you are today. You owe it all to Mom. 

I for one find this whiplash from Bad Mother to Great Mom silly.  Why can’t we let mothers be imperfect human beings all year?

This confusing flip flop between mother loathing and mother idolatry has been going on at least since Ancient Greece and Rome.  While Greeks worshiped the mother of the gods, they denied equal treatment for the women who bore their children.  And don’t forget that mother problem Oedipus had.  The Romans celebrated Matronalia, a holiday devoted to the goddess Juno when Roman mothers received gifts.  Like today, one day of gifts was intended to make up for a year’s worth of housework.

In Europe there were several long standing traditions where a specific Sunday was set aside to honor motherhood, such as Mothering Sunday. This celebration was part of the liturgical calendar in several Christian denominations.  Roman Catholic tradition tied honoring one’s earthly mother to the worship of the Virgin Mary.  Again, women were compared to an impossibly high standard of purity, generosity, and forgivingness.

In America, Julia Ward Howe came up with a Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870 as a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War.  She intended it to encourage women to work for peace, not to get roses.

One of the things I find truly irritating about Mother’s Day sentimentality is the idea that mothers give unsparingly to their young, never thinking of themselves.  Has any woman ever really done that?  And if she did, was it helpful?  Personally, I feel that if my mother had had a healthier regard for herself, instead of trying to live up to the silly idea of giving without expecting anything in return, we all would have been happier.  

So instead of worshiping some silly ideal of motherhood once a year, I think we should respect mothers and cut them some slack all year long.