mothering

Mothers Day is a difficult day for many mothers. All the efforts to honor motherhood seem to fall short of capturing the challenges mothers face and the sacrifices they make for their children. There truly is no way to adequately honor them on a single day. But we try. Since it falls on a Sunday, the meetings at church focus on motherhood. I am always grateful when the talks aren’t too sappy. Traditionally, each mother receives a small token of appreciation, perhaps a plant for her garden, assuming she has a garden. This year we each received a chrysanthemum stem (I was glad it didn’t wilt by the time meetings were through and we got it home into some water). This year they also decided to include all the girls twelve years old and up, honoring them as future mothers. I thought that was nice. But afterwards an older gentleman approached me for my “take” on that, complaining that it was inappropriate to honor women/girls who weren’t even mothers; according to him, there should even be some sort of standard for women who are mothers, for, in his words, bad mothers shouldn’t receive a flower/recognition at all!

I chuckled to myself, it’s just a flower after all, but he was serious, so I shared with him my thoughts on the matter. Mothers day isn’t about mothers, it is about “motherers” and “mothering”. I think back on my own daughter when, at age three and a half, her little brother was born. Having that little baby in our home brought out a mothering side to her. She became protective, nurturing, tender at times, stern at others. She was comforting, encouraging, she delighted in his accomplishments and his cuteness. When he learned to do somersaults she’d count for him as he’d somersault back and forth across the living room floor in a flurry of tumbles, sometimes a hundred at a time. Then she’d giggle and catch him when dizziness overtook him. She plays games with him, she takes him places, she manages his tennis team. She reminds him to brush his teeth and do his homework. She is, well, his other mother, and it does my heart good to see their relationship. She comes by it honestly, I was that way with my little brothers and sisters, and I have seen it in other big sisters, aunts, teachers, and neighbors, as well as mothers. It is something in-born in girls and it was ever thus.

And so, on Mothers Day this year, she and I put our mums together in the same vase, mother and future mother, two motherers. Mothering is hard work, but we are doing a good job!