Mother’s Day is The Worst

We post these airbrushed images of motherhood, we type something beautiful about the gifts of being a mom or how great ours is, but for over half the population this holiday is the worst. Can you imagine a Happy Couples Day? Just photo after photo of people appreciating their perfect relationships, but where would you fall in this celebration? Did you have a great relationship that fell apart? Did you lose half of your coupling? Are you struggling to keep your relationship together? Our celebrations are often someone else’s triggers & it’s important we acknowledge and applaud the strong women out there making it through Mother’s Day without some important pieces.

1. Women Without Mothers

Your mother is the OG, she is your original best friend and literally the first person to meet you past the gates into this world. Mothers come in all types and models, birth moms, step moms, adoptive moms, we love each of them in our own unique way. For those who can’t write a Mother’s Day card or take their mom out for mimosas this day sucks. Some moms are in heaven, some are unavailable either physically or emotionally, some moms have dementia or Alzheimer’s and cannot remember that they were mothers to begin with. Grief and loss is tricky on most days, but when your loss is magnified in flash sales and news feeds throughout the entire month of May the pain becomes inescapable.

2. Mothers Without Babies

This one is personal to me. After Taylor passed I spent 4 years in limbo. I had been a mother, I had celebrated this day with my baby in my arms, but now I had no child. Was I still a mother? I didn’t know what to do and celebration didn’t feel genuine. There was nothing to celebrate. Being the emotional cutter I am, I scrolled through social media lingering far too long on the healthy smiling babies and their #blessed mothers. It wasn’t until the birth of my second son that I finally felt like I had something to celebrate. This day is still a bittersweet reminder of the boy who made me a mom and the absence of the Mother’s Day card I’ll never receive.

3. Women Who Want to Be Mothers

6.1 million women struggle with becoming pregnant or staying pregnant. We live in a society that avoids this subject. We ask married couples constantly “when?” while they smile, silently hiding their doubts and exhaustion. For a woman who desperately wants a child, Mother’s Day is but a glaring reminder of what she does not have. It is a nagging fear that this holiday is one they may never celebrate with a child of their own.

There aren’t easy answers to this holiday, it isn’t going anywhere and there’s no reason we shouldn’t post pictures of our mothers or write about the joys or our own motherhood. What we need to remember on this day is that while some of us are receiving macaroni necklaces and meeting our mothers for brunch, others are hurt and struggling. We should do our best to be mindful of our celebration. If you have all or your children or can call your mom up to chat, take a moment and appreciate what half of us are missing. Mother’s Day is a time for appreciation of mothers, but what we should be appreciating is the blessing we are lucky enough to have.

Let’s take this Mother’s Day and make it what it should have been all along; appreciation for women everywhere, mothers, daughters, and in betweeners. We soldier through and we step up when our silent struggles aren’t always heard. This hallmark holiday sucks but remembering what we do have can sometimes make it less sucky. We’ll do it together, the whole month of May. Women and mothers and daughters and anybody hurting, this is our time to show up for each other. The love we had, the love we lost and the love we may never know is greater than any greeting card on earth.