No dishonor in honoring mother
Despite some social media rants:
Given our culture’s ability to find controversy and bitterness in any event, occasion or custom, it comes as no surprise that once again, this second week of May became a time for social media and the blogosphere to light up with rants against the wickedness and tyranny of, yes, Mother’s Day.
If you thought it was merely an occasion to call your faraway mom with a word of thanks — or if you still live with her — to give her a hug and maybe take her breakfast in bed, sorry, you’re hopelessly naive.
Forget its complex, seldomrehearsed history. Nowadays, Mother’s Day has morphed into a sinister racket that enriches greeting card companies, florists and chocolate merchants while at the same time patronizing mothers who love being mothers and also heaping indignities and oppression on people who had bad mothers as well as countless women who have lost their children, never had children, never wanted children or had their children turn against them despite their faithful, loving care.
Granted, Mother’s Day has become overblown, somewhat like the Super Bowl, Black Friday and the season of Halloween that now runs from Labor Day to Oct. 31. Still, the notion that celebrating Mother’s Day oppresses those who didn’t get to be moms seems a bit like denouncing Veterans Day because some people were born colorblind, too short, too tall or differently abled and thus never got to be soldiers and go to war. Does honoring those who served oppress folks who missed out on getting shot at?
Perhaps, in the spirit of those who complain about Black History Month because we don’t observe White History Month, we should have special holidays for everyone who never wore a uniform, never bore or fathered a child, never had a sibling or a dreaded disease, never worked as a secretary or became the boss, or never proved another’s Valentine or Sweet Babboo. Then, every day would be Everyone’s Day.
That last possibility sounds attractive, although surely as grass comes up green, entrepreneurs would work to convince us we must send cards and gifts every day to everyone we know. Meanwhile bloggers would quickly decry some way in which such egalitarian recognition oppresses someone, if not everyone, and deserves our withering scorn.
The world doesn’t need Mother’s Day, or shouldn’t. Silent hoists of gratitude for those who nursed, soothed and sacrificed for us should rise in our hearts as easily and as often as our sighs of thanks greet anything lovely, like the touch of an infant’s tiny finger.
We are not the only species whose mothers nurture, protect and, if necessary, give their lives for their offspring. We alone, however, have the capacity for reflection and words with which to name and give thanks for this tenacious force in the world that serves our surviving and thriving. We use our vast umbrella word and call it love.
The ancient Hebrews who bequeathed us the Bible named it indirectly by describing the fierce power we call compassion with an expression that means literally to hold another in one’s womb. Everyone, even men, can do that. We tend to be more accepting, forgiving and careful with those we see as our own flesh and blood.
Part of true wisdom is seeing everyone that way, every day. So long as we still have special days, today we thank or remember gratefully all who bore and birthed us, even those who never learned to love us truly. We thank just as sincerely all who held us in wombs of compassion. Except for all of them, none of us would be here.