Did you know last Sunday was International Babylost Mother's Day? (Me either -- I found out after the fact.) It's a project started by Carly, who is well known among bereaved parents for her blog To Write Their Names in the Sand.
Of course, that "other" holiday is fast approaching. The drumbeat of advertising & media hype is growing louder. It's inescapable, it seems.
You can imagine my feelings, then, when reading the paper this morning on the commuter train, I came across this article: Top 10 Reasons Why Mother's Day Sucks . And no, I didn't write it (lol), nor did anyone in the ALI community.
Believe it or not, it's a list compiled from a survey of 300 MOTHERS by the Yummy Mummy Club (which is run by Erica Ehm, a former MuchMusic VJ renowned for her ditziness). And no, it makes no reference to the sucky-ness of infertility or pregnancy/infant loss (although, to be fair, #3 does nod to the fact that "Many mothers are missing special women in their life").
No, according to these MOMS, Mother's Day sucks because moms still have to do all the work, husbands use the line "You're not my mother" to get out of buying them a gift, the gifts they do get suck, and so on.
Yes, I get that mothers are unheard & underappreciated. But YOU STILL GET TO BE A MOTHER. (And a Yummy Mummy, at that, or so it seems...) Your CHILDREN are your gift.
Do you know how many of us would give anything to spend even just one more day with the children we have lost?
Do you know how many thousands & thousands of dollars some of us have spent, how much financial and physical and mental and emotional stress some of us have been through, trying to have families of our own, through medical treatments &/or adoption?
Do you know how much it hurts for us to read a list like this?
Let me tell you, chickies: you have NO FRIGGIN' IDEA just HOW MUCH Mother's Day CAN suck...
(Boy, that felt good to write out, lol...)
I like this! You go girl...
ReplyDeleteWell said!
ReplyDeleteI have one amazingly supportive friend who has offered to hang out with me on Sunday and do something completely non-mom-ish. I told her I was up for anything as long as it didn't involve going someplace where someone that works there might say "happy mother's day" to me...so no restaurants and no to most stores.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteGood for you Loribeth. "Those" mom's have always rubbed me raw, even before I joined the 'club'. They just whine and seem so fricking ungrateful. It turns my stomach.
ReplyDeleteMy answer to them has always been, "Hey, YOU signed up for this. Stop bitching and take a good long look around you. And try to avoid my fist running into your mouth while doing it."
They just have no idea. None.
This coming day must be brutal. I hope your hubby takes you out and spoils you sillly. I will be thinking of you and your beautiful girl.
xxoo
Yay Lori, I praise this post!
ReplyDeleteAnd applaud your sentence:
"Let me tell you, chickies: you have NO FRIGGIN'
IDEA just HOW MUCH Mother's Day CAN suck..."
*clap hands and jump up and down*
In my family, mother's day is despised. Lucky for me, since it's much easier to get through this day is there's no fuss around it... Still sucks though living that sort of undercover-mommyness.
Fleeing the madness towards the sunny south, be back when it's over... :)
Thank you all. I had a bad day yesterday & reading that just made it worse.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I plan to spend MDay hiding out in the darkness of a movie theatre. Methinks "Iron Man 2" with Robert Downey Jr. ; )
Wonderfully put!
ReplyDeleteAmen, sister!
ReplyDeleteIt felt good to read it, too. Word, Loribeth. You kick ass.
ReplyDeleteOh, Lori, I do my very best to not be bitter as well as childless, but sometimes it just bubbles to the surface, doesn't it? To my mind, Mother's Day should be a private celebration between mother and child, not a national whoop-di-doo that drags everyone in, regardless of their situation. My solution this year? Go to England, where M-Day was celebrated 2 months ago. Drastic, yes, but effective. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou can say THAT again!
ReplyDeleteBTW: thanks for your email and the link. By coincidence I submitted a guest post a few weeks ago about M-Day to Lisa B., who promptly ignored it. Obviously she doesn't want to offend her loyal following!
Well said.
ReplyDeleteRe: the trump card hinted at in this list -- I've always felt that Mother's Day is really Grandmother's Day. When I was a kid, we spent the day visiting my grandmas, who lived in the same town, and it seemed that my mom was always trying to avoid slighting her MIL by visiting too long with her own mother. Now D. and I usually spend the day with D.'s grandma, whose birthday often coincides with this holiday, which apparently makes her Queen of Mother's Day -- and she remembers the very few times we have gone to visit MY mom instead, who lives 4 hours away. We will see D.'s grandma this Sunday, but won't be at the BBQ next weekend because my parents will be visiting -- and D.'s parents didn't take the news very gracefully, instead recommending that my parents come to the BBQ, too, so that everyone could still see I & N. Another battle of the grandmas!
Staying home in self-protection was NEVER an option during infertility, because it would have offended D.'s mom and especially his grandma (Grandma trumps mom, who trumps infertile wife), and almost always I heard something that was very hurtful: "Happy Mother's Day --Oh, you aren't a mother yet, but (pat on shoulder) maybe next year."
The Grandma Trump Card seems a real rub of childlessness -- without children, you aren't a mom, and you probably won't have grandchildren, so the holiday may only grow more painful over the years. And that just sucks.
Thinking of you and Katie this weekend.
Pamela's comments were, happily, slightly premature:
ReplyDeletehttp://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/a-non-mothers-day/
:) :) :)