Nancy is the infant not yet in the photo
Ode to Mom
I am the youngest of eight children. I was born in 1963, a bygone era of large families and stay-at-home moms. My mother had eight children within 13 years with a few miscarriages thrown in for good pregnancy measure.
We are Irish Catholics with no sense of rhythm and therefore yearly pregnancies were the norm.
While I remember us celebrating Mother’s Day as adult children, I have no recollection of what that day looked like for her when we were all young. I know that Mothers Day existed, because Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation in 1914 declaring it a day of honor for mothers.
I wonder what President Wilson had in mind when he made this proclamation. For my own overworked, underpaid and very weary mother, I have no idea if she was ever able to take a break, even if it was for one day out of the year.
Mothers Day Trauma
As a waitress in my early twenties, I would watch as well-meaning husbands would take their families out to dinner for Mothers Day giving mom one day off from cooking. As decent as the notion is, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for these women who would have one child in a high chair, one in a booster chair and maybe one sucking on a bottle on her lap. Inevitably, one of the youngsters would become bored or cranky and of course it was only mom that could soothe.
To me there was nothing pleasant about this experience. One young fatigued mom after another would take their seat at the upscale restaurant looking as if she would rather be home in a pair of sweats and a tee-shirt than trying to pull off the “I’m the perfect mom, with the perfect children and look how much my husband loves me” scenario. I decided right then that if I had children, I would spend Mother’s Day away from them. Let their father do the work.
Moms Gone Wild
My son was born on the Friday of Mother’s Day weekend. I knew that some years his birthday would land on Mother’s Day and I would have to sacrifice my own honoring in order to celebrate his birthday. I figured once out of every seven years wouldn’t be so bad and so I didn’t have a problem on his 7th birthday making the day all about him knowing that the next one wouldn’t roll around again until age 14. (Maybe that’s selfish thinking because as moms we are continuously sacrificing for our children, but I think we have this proclaimed day of honor all wrong.)
Moms, especially the very rare-these-days stay-at-home ones, are with their children everyday. They are in the trenches daily. And while I am not advocating for an all out, Spring Break, Miami bound, beer chuggin’, dirty dancing 2nd Sunday in May free-for-all, I think that moms everywhere should, for one day out of the year, do what moms want to do.
Mother’s Day Alone
My children are ten years apart because I thought I was in menopause when I was pregnant with my second. But even before my son came along, I had already resigned myself to that early promise I made when I was in my twenties and childless. My daughter was about four when I told my husband that I wanted nothing more for Mother’s Day than to be alone. He was shocked. “Alone, what are you going to do?” Oh, men and their silly questions. “I don’t know,” I replied, “but whatever it is, it will be for me and only me.”
So that year started that tradition – I have spent almost every Mother’s Day since then alone. Sometimes it is a movie, sometimes the nail salon, sometimes just a walk on the beach – whatever it is, I don’t have to answer to anyone.
Taking Back the Day
This Mother’s Day, my adult daughter will be home having completed her second year of college. My son will be turning 10, three days later. While she is old enough and I would undoubtedly enjoy a mother/daughter day out, I have yet to let go of the tradition I started almost 15 years ago.
I think that it is time for moms everywhere to realize that Mothers Day is exactly that – a special day intended to give mom a break, and not just from cooking the evening meal. A day that allows a mom to do what a mom wants to do. I can only imagine what my own mother would have wished for when she had eight kids under the age of 13. Even though I never had the chance to ask her, I am pretty sure her ideal day would not have included any of her children.