What Cards Never Say: Mothers Day 2010
Yes! They’re all for sale! Direct from the basement, original boxes, some mildew, not a lot!
I thought, I don’t have to do this, blog for Mothers Day.
I did it last year, wrote all that matters, at least to me, probably. And I’m pretty sure there are even older posts on my blog, certainly Mother’s Day posts smatter all kinds of OPB’s (other people’s blogs) bemoaning the idea that there even is a mother’s day, considering that not everyone has one, and many people have more than mixed feelings about theirs.
And yet, yesterday mine said to me:
You know. I tried to access my email like you showed me and I couldn’t. But I did find the family blogs and I read your daughter’s and it was really funny.
My daughter’s blog hasn’t been touched in six months, she’s way too busy for this. But Mom didn’t care. She read the old posts and had a blast doing that. This tells us that if you’re blogging, you probably should keep at it. Assuming, of course, you’re careful about your identity, or what you say. And even if you’re anonymous, it’s not really necessary to be offensive. Okay, I’ll stop.
This morning I woke up to a Facebook message, a Happy Mother’s Day from Cham. And THREE cards in the mail from other kids, grandkids. Thanks everybody!
So it was a no brainer.
Saturday I flipped through the week’s Wall Street Journals to see why one of my patients almost had a heart attack. As a broker he manages OPM (other people’s money). The investments of most of his clients flew through the window within 3 minutes as the market dropped 1000 points. Brokers across America had a bad heart day. Why did it happen? We don’t know.
This is disheartening, confusion about investments.
Families are investments, too, so I kept reading and found a piece about these by a Mommy blogger, one that I had missed while blogging and cruising the Internet for four years. She’s WholeMama and writes for WSJ! So I visited her blog, of course.
The tagline in the header:
Before I got married I had six theories about raising children. Now I have six children and no theories.
You have to love that.
Anyway, because I don’t have the emotional or physical energy to blog today– I’m going to quote WholeMama, not to be confused with DaMama, Motherhood is Not for Wimps, also wonderful.
Amy Henry, WholeMama, writes this for WSJ
Mother. . .Giver of life. Homework helper. Life saver. Hem adjuster. Maker of peanut butter sandwiches. All true, all real, all important. Even so, I was surprised– and even fearful– when my 16-year-old. . .
She goes on to tell us, basically, that her kid told her she wanted to be a stay at home mom, a SAM.
Ms. Henry mentions that SAMS get no respect. Networking, maybe at the playground, so enviable to someone like me, Amy hears:
One mother admits she’s considered pretending to be her daughter’s nanny in hope this would earn her some respect.Another remembers telling people that she has five children, only to hear a woman respond, “Oh, horror!”
I missed this feeling of horror. I never felt it was a horror. Not even once. For sure, not once. Fear, maybe, when one was missing in action after school, but never horror or regret.
Every day is Mother’s Day, my friends, whether or not she was good or bad. She’s in your head, your psyche. Try it. Get her out. You can’t. EMDR can’t do it. No amount of hypnosis.
So if you had one, and she was marvelous, consider yourself so, so lucky. And if you didn’t have one, try to be one to others, a good one, for so many need these, good mom-figures in their lives, mentors, people who care.
And if you’re working outside the home, don’t look back, because yes, you are a role-model, someone your daughter is proud of, someone who has probably saved the family home from foreclosure more than once. And if you couldn’t, it didn’t make you a bad mom, or a bad anything. You know that.
And if you’re a SAM, a stay at home mom, then reflect upon what author and theologian G. K. Chesterton wondered in 1929, when he predicted the disrespect (thank you Ms. Henry, for reminding us what the little people are thinking when they blather on jealously about the mindlessness of parenting). He asked how society ever got the idea
that bringing forth and rearing and ruling the living beings of the future is a servile task suited to a silly person.
Happy Mothers Day.
Here are more Mommie blogs, thanks to Radical Parenting (check her out– I just found her) and to many of my friends out there I haven’t talked to in awhile. If I forgot you, please poke me. It’s been a tough year.
I’d find you more, but it’s Sunday and somebody’s got to get to work, believe it or not. (If you don’t work Saturday, you’ll probably work Sunday, like me. And if you don’t work either, you’re working 24/7 at the hardest job in the world).
therapydoc
My Mommy’s Place
Busy Mom
The Mommy Blog
Mother Thoughts
City Mama
Mama Bird
Mommy Blog
Parenting Blog
Mom Logic
Decoder
Author Mom with Dogs
A Mother in Israel
Holly’s Corner
Mother-Wise Cracks
Pinay Mommie
Project Subrosa
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Posted in Everyone Needs Therapy