Yesterday was mother’s day. We all have mothers and I had a very happy day celebrating mother’s day with my MIL yesterday. In England mother’s day is in March so I celebrated my mum’s then.
But how do you feel from a childfree perspective? We all have mothers who I believe in most cases we love and wish to celebrate/recognize. We also have friends who are mothers and probably celebrate with them.
Having said that, it can be hard for the childfree as once again motherhood is praised as many things – from the hardest job in the world to the most important job in the world. And what about the single fathers bringing up children? I saw one mention of them probably meaning they get their day on Father’s Day, right?
I’m curious – what is Mother’s Day when you are childfree? Does it give you angst? Does it make you feel ‘invisible?’ Do you feel it’s overhyped or not recognized enough? Another Hallmark Holiday? Or do you jump in and enjoy and celebrate all the mothers in your life?
Thoughts?
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
I love my mom, but I didn’t even call her or wish her happy mother’s day on facebook. She doesn’t really care about mothers day that much. Generally all she wants is a day to herself so she asks her boyfriend and all the kids(two are hers and two are his, that live there) to leave the house for the whole day.
Mother’s day is great. I celebrate it with my mom and it makes her happy.
A day to buy mom some candy and make extra sure I don’t give her any crap. No other significance for me.
I really don’t care too much about Mother’s Day. I’m not practically close to my mother.
I live in Croatia, and this year for the first time I heard about Mother’s Day in the advertisements. Advertisers want us to celebrate every consumeristic holiday there is. We’ve always celebrated International Women’s Day (8th of March), so my mother and I congratulate that to each other. We don’t buy gifts, but, traditionally, red carnations are given to women.
Women’s Day makes so much more sense to me than Mother’s Day.
I enjoy celebrating my mom on Mother’s Day, though she generally just wants a homemade card and a meal cooked for her.
I don’t like how Mother’s Day encourages strangers to ask you if you are a mother. I taught a crochet class yesterday and one of the women asked if I am a mother, probably looking to compare notes on how our husbands / children celebrated us. I just said “no,” and I got this look from her like, “Well, NOW I don’t know what to say.” Same thing happened with my coworkers.
haha I actually enjoy those awkward moments.
“Do you have kids?”
“No”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah I forgot I actually have three….. ok no. Really, I don’t have kids.”
“Oh…..”
“…….”
Hahaha cracks me up every time – that moment when they realise they might have to actually think of something interesting and unique to talk about, instead of rehashing the same conversation they always have about kids. I have to try not to look all gleeful – hehe
Totally. I should come up with some crazy topics of conversation to throw them off.
Around here people don’t even ASK, if you are female it is evidentially assumed that you’re a mother on mother’s day. Strangers have been wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day since I was 17.
I am a happily childfree 39 year old. Hubby and I were shopping the day before Mother’s Day and it drove me nuts to have store clerks wishing me Happy Mother’s Day. The masses all just assume everyone my age is a mom or wants to be…not!
I love my Mother but I appreciate and email her every day not just once a year.
Hubby and I call it “Glad you aren’t a Mother’s Day”.
I find it odd that mother’s need this kind of recognition. They need someone to acknowledge what they have “sacrificed” in the name of procreation. Don’t they realized they chose to be a mom, or at the very least didn’t prevent it thereby choosing it.
I did enjoy watching how grumpy all the mom’s looked when out shopping last weekend. I don’t think I saw a happy one all day.
PS – love your blog and have it linked on mine to spread the word.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I’m still not sure why we as a society need to recognize & celebrate the choice procreate or to become a mom. It’s quite annoying. I did get something nice for my own mom, but otherwise I really didn’t need a special day designated for me to do that.
I never acknowledged Mother’s Day as anything but a Hallmark holiday. I am not particularly close with my mother, and I definitely don’t like being forced to celebrate something that I don’t particularly find value in.
I do, however, celebrate the day she left my father.
I look at Mother’s Day the same way I do most Hallmark holidays – celebrate it if you like, but at least put some thought into doing something for your mom that you know she’d really like because you love her, don’t use it as a “get out of jail free” card for treating your mom like crap 364 days out of the year. One measly brunch and a cliched present isn’t a celebration, it’s an obligatory rote action. I think it’s better to show your appreciation and love for someone when you are honestly moved to do so, which is hopefully far more than once a year.
I have personal issues with Mother’s Day since my mom died when I was a preteen, but it doesn’t really make me miss her any more or less than I have over the past 21 years. Instead, I prefer to try to live my life in a way that would honor the things she taught me, including being “motherly” toward the people in my life who I love, even if they aren’t related. And given that I’m not having children of my own, I expect that will include the children of my friends whom I’m looking forward to being “auntie.”
Hi there, Laura author of Families of Two here, and blogging at la Vie Childfree–I think about this every year — last year wrote about it, and this year feel the same:
On Mother’s Day I am of mixed minds. Don’t get me wrong; I love my mother and would celebrate her and how she raised my brother and me any day of the week. But as a childfree person, I have problems with Mother’s Day as a national holiday. Why? Here are two reasons:
It is a national reinforcement of pronatalist values.
The holiday exalts motherhood, and all the myths that surround it. There are many but let’s start with– it’s “the” ticket to fulfillment in life for women. It reinforces the belief that motherhood is synonymous with womanhood, which continues to limit the boundaries of female identity to the confines of maternity. It continues to glorify motherhood and children and perpetuates the assumption that all women will reproduce. Simply put, it perpetuates a child-centric society.
It neglects all who mother.
Mothers are obviously key to the raising of children. But she is not the only person who influences the raising of a child. I’d like to see the holiday be “Mothering” Day—a day in which we celebrate the women in our lives who exhibit mothering qualities and have had special impact on us. Mothers aren’t the only ones who love, have patience, listen to, nurture, guide, care for, and set a good example for children. Many people, parents or not, contribute to the lives of children in powerful ways. “Mother’s” Day focuses only on the person who gave birth to the child—so many more people play a part in a child’s life, and they play an important role throughout his/her life. “Mothering Day” should become a day in which everyone celebrates all who helped raise them and who have played an important role in their life.
On Mother’s Day I celebrate my mother, my deceased grandmother, my deceased childfree godmother, and all of the women role models and mentors who have been in my life. There is a place for non-parents in the holiday. It shouldn’t just be celebrating the person who gave birth to you. It should celebrate all of those women who helped you become all you can be~
~Laura
Very well said – you took the words right out of my mouth! Thank you!
Well, I’m kind of relieved to know that Mother’s Day started not as a consumer-driven day to celebrate motherhood (not a Hallmark holiday). Julia Ward Howe got it rolling with her Mother’s Day Proclamation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day_Proclamation
It was about peace and stopping wars.
As for what it’s become… bleh. I’m glad my mother doesn’t buy into it all. I give her and my grandmother a call and we talk for several hours… we’d also talk for several hours if I called them on other days. But they appreciate that I get in touch on that day, especially now that I only see them once a year or less. And I don’t have a problem with that. I love them both and get along with them well. It’s not a chore to call them.
I’m really glad to come across this post. After writing a ranty post about people questioning my choice regarding parenthood a couple of weeks ago, I was in a weird place on Mother’s Day (blogged about that, too – felt out of place and alone). It DID make me feel angsty and invisible; however, I do think Mother’s Day is worth celebrating.
I love mother’s day and I love my mum. It helps that she thinks mother’s day is a silly holiday and refuses to accept gifts other than a handwritten card.
I actually think it really IS a tough job, and even tougher to do it well. I have no issue with mother’s day at all, just like I’d have no issue with Doctor’s Day if there was one.
The difference is that mothers do it all without being paid. You thank a doctor with your money – you thank your mum with a card. To me it’s a nice reminder to tell her how much I appreciate her.
Same goes for Father’s Day.
As a childfree person, I’m totally indifferent to what it means for me. I don’t feel invisible at all.
Valentine’s Day is the one that sucks for me. I think there should be a single person’s day where every annoying couple who makes you watch them smooch all year, and tries to set you up with their ugly no-hoper friends who would be “perfect” for you, has to give presents to all us single folk for putting up with their smug coupleness. (This only applies to annoying co-dependent couples, not to awesome ones that are fun to hang out with.)
I’ve always been pretty indifferent to Mother’s Day and so has my mother, so I don’t put much stock in the holiday. However, World Childfree Day is the 1st Sunday in June and I plan to celebrate – a facial, some type of fattening, sugary treat, and a marathon of lousy movies
I send my mum a card and a present and make sure I call her on the day. Dad takes her out for lunch or dinner. I am happy to do my part because I think mothering is one of the worst jobs on the planet and I am grateful she did such a good job of mothering me. As a non-mother I am not phased by the day at all, there are lots of days that are holidays or just recognised that I feel little or no connection with. For example, as an atheist I could not care less about any religious holiday but still enjoy having a break from work. Its just another day.
I’m 100% with Serrin on this one. Sometimes forcing people to set aside a day to recognize the hard work of their parents does make them stop and think, and that can’t be a bad thing in the end.
I also think that anyone who isn’t part of the holiday majority (by choice or circumstance), whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Father’s Day, etc… can feel like an outsider on those days. In the school system where I teach, it falls on the primary teachers to make sure the kids do something special for their mums; as a teacher of older students, I can ignore it, which is fine by me, as I am not a big fan of prescribed holidays. This year, I felt bad for one of my administrators, whose mother died just a few days before. I figure that must have been a hard day for her and her siblings.
I find the whole thing awkward. I’m not really close to my mother, and there’s this expectation that I’ll say something deep and profound about how important she is, and I never know what to write in a card, except Happy Mother’s Day, I hope you have a great Day! I mean, she wanted to pop out kids, I didn’t ask her to. And it does seem like it was hard and miserable for her. But its just weird to thank someone for your existence.
Also, to me the fact that you have to appreciate and thank mothers just reinforces the fact that children are a burden and a nuisance. I mean, if it was so great why would you need to be thanked?
I don’t mind holidays, but I do think professionally speaking some critical training is required when it comes to greeting customers on holidays. I was virtually accosted by a store clerk that Sunday, who must have been told to wish all female customers Happy Mothers Day repeatedly until that customer acknowledges your greeting. Which I was not going to do. I just kept shaking my head…waiting for this woman to get the nonverbal hint, and she persisted until I flat out glared at her. It really pissed me off. Pure peer pressure to return the greeting in kind. No different to me than socially forcing a Jew or Atheist to say “Merry Christmas to you too.”, just to get someone off your back.
Good Information… Thanks for sharing.
Mother’s Day is like Valentine’s Day. You can’t use one day a year to play nice with your mother just as you shouldn’t use one day a year to play nice with your partner. If you truly love them and show them how much all through the year, it’s nice to take one day and show them in a special way. A handwritten card, a special home-made meal, a nice chat over a glass of wine – whatever your mom would enjoy the most would be the ideal way of spending mother’s day. Even if it’s leaving her alone for the entire day!
I never minded celebrating mother’s day, until my MIL came along. She seems to take every opportunity to dig at me that “I’m not a mother.” Last year, her daughter was visiting at the same time as we were, and she handed her daughter a mother’s day card. She looked at me, and in front of everyone said; “I would’ve gotten you a card too, but you are not a mother.” WTF??? Some people just baffle me with their lack of social skills.
It’s just another con dreamed up by Hallmark, IMO. I can’t remember the last time someone mentioned it to me. Family is important to me, I don’t need a special ‘day’ and buying an impersonal card for someone to remind me. If it’s not from the heart and deeply thought of, what’s the point?
Not-A-Mama: Your MIL sounds horrific. You have my sympathies. What a cow.
My mother died when I was young, and I don’t have any children (I never wanted any and I luckily have a husband who sees things the same way… *phew!*)
We have to buy the usual tat for his mum though, and it’s very frustrating; she likes all the expensive (we’re not rich by any means!) cards with the gilt-embossed “to a dear mother” blurb on! Pleugh!
My mother never celebrated mother’s day for the pure reason that it’s an invention to make someone a lot of money… and it’s bloomin’ working!
I don’t mind others celebrating it… it’s up to them what they do. Just don’t force it on the rest of us.
Serrin – love your comments on those “awkward moments”