Mother’s Day is complicated.
I always wanted to be a mother. But, like most things in my life, I expected I would never be afforded the opportunity so I would pretend I never wanted them; to protect myself from the hurt when they never came.
I had a friend in high school who once joked that if I didn’t have children, though, he hoped I wouldn’t be like a cat without kittens who throws herself into traffic. That stung then and sticks now.
I was later in life meeting my husband. 33 when we met; 38 when we married. We did all we could to have a child and yet no amount of anything seemed able to make that happen. It was such a deeply depressing time for both my husband and me. If you’ve ever met him, you know he would make the most incredible Dad.
For me, it fulfilled my childhood issues – that the things I actually wanted; the things that mattered to me were out of my reach.
It was during this period of pure devastation that one third of a trio of one friend group told us other two that she had some big news. We were 42. I’d been through medical procedures and taken hormones and knew the exact moment of ovulation each and every month. While waiting to hear what this big news was, I speculated to the third in that friend trio that maybe friend #1 was pregnant. “No, impossible, she’s too old for that,” she replied scornfully. We are all the same age. I wasn’t ready yet to give up hope and neither were my doctors. I said nothing, of course. But cried all the way home that day and, to this day, find it difficult to feel the same way about that friend even though I still love her dearly.
One more thing I’m not allowed to have or to be. And now it felt like public humiliation.
Remember those memes on facebook? The ones that made fun of childless people pretending to busy because they don’t know busy as they don’t have children? Most people I knew shared them or laughed at them. And yet in my line of work at the time, I was expected to work FAR more hours for FAR less pay and take on FAR more responsibilities than my colleagues with children. So where’s all that time going? How about volunteer hours? Many of us childless folks spend countless hours a week volunteering…from my perspective, helping to make the world a better place is part of the desire to have children. When you can’t do that, you find yourself volunteering to do that. But yet, mocked on facebook.
The other ones that sliced to the core are the ones so many people i knew shared. The ones where childless folks try to give parents advice on child rearing; mocking the childless, scornfully, basically saying YOU DON”T GET IT!! Don’t worry. I guarantee you every single childless person you know gets that they don’t get it. But I have yet to meet a childless person that actually pretends to. We can see your struggles as parents; and the childless people I know, myself included, try to jump in to provide support wherever we can. We do carpools; we take kids for treats; we buy winter coats; we do whatever we can to support. But, yet, it’s cool to mock the childless.
Don’t take things so personally is often touted as the perfect response to my hurt in these scenarios. But how can I not? When people I know and love, together with strangers, dismiss the value of a childless woman so flippantly?
I have a mother. I have an incredible mother. I have a mother who was a force of nature; ahead of her time in many respects. She was educated and excelled in her workplace and involved in community and devoted to her family all at the same time. And then she got dementia. Now I’m responsible for her and my Dad. I’m with them every single day. I know some day I’m going to look back on this season of life as a blessing, but for now I’m just exhausted. Mentally, physically, financially, spiritually. I have to ensure they are fed and clothed and cleaned and entertained and safe. I lay awake at night worrying about them and about finances and about the future. I put them first 100% of the time, to my own detriment sometimes. I’m missing work to take them to appointments and events.
That responsibility load sounds a whole lot like mothering to me. But she’s MY mother. I happily do whatever I can for her and with her. But I get the mothering without the cute little baby. I get the mothering while still being childless. And this hurt is trifold. It hurts all over again all the cutting remarks about the childless; it hurts even more because it seems I can’t win – I’m belittled for having no children but this doesn’t count; and it hurts most of all because the Mom I know and love is long gone.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this Mom who loves anything with sugar and any classic country song. But I grieve for the Mom who could provide comfort or concern or advice. But surely I can’t mourn the loss of a mother who is still with us? And who has the time? I find it washes over me in waves. I’ll be trucking along fine and then I’ll see something that reminds me of her and I’ll want to call her…but she is no longer able to remember or grasp some of the things that made her her. Tears. Sobs. Out of nowhere.
Yesterday I was cleaning in her bedroom and she came bursting into the room. The glee on her face changed to surprise and disappointment when she saw me in there. She said, I’m sorry Jo Ann, the man in the living room (my father, her husband of 54 years) told me Jo Ann was in here. She called me by name; recognized me as someone she loves; but was disappointed I wasn’t the little girl she expected to find. When she went back to the kitchen, I had to take a moment and just let it out.
There aren’t any mother’s day cards out there for Mom’s who don’t remember they’re Moms…or at least who don’t remember they’re you’re Mom. So that adds to todays complication.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always doom and gloom. I have 4 incredible Godchildren. My niece who tells me I’m like a second Mom to her. 2 sweet girlies in PEI who I’m so lucky to have in my world. And one remarkable young man in Alberta who, while I don’t get to see him, I take my role as Godmother very seriously and pray for him every single day. 4 brightspots that my mind focuses on; especially on this very complicated day.
Also, I’ve had loads of ‘other mothers’ in my lifetime. My own Godmother, Olga. My childhood friends Mom’s, Bev and Bernadine and Anne Marie and Ann. My aunt Thelie who used to come with us on family trips and spend holidays with us and take us to visit her in the city whenever she could. Beema and Marion and Joanie P. Aunt Stasia who would mail me pink peppermints all the way to Belgium. My aunt Louise who never forgets a birthday. Barbara and Joanne who were sometimes like mothers, sometimes like sisters. My host mothers in Belgium Suzanne and Annik. My extraordinary mother in law who I was so lucky to get to spend some time with. How incredibly lucky am I to have had such a strong circle of supportive women in my world? Those women, every single one of them, deserve to be celebrated and applauded on this Mother’s Day.
So today I mourn. I grieve. I celebrate. I reminisce. I remember with love and joy. I practice gratitude for all the amazing Moms who make my life so incredible. It’s a love-hate, win-lose day. Such a complicated day.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mamas out there and I truly hope your Mother’s Day isn’t quite so complicated…but, if it is, know you’re not alone.
Dandelion Wishes 