Mother’s Day was supposedly created to honor mothers, but its real purpose is for them to scrutinize the severity of their kids’ senses of entitlement.
That’s fine, but the tables are quickly turned on the less lovable dads who are supposed to use their children as surrogates in a non-romanticized love fest that leaves them scratching their heads.
Mother’s Day is even worse for childless men who need to acknowledge it in some meaningful way but can no longer fall back on macaroni art or use their own offspring to blunt the awkwardness.
Mother’s Day is a Rorschach test using long-distance phone calls and brunch buffets instead of ink.
If you look at the date and see an ordinary Sunday, you’ve lost. If instead, you see a need to stand in line for a $35 waffle, you’ve won.
I haven’t celebrated a Mother’s Day since mine passed away six years ago, and if I’m being honest, it wasn’t much of a celebration for her last fifteen years. Each year was taken for granted by my younger self who thought there would be plenty more chances to show how much I cared.
A phone call if I was living out of state. A bouquet of flowers if I was living in-state.
One year a collective of us bought Mom a DVD box set of Lost. That was both the name of the TV show and what happened to our money once we remembered that Mom couldn’t work the DVD player.
Mother’s Day just seems to mean more when children are involved.
I think the most I’ve done lately is awkwardly shout “Happy Mother’s Day” to my mother-in-law while she’s on speakerphone with Jenny.
Pretty much every year Jenny and I ended up at a diner as just a typical childless couple looking for a bite to eat. Including the year I couldn’t find the waitress for a refill of coffee then looked out the window and saw her buying flowers at the church across the street.
But with the arrival of my daughter three months ago, Mother’s Day is back – although I still have no idea what to do and now have to attempt it while caring for a newborn. I’ve spent a week downplaying expectations and just hope to survive unscathed.
A first Mother’s Day is important but to mark it as an entrance into some sort of club excludes the myriad of life experiences that came before it.
While we are celebrating the relationship between my daughter and wife, we are also celebrating so much more.
As much as this Mother’s Day may seem like a new beginning for us, it also seems like an end – to our years of wondering when or if we’d have a child of our own to celebrate with.
Truthfully, it is neither a beginning nor an end, but a celebration of so many parts of Jenny’s personality that have always made her special.
I’ve seen mothering instincts in Jenny since long before our daughter was born. I saw them in the tenderness with which she treated a niece or nephew – the confidence she instilled in the softball players she coached – the warm embraces with a friend’s child – the quality of support she provided for thousands of gifted children when she worked in education technology.
And now that we have a child, I see these same qualities reflected in the countless friends, family members, and acquaintances who have taken an interest in our daughter’s life.
To all the mothers out there – in this world and beyond – however you have expressed it and in whatever form you’ve paid it forward- I thank you and I honor you.
And to my wife, who has been a beautiful, caring, and nurturing person since long before our daughter was born – and who has only magnified those parts of her soul since – I love you and I thank you. Because she can’t fully express it yet, I am honor-bound to help our daughter say the same, though I suspect she’ll find a way.
We might not be there yet, but the macaroni-art years are coming. In the meantime, I hope these waffles will suffice.
If you enjoy my humor writing, please subscribe below.
If you want to syndicate this column, you may contact me here to discuss the details.
You may notice that I’ve disabled commenting on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts by email at [email protected].