This is such a tricky day. While I love my kids, and love the fact that there is a day to celebrate my mother(s) and be celebrated, it almost seems like a slap-in-the-face holiday.
I have friends who aren’t parents, who never want to be parents. I imagine this day is a strange one, where Facebook and Instagram become overrun with notes of thanks for the children that made them mamas, and celebrations of the husbands who spoil them for the mere fact of being a mother.
I have friends who aren’t parents, who want to be parents. I imagine this day is full of pain, seeing the yearly (and frankly, constant) reminder that they don’t have what they so dearly desire. The reminder that prayer and medicine isn’t enough. My heart breaks on this day for those friends.
While I want to be celebrated and appreciated for what I do as a mother (I really, really want to be celebrated, this shit is hard), I also want to get rid of this holiday that blatantly leaves out a certain population. That blatantly leaves out some of my dearest friends. Because, honestly, I know that it is much harder to want to be a mother, and not be able to.
When we were younger, we tried to have children for about a year, with no success. We decided to stop trying and decide if we’d be happy if it was just the two of us, or if we should look into other options for having kids. We decided that we would be happy, and that’s when we found out about Alma. I know that story sounds trite and motherhood-elitist, but it is our truth. The reason I write about it here, is to show that I can understand (at least a little bit) what it feels like to try and not succeed. I also know what it feels like to decide not to have kids, and picture a life as a non-mother.
I currently have friends who are finally pregnant (after ten years of trying and praying), and friends who are in the process of adopting. While not particularly close to these friends, I keep up with them on Facebook and Instagram. I feel like their journeys have been long. I feel like their journeys have been hard. I want them to know that I have been, and continue to be, with them through it all (as much as is possible in our internet age). I honestly and truly hold them in my heart, especially today.
I want them to know that I said a prayer for them today in church. And they are in my prayers often.
I want them to know that they should be celebrated. Celebrated as the mothers they want to be, and the people they are now – with or without children of their own.
I think it is great to celebrate motherhood. We wouldn’t be here without it.
I just want to take a moment to celebrate everyone else.
Today, and always, I love you.