Today We Celebrate Mothers (or Not)

In the U.S. and Mexico, Austria and Australia, Switzerland and Pakistan, and in many other countries, in small apartments and suburban villas, on farms, houseboats, and huts, today, on May 10th, many countries celebrate mothers who are doing their jobs.

Celebrating is fun! And if there is really something to celebrate, then our hearts glow with happiness.

Everyone wants the mother who, like in the old children’s book I found at a flea market, runs towards us with open arms. Full of joy, no matter what worries and thoughts you came home with. No matter what we look like and no matter who we bring with us.

But today I don’t want to forget those who don’t feel like celebrating.

Sometimes, fathers are better mothers, grandmas or aunts are more understanding and love us deeply. And sometimes we have to be the mother we would have liked to have.

But mothers are to be honored! That’s how we were raised!

It doesn’t make today easy for everyone. This doesn’t have to frighten anyone, because we have a right to our own feelings. We are grown women. Mother’s Day is not a day made for eau de toilette, pralines, and cheesecake.

Mother’s Day is also a day to pause for ourselves.

Many of us carry the heavy weight of our mothers on our shoulders, and only children who grew up with a different kind of mom will understand what I mean by that. If you have a mother you can love with all your heart, to whom you can go, if the wind blows hard in your face, who sticks to you, strengthens you, and warms you, then celebrate her and scatter flowers for her.

Not only today, of course, but especially today.

But no one is obliged to rejoice where there is nothing to rejoice.

Where speechlessness and inaccessibility of the heart are hidden behind cheese cream gates and small talk. Where the traumas of childhood are deep in the bones, there is no need to cuddle.

Barely six years old, I asked my mother what she wanted for her special day. She answered, “A good child!” In her alcohol dazed mind, I wasn’t a good child, or not good enough.

I didn’t make my mother happy. Obviously, it was me who did everything wrong—all the time. I made her shout and scream. I made her hit me. I made her drink. In her twisted mind, it was all my fault, and if it wasn’t my fault, then my father was to blame. Sadly, he played the same game, so in the end it was me, of course. Their life had been better without me, as mine would soon be better without them. At age seven, I moved in with my grandma and had the most wonderful childhood then.

Some things just don’t match.

In my mother’s mind, I was never good enough, not pretty enough, never streamlined enough to fit into the grid that my mother and father had planned for me. Why did they have a child? Beats me!

And again and again (and still!) I catch myself and try to be a good girl, even now as an older woman. I assume it sounds familiar to many. We are the bad children. The unwanted children. Sometimes (too often), the ones that are unloved and uncared for. We become adults, and then we try to fix our past.

When I stopped hoping that one day I would get all the hugs if only I were good enough, when I no longer desperately longed to be seen by my mother as I am, I became the mother I never had.

I started to be a really good mother to myself.

I talked myself well when I was discouraged, comforted myself when others hurt me. I took myself by the hand when I took steps into an uncertain future. And what can I tell you? It worked!

The pain of missing out will remain for a lifetime, but the pain has not been able to prevent me from being the woman I wanted to be.

Whatever your Mother’s Day will look like today. Stay strong, girls. Celebrate all the moms who deserve it, and celebrate yourself if you are the best mom for yourself and/or your children and other children.

There is room for all of us, at least here on my blog. Perhaps one day, society will give us room as well.