Between Mother and Daughter on Mother’s Day
I’m lucky. I am only one among a group of six close friends to still have a mother alive to celebrate Mother’s Day with. While I am so appreciative and grateful to have my mother in my life, being a mother to children of my own leads to an awkward predicament.
When multiple mothers are involved, in many cases this is an elder mother (grandmother), her daughter (mid-mother), and her daughter(s) (grandaughter(s)) who may very well be mothers themselves, deciding who takes priority is something to consider. When there are two or more women in a family all in the mother category, how do you decide who to celebrate? Especially when all of the mothers live miles apart, one or more mothers will most like need to travel and one can more easily sit on her throne. Does the middle mother enjoy the traditional breakfast in bed but then jump up and start cleaning her house and cooking a big Sunday meal to honor the elder mother? Does the newest and youngest mother, likely with little ones who would like nothing more than to stay home and play with their mommy all-day, celebrate briefly and then pack up everyone and travel to honor the older mothers in her family?
In some families, the oldest mother, often the matriarch, is the one celebrated and the other mothers (her daughters and grandaughters) do all that they can to let her relax and enjoy “her special day.” While this is respectable, do the middle and younger mother only get to “take the day off” when they move up the ladder?
Mother’s Day, at it’s core, is meant to celebrate mothers. When multiple mother’s exist in a family, there is only one real way for each mother to receive the recognition due. The answer is men.
I like to believe that in many families, husbands and sons step up to plan and celebrate Mother’s Day but that is not the case in all families. Imagine a Mother’s Day where all of the shopping, cooking, and cleaning were handled by the men of the family without any support from the women (mothers or not). All mothers could have the full day to relax, play, nap, dream, and create however they desired. They could enjoy breakfast in bed, then stay in bed and read the paper cover to cover, and then maybe take a nap. They could stay in their pajamas all day. They could do whatever they please.
Does this same situation happen on Father’s Day when a man is both a father and son? I don’t think so because it likely the women in a family doing the planning, and cooking, and cleaning to celebrate the fathers, whether that is their husbands, grandfathers, and possibly even their sons.
Women make sacrifices for those they love all the time and often put their happiness behind all others. Perhaps Mother’s Day is just another day where many women will accept being celebrated for a brief moment, before cutting short any celebration of themselves in order to celebrate the other women in their lives. It does seem like this is the motherly thing to do.
What do you think? Is there a solution?
