Happy Mother's Day- and Some Thoughts on the Mythical Mother

This Mother’s Day will be my first one without having any offspring living at home!

That in and of itself it a strange thing to even contemplate.

I could stay home and lament, that I miss my kiddos, but instead, my SweetHeart and I are headed to a Massage Retreat in Ashland where I plan to relax and enjoy celebrating that I raised some awesome young adults.

In the parenting world, we talk a lot about raising kids, but the real goal is to raise grown ups. It helps, if we ourselves know how to be grownups in the process, but that's not always the case.

Holidays like Mother’s Day can open up all kinds of stuff, getting us thinking about and over evaluating how we were mothered and how we mothered our own kids.

Sometimes, there’s this sense of idolatry, especially when our mother’s are no longer with us, as though she was the Saintly Mother Mary whose every act was of charity and love.

Sometimes, families are estranged and there’s deep sadness and grief if we didn’t get what we felt we needed.

The thing that bugs me most, is that often, there’s this glorification of martyrdom coupled with a ridiculously high expectation of perfection when it comes to Motherhood.

I just have to laugh at that craziness.

Mother’s are humans, for the love of God. Where did we get the idea they’re supposed to be perfect?

Maybe the best Mother’s Day gift we could universally give each other is a break?

The one thing that I think is true, no matter what, is that we all mess up to some degree, at least some of the time.

Some are more patient, (not so much me) some are more nurturing (eh, sort of, maybe, sometimes) and some bring glittery crafts or carry healthy snacks (heck yeah! That's me!)

Sadly, some really didn’t really have the skills they needed to mother in the first place and so sometimes other people have to step in and other times people will have to figure out how to mother themselves in some ways because no one ever did.

I believe most of us are genuinely trying though, but none of us is going to be perfect.

If we’re going to be honest, all our moms messed up in some ways, and we messed up in others and if our kids become parents, well... they’ll likely do a bit of messing up as well.

Hopefully, we keep learning and growing as a species and are able to objectively look at what worked and didn’t work for us, and try to do better with that knowledge.

Hopefully, we can acknowledge our mess ups and say sorry.

And hopefully, we can forgive~ ourselves and our moms too.

Mostly, I hope we can say thanks to whoever helped mother us. If you haven't already, and you're able, just go hug your mom!

I hope your heart is full, the appreciation for you is abundant and someone brings you flowers and good food, and best yet, cleans up all the messes for you this weekend!

Happy Mother’s Day!

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