mother: Having or showing the good (esp. tender or kind) qualities of a mother (Oxford Concise Dictionary)
Today is Mother’s Day in the US and Canada. It has always been a day of mixed emotions for me. I chose to not have children and suffered the constant pressure from my mother to provide her with grand children. I understood that she wanted them, but I could not provide.
Mother/daughter relationships can be wonderful. I know plenty of people who have great relationships with their parents. But they can also be complicated. Bittersweet. Sometimes, toxic.
Our society has come to idealize the mother figure and when you don’t have that ideal, it can rub, like salt in a wound.
I no longer have live parents, or even my one sibling. On a day like today it feels raw. It feels…lonely.
I am the last twig on this part of the family tree. It all stops with me.
Days like today I question why I am still here. What purpose do I have that yet needs to be fulfilled? Is there even any ‘purpose’ to live? Or is it just that life struggles to stay?
In the midst of a pandemic, I am actually relieved that my parents are not here, that I don’t need to worry about them going through it. My dad would have been fine staying home, letting my mom do all the errands, take care of everything – that was pretty much the way he lived, anyway.
My mom, the quintessential helper would have been running around taking care of everyone else.
I see the messages on Facebook, all the celebrations of mothers and think that really the ideal of ‘mothering’ isn’t confined to the genetic connection. Human beings don’t even have to be female to ‘mother’ – that is, have the tender or kind qualities we ascribe to a mother.
There are men who nurture, too. People who take care of other people’s children. Aunts, cousins, sisters – either genetic or chosen.
Instead of idealizing ‘mothers’, I would love to see society respect their mothers every day and extend the concept of nurturing to everyone, regardless of gender or genetic relationship.
Especially the teachers, who are just another form of nurturing and being kind. The good ones, anyway.
So to all my chosen sisters, I love you. To all my students, I love you, too. To my mother I say thank you for this life. I will do my best to model your caring of others and nurture and support all my ‘family’ of friends and students, for as long as I am able.