While my Mom waited in the car, I popped into the local flower shop to pick us both up bouquets in honor of this Mother’s Day weekend. It was like walking into a flower jungle full of prearranged flowers, labeled with names and addresses, ready to be delivered to their destinations. The shop phone was ringing off the hook and the three staff were double-timing it to take orders, arrange flowers, and ring customers through the till. It was a Mother’s Day flower frenzy. While paying for my selected bunches, I overheard that one of the bouquets currently being arranged was “the $300 order”. Two thoughts crossed my mind simultaneously: 1. Darn right, so well deserved Momma, and 2. I wonder if that extravagant gift is an attempt to absolve an adult of a lot of mixed-up childhood feelings.
There’s something wrong with me that I think this way, I know, but I think my two simultaneous thoughts are a good example of how polarizing Mother’s Day can be. There’s a lot of messy mixed-up feelings for a lot of people when it comes to relationships with Mothers. So much so that the term the Motherwound has been coined. Mother’s Day, a celebration designed to acknowledge Mothers and all that they do, brings up so much for so many people. It can be a provocative day of feelings like deep grief for multiple pregnancy losses, infant deaths, and Mothers who are deeply missed. I’ve read stories about adult children filled with anger and resentment who spend too long staring at Hallmark cards in the grocery store desperate to find something generic to acknowledge their own Mothers only to be frustrated by the cards expressing sentiments that they just don’t feel. It seems Hallmark isn’t making cards that feel right for the many adults working through their Motherwounds.
I just couldn’t write about this day without being curious about the complexity of the feelings others are experiencing, which of course is why the expensive bouquet at the flower shop got my attention. It was that curiosity that drove me to look for studies on the feelings felt by adults on Mother’s Day. Would you be surprised to learn that I couldn’t find any? Of course not. I mean, we’re still living in a world where women’s health issues are categorically understudied on a global scale, with women’s health issues being disproportionately underfunded compared to men’s health issues; AND, when women’s health issues are funded, they are also disproportionately funded compared to the funding allocated for men’s. A recent analysis in 2021 proved “that the funding of research for women is not aligned with burdens of disease”, which seems to be a little too nice of a way of saying that women are suffering and no one is putting money into problem solving those struggles. Did you know that the WHO estimates that maternal mortality rates are under reported by Stats Can by a whopping 60%? I mean, 60%?! Like, Canada just isn’t talking about the deaths of women who die before, during, or after their journey to become a mother. Shame on them. Back to looking for studies about feelings…It’s possible that someone is working on studying the feelings we have about the role of Motherhood. Maybe I just couldn’t find that research? It’s possible someone, somewhere, is working on a thesis on exactly that (#fingerscrossed #unicorn).
In my search I did find one stat that I wanted to share with you:
Recent studies are reporting that globally parents are spending double the amount of time with their children than they did fifty years ago. Double the amount of time.
Even though 50 years ago 40.4% of mothers were working and currently 76.5% of mothers are working, our time with our children has still doubled. Fifty years ago, 6% of Canadian children lived in single-family households and as of 2021, 19% of Canadian children are being raised by a single parent. Over the last fifty years Canada has seen a 31% increase in working Mothers and a 104% increase in single parents and statistically speaking we would expect a decrease in the time parents can spend with their children due to the demands of work and adult responsibilities. Yet, our numbers trend upwards, and instead we see time with our children doubling, against all the odds.
On a day like this, where so many of us are feeling so much about our own Mother, or our own Mothering, or our value as women when we are not Mothers, I have to lean into the idea that as a community we’re headed somewhere good. If we’re raising children that feel (or who will one day feel) that their emotional and physical needs for safety and security were met by present and attuned Mothers, we have a very hopeful world on the horizon.
And we wouldn’t be seeing this hope on the horizon if it wasn’t for the collective of people who work together to enable Mothers to be present for their children:
- quality childcare
- exceptional teachers
- caring aunties and uncles
- loving grandparents
- supportive neighbors
- available friends and friends of friends
- the communal parenting that occurs with strangers at parks, birthday parties, events, and within school communities
- engaged Dads
- step-parents
- and a multitude of unconventional family structures that work together to benefit children
So, if this day is full of mixed-up feelings for you, I hope you can borrow my idea that we’re evolving as a collective of caregivers. Thanks to where we’ve been, and how hard we’re working in all our varying roles, we’re looking towards a future of children, teens, and adults with a lot less mixed-up feelings about Mothering.
And if you happen to be the recipient of the $300 bouquet I saw being crafted at the flower shop, I hope you bask in the love that was sent your way today. And if you happen to be the recipient of a dandelion picked by a toddler or a text from your teen, I hope you bask in the love being sent your way too. And if you haven’t been the recipient of anything yet today, I hope you can feel the love I write in this message. Thank you for the collective Mothering you have done and you continue to do. Thank you for supporting me so that I can be 50% more present to my children.
Thank you community.