Mother's Day

Posted for to all the moms who are struggling with "less than perfect" children:

"Mother’s Day isn’t for the mothers who are proud parents of perfect children. They don’t need a day to celebrate their perfection. They get that every day when their loved ones and strangers tell them their children are perfect. They get that when their children bring home perfect papers from school with perfect pictures of perfect families all holding hands in front of perfect houses with perfect lawns and flowers and happy dogs and cats lounging nearby.

Mother’s Day is really for those of us who are in the trenches. It is our “Memorial Day”. It is a day for us to mourn the loss of our perfect families and to celebrate our little victories. It is a day for us to take a moment and be thankful that we were able to keep our children alive for another year. It is a day for us to pat ourselves on the back – because we aren’t going to find anyone else who gives us pats on the back while telling us they are proud of us.


So let us take this day – this Mother’s Day, and give ourselves a little celebration. We have kept these children alive for another year. We do (sometimes) get papers home from school – so what if the pictures are messy and upside down? Our children do smile at us sometimes – so what if it is while they are trying to bite or kick or scratch or strangle us? Our children still have beds to sleep on and pillows for their head – so what if it is just a mattress on the floor because they broke the good bed?


I raise my (virtual) glass to all of you wonderful Moms. You wake up every day knowing the battleground you are entering, but you don’t shrink from the war. You enter with all the weapons at hand, knowing the only shield you have is the love in your hearts. You walk through the day – and, indeed, all the days, with your head up and a glint in your eye that says to the world: “This is my child. For better or for worse, I will love this child until the day I die. I may not like this child right now. I may not want to look at this child right now, but I do love him/her, and if you mess with my child – you mess with me.”


I support all you wonderful Moms who are walking through storms darker and more frightening than any storm known to the perfect moms with their perfect children. You walk through chaos and tornado and fire and wind and rain and rage and mania with an aplomb that is not even found in our Special Forces. You face heartbreak and loss with strength and calm. You have PTSD that is untreated and undiagnosed, and yet you still enter the daily battle. You smile when others would cry. You carry on when others would give up.


Maybe you do retreat to your room sometimes, and maybe you do want to give up, and maybe you do cry and rage at the heavens. Maybe you do yell and tear your hair out. But you are allowed.


So give yourself this day to mourn the children you dreamed about and to laugh at the heavens because you are winning. Every day you are winning. Every day you come closer to the picture of perfection. Every day you are able to laugh in the face of total annihilation.


Good for you! Give yourself this day to know that each of us thinks of you as a hero. Each of us gives you pats on the back and says “You are wonderful. You are doing a good job. You are appreciated and you are not judged. You are special.
You are loved. You have sister-warriors and brother-warriors who are in the trenches you are in. You are worth having a day named after your amazing feats.
You are loved. You are loved”


Kerry