Happy Mother’s Day?
Mother’s Day is a good day for me of late. It’s often a day filled with things I love to do - sleeping late and spending time with my wife and daughter.It didn’t used to be such a happy day for me though and I remember acutely the pain I felt watching others have that role I desperately wanted - to be someone’s mom.
While I had and have all the parts to bear a child, for many heart and gut-wrenching medical reasons, I can’t physically have one myself, while staying alive to bear witness to its growth. I am truly grateful to have my beloved willing and able to bear our child and the finances that allowed us to have access to our family building needs.
I feel lucky to be my daughter’s parent. I love when she finally decides to stop singing and start sleeping or when she reaches over to give me a big hug or cuddle or when she takes my hand as we walk into her elementary school yard together many mornings. I love when she wishes me a Shabbat Shalom (a good Sabbath) or when she invites me into her play. I love brushing her hair and I adore watching her create imaginary worlds filled with such creativity and heart. I love watching her explore the world around her. I adore her in more ways to count and certainly there is not enough room in this post to share all the ways I love her.
Sometimes I struggle to stay an open and thoughtful parent. When my daughter prefers my wife to me, it’s hard. Tonight, when my daughter shared that she never wants me to “night night her” again because she only wants my wife to do so, I felt sad. I also knew that she missed her other mom and that that is totally understandable. Both were true - sad feelings and the awareness of what she was really telling me.
I also worry about my kid’s well-being. I wonder if she has just enough fun, independence, friends, or protein. What “just enough” means, I can’t say for sure. I know that I am trying to be the best mom for my kid as I can while not totally losing my cr@p, or my independent Abi-ness. I know that being a mom, a mother, and a parent, is not all fabulous and yet, for me, it is still pretty darn amazing.
This Mother’s Day, while I will revel in my good feelings around being a mom, I will also remember what it was like to want a child. I’ll also hold a moment or 10 of silence for those
who like me, wish that Mothers’ Day is not a typo but rather respects and honors those who have two Mothers on this special day
who wanted to be parents and haven’t gotten the chance to have a living child, or whose child has died
who everyone expects them to want to have kids but who really don’t,
who are grieving their parents, because they have died, or are ill, or weren’t the parents that really understood them or treated them with care and love. I’ll think about the parents
who are living with postpartum or perinatal depression and anxiety, and/or psychosis.
I’ll mourn the parents who are separated from their families by borders and wars.
I’ll wonder how the families with no moms, including those with one, two or three dads, are coping on Mother’s Day, sick of the expectation that their kid has a mother when they really don’t.
I’ll remember the people who are forced to become mothers because of unfair and repulsive laws that limit abortion rights and keep access away from birth control bills.
Perhaps Mother’s Day will be not just a day of sleeping in, but also a day of fighting for rights of women and all those who are parents. Maybe this year will be the Mothers, Mother’s, or Mothers’ Day where I will do some social justice work along the way.
Whether you are looking for space to celebrate your joy or sadness or both at the same time, we at Waves are here to support you. Please set up a time with one of our wonderful therapists, Kelly Hutton, Registered AMFT, Psychologist Dr. Camilla Williams, or myself, psychologist and yoga therapist, Dr. Abigail “Abi” Weissman. Click here to be brought to our scheduling page and find a time for your free 15 minute video consultation.
