Three of my kids will be home for Mother’s Day this weekend. They’re planning a little something for me which, though I don’t know the details, will very likely involve scrapple in the morning, salmon in the evening, and a long afternoon on the patio in between, soaking in a fire and sharing a bottle of wine. They will write me beautiful cards and my missing children will zoom me from their far-flung places.

I will not have to clean anything or cook anything or clear anything. They will set the table and light the candles and there will be no squabbling. (No squabbling!) And I will accept all of this with dignity and ease because it’s good and healthy – for my kids and for me – to feel and express gratitude and because I think it’s important that mothers are celebrated and honored.

I do, however, quibble ever so slightly with what we’re honored for.

If You Let the Commercials do the Talking, Motherhood is Entirely About Sacrifice

Too often, this time of year in particular, I am accosted by a slew of sentimental, tear-inducing TV ads, memes, and FB posts reminding us of all the thankless sacrifices moms make. The late nights and lost sleep, the laundry and endless meal prep and hours on the soccer field, the patched-up booboos and quarrels and heartbreaks. The fact that I actually wanted that last piece of cake you just ate.

These posts and ads and memes present the sacrifices a mother makes as uncomplicated. A joy. A privilege. All gladly given in service to her one abiding and overriding passion: raising a happy, healthy child. 

Some of these little clips are sincerely beautiful. Some of them are barely disguised attempts to link the profound bond between mother and child to household cleaning products. A few kind of imply that all the best moms’ kids end up in the Olympics. I’m as vulnerable to these touching platitudes as anyone else. They all make me cry, sniffling into my sleeve, “It’s true. It really is the hardest, best job in the world.” 

But Moms Shouldn’t be Defined by How Much They Give Up for Their Kids

Having said that, though, I’d like to push back a little on this whole “motherhood is all about sacrifice” idea. For one thing, I would like to think that my daughters and future daughters-in-law will choose to be mothers someday. Call me crazy, but I’m not convinced that “yea-you’re-signing-up-for-a-series-of-endless-sacrifices-that-will-leave-you-exhausted-scarred-and-professionally-sidelined-but-trust-me-in-the-end-it’s-worth-it” is exactly a compelling argument to do so.

For another, calling attention to the sacrifices made on one’s behalf is as likely to induce guilt as gratitude, and, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to second guess my kids’ motives every time I look at that beautiful bouquet of Mother’s Day flowers they sent.

More to the point, I don’t like the idea of “sacrifice” as a job description. Identifying a mom’s role with all the things she gives up to do it lets the rest of the world off the hook. I don’t think we should be spotlighting the sacrifices moms make unless we’re prepared to do something to make them unnecessary. Instead of applauding moms for emptying themselves out for their children, we, as a society, should be making the job of motherhood a whole hell of a lot more doable. 

It Lets Society Off the Hook

It was an absolute blessing and privilege to be able to stay home to raise my kids. But I and a lot of other women I know gave up or pulled back on promising and hard-earned careers to do it. Or they worked themselves to pieces trying to do it all. I certainly don’t want my daughters to have to make that choice, and with more flexible work options and a more comprehensive, nuanced understanding of “career,” I don’t think they’ll have to. That won’t make them less amazing moms, just less exhausted ones.

My hope for them is that there will be affordable childcare and healthy fast food and reasonable, compassionate bosses and partners whose jobs allow them to fully invest as parents. That for them, moms won’t be sanctified for everything they give up, but will be held up and supported enough to do the job well without sacrificing every other aspect of their lives. 

And Ignores the Fact that Motherhood Fundamentally Changes Us

But I think the biggest reason I’m not into the longsuffering mom thing is because it doesn’t ring true to me. Have there been sacrifices? Absolutely. A lot of them. But, as I said, my hope is that someday many of them will be unnecessary and that we can celebrate what motherhood does to us, the mothers. How it changes and shapes us and can, in turn, help shape the world. 

Once I became a parent, for example, everyone in the world, regardless of age, became someone’s child to me. I became more protective, sympathetic, and compassionate toward people in general. Once I recognized the intense bond between me and my oldest child, I could better see the invisible tether that binds all of us, one to the other.

Raising a child takes a long time. I’ve had to learn a little more patience. It has asked a lot of me, so I’m more able to give without expectations. It has given me the chance to look at the world through my children’s eyes, teaching me perspective.

In Beautiful and Unexpected Ways

Becoming a mom taught me to think in terms of generations. I became more interested in my past, my family’s past, the whys of how we are. I became more aware of the legacy I’d been given and the legacy I would leave, of what generations to come might thank or blame me for. I became more invested in what kind of world and society my grandchildren and great-great grandchildren would inherit and what I might do now to make life better for them.

Since having a child, I’ve smiled and laughed and celebrated more than I ever had before. I’ve cried more and worried more and felt more relief and gratitude, hope and fear and responsibility and guilt than I could have imagined before my first child was born. My emotional life is so much deeper, richer, and more mature now than it was then. 

That Should be Celebrated

I’ve messed up. A lot. I’ve been less than the mom I hoped to be. And I’ve been forgiven by the very ones I’ve let down. Humbled by gratitude for my kids’ easy forgiveness has made me much more inclined to extend forgiveness myself. 

The longer I have been a mom the less judgmental and more accepting I have become. My list of “little things” has greatly expanded and my list of “big things” has shrunk, but grown in importance. I care more about truth than perception, more about authentic connection than being liked, more about love than anything. 

I pray more now, and more urgently and sincerely, because I’m so much more aware of its necessity. 

Motherhood has been a spiritual journey for me, a kind of sacred pilgrimage along the full arc of love for another human being. Someone I did not choose. Someone I committed to loving before knowing anything about them. A kind of love without borders or expectations or conditions, a kind of love that, back then, I really didn’t understand. Now I do, and that understanding has completely reshaped me. 

Now, that is something to celebrate. 

Happy Mother’s Day.