Note: Writing a blog is something new for me. My plans are to put up a new blog every week on something that I am thinking about. Don’t hesitate to respond with your comments and suggestions.

The Other Side of Mother’s Day

This week we are celebrating the contributions and blessings that mothers have made to our lives. It is a day of celebrations, cards and flowers. Families get together to honor mothers and the significant role they have played.

Certainly it is appropriate to celebrate mothers and what they have meant to us. At the same time we must be aware that there is another side to mother’s day. For some, Mother’s Day is a mixed bag and for others the day is full of grief and pain. For many people, Mother’s Day is a painful reminder of a relationship that does not exist.

There are a whole variety of reasons why people and especially women feel pain on this special day.
1. Some have lost mothers and fathers to death recently and this is the first Mother’s Day they will not be a part of the festivities. Nothing is the same without them
2. Some who have lost mothers, maybe even a long time ago, even now wish they would have expressed their love and appreciation of them before they died. Mother’s Day brings back all that feeling and emotion.
3. Some have children that have moved far away. It is a lonely day especially when people see many other mother’s surrounded by their families on this special day.
4. There are those whose mother inspire feelings of hurt and anger rather than love and admiration. Some mothers have had unreasonable expectations of their children rather than love and acceptance.
5. There are those families who are in conflict and all seems like a farce, but they go through the motions of Mother’s Day anyway.

Probably the main reason Mother’s Day is full of grief and pain is the loss of children to death or the lack of children. Seeing all the happy mothers and families is very difficult
1. Some of the women who hurt are single. They have never had the opportunity ro have the children they wanted. Their biological clock is running out and they realize they may never become a mother.
2. Some are unable to conceive, infertile. One woman wrote: “There is no pain like the pain of infertility. It is devastating. My husband and I wanted children very much and seeing all our friends have children only made matters worse. We could not go anywhere without being reminded of our childlessness. Church was often the worst place because it represented families. We found ourselves withdrawing from our friends…It was just too painful.”
3. Some of the women who hurt have miscarried. Another woman wrote: “A miscarriage is a major loss and can change you forever, even if your story has a happy ending and you have children later.”
4. Some mothers who have children who died as infants. The pain never goes away. Mother’s Day is just one more reminder of their great loss.
5. Some women have children who have died as young people and as adults. Mother’s Day is a reminder of that acute pain and emptiness that nothing can replace.
6. Some women who hurt grieve for children who have chosen a different path than the one we wished for them. Maybe they do not want anything to do with the church. Maybe they are living a completely different and questionable lifestyle.
7. Other mothers grieve because their children have disabling conditions, life threatening diseases, or mental illness. They wonder why their child can’t be normal like other children.
8. Women hurt because they have given up their child for adoption.

I am sure there are other reasons why women and men are grieving on this special day. My hope is that we can all be aware of the grief and pain around us and respond to people with love, compassion and empathy. I am not saying that we should not celebrate Mother’s Day but we need to realize that not all can celebrate in the same way.