I have always had a “bee in my bonnet” about Mother’s Day or really any day that is made so commercial that it is all about the dollars and cents and not about embracing those in our life who have impacted our lives.  A friend of mind said “$7 for a Mother’s Day Card is scandalous” and I agree.  So what are my thoughts on this Mother’s Day…now these are my perceptions and my truth and how I am working through them…

I don’t remember much about Mother’s Day as a young child, probably because my mom was sick during the time I was 10 to 12 years old and then died when I had just turned 12.  I don’t think my issues with Mother’s Day came about until I was much older and a mother myself.  Being a mom was the most difficult experience of my life, probably not because it was so difficult, but because of these preconceived perceptions I had within myself that made it difficult for me.  There is no doubt that I am not a typical “mothering” type and “mothering” does not come naturally to me, but over the years I have realized that being a “learned” mom is just as amazing and our children benefit from us being their moms as well.  Parenting our children while we were attending a conservative evangelical church where the stereotypical wife and mother were propagated, I was always consumed with guilt because I wasn’t one of those amazing women who loved to cook, clean, bake and whose only desire in life was to be a wife and mother!  I was full of anger and frustration as I tried to be somebody I wasn’t, and, of course, failed miserably at trying to be somebody I wasn’t.  It has only been over the last 10 years that I have realized that I was and am a good mom and that I parented and loved my kids from my heart and in the way I was put together, and that there is beauty and good things encased in this “untypical” “christian” mom!!!  During all this learning, I have had the privilege of having an amazing husband who has never desired for me to be the “typical” “stereotypical” wife and mother, and has said “If that was who I had wanted to marry, I would never have married you”…so…on this Mother’s Day, I want to encourage each person, female and male, to embrace who you are and live life…not embracing the “christian” or “society” stereotypical role for female or male and embrace and enjoy “who you are” and “whose you are”.