Mothers’ Day is Complicated

Mothers’ Day (and Fathers’ Day, too) is complicated. Can we all just agree on that to begin with? There are mothers, step-mothers, women who have acted like mothers in our lives. There are mothers we talk to every day, and mothers we only call on Mothers’ Day and major holidays. There are mothers who have passed, recently or not, who we can never talk to again. Mothers we never wish to speak to again, by our own choice, because of what they have put us through. There are families with two moms in the home, and families where surrogates were used. And let’s not forget the single fathers or male gay couples raising kids, where there is no mother in the picture.

Sometimes our goal as a mother is be just like our own mother, and sometimes the fight is to be nothing like her. Then there are the mothers who never had a mother in their own life and are just trying to struggle through.

And what makes Mothers’ Day a little worse is that for a day, the internet will tell you that the requirement for being a mother is that you gave birth. There are memes all over the place (and you see them all year round, but they come in concentrated form around Mothers’ Day) about how all mothers give birth, or this day is for you because you pushed a person out your hoo-hah, from the moment your mother gave birth, on and on and on.

We don’t seem to have this problem around Fathers’ Day (probably because men do not physically give birth). On Fathers’ Day, we see more of the “any boy can give his sperm, it takes a real man to be a dad” type things. We seem to be better able to separate the biology of fathering a child from the act of being a father than we are with separating giving birth to the act of being a mother.

I notice this, and I will admit, it hurts that everyone seems to think there is a prerequisite for being a mother, and that is not loving and nurturing a child in your care, but having given birth. And I cannot help but think that if I notice it and feel it – me, the person for whom adoption was the FIRST choice for growing a family – how must it feel to those women I met along the way for whom adoption was the last option?

I do not want to discount birth mothers. I know some amazing women who have given children up for adoption. But if biology does not make a man a father, how is it the only thing that can make a woman a mother?

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Beyond all of that, Mothers’ Day is extra complicated at my house. My emotions are complicated. This was my third Mothers’ Day, and perhaps the one where I felt least like a mother. And my daughters’ emotions are complicated.

Pop Tart was first placed with us about a week and a half before Mothers’ Day. While it had been months since she had last had any contact with her birth mother, she came from a family that had made promises of adopting her, a family where she had called the parents Dad and Mom. So when she was placed, I told people not to send me anything for Mothers’ Day that year. We kept the day very low key. But it was my first mothers’ day, and yes, I felt like a mom even if she did not think of me as her mom.

I honestly do not remember my second Mothers’ Day. I remember celebrating our Pop Tart Anniversary just a couple weeks before, but not Mothers’ Day. Which means it was probably a quiet day spent together, C, Pop Tart, and I.

This year, Mothers’ Day was emotional upheaval time. Pop Tart is legally ours, but Cupcake is not. She is a foster child and still has regular visits with her mother. In this case, I hesitate to even use the term birth mother, because she is still in her children’s lives and working to regain custody. That makes her “mother” without any qualification, while I am foster mother – which is a title I am proud to wear, but understand it comes with complications.

Cupcake has a visit with her mother on Sunday. It was not planned for Mothers’ Day, it just happened to be that Mothers’ Day fell on the every other Sunday schedule of these visits. For Cupcake, every thought she had about Mothers’ Day was in regards to her mother. She wished me Happy Mothers’ Day, and recognized that it was “my” day, too, but not really in relation to her.

Pop Tart’s emotion this year are also back in turmoil. With Cupcake getting to see her mom, Pop Tart is once again very aware that she does not get to see her birth mother any more, and it feels “unfair” to her. And she is vocal (with C and I) about those feelings. So this year, with Cupcake getting to see her mother on Mothers’ Day, what Pop Tart was emotionally focused on was that she has no contact with her birth mother.

She is 11. She is a kid and this is her emotional response. And I understand it. I empathize with it. That does not, however, prevent me from having an emotional response of my own. Pop Tart does not think of me as her Mother. I am the mother of the every day; I am the person who enforces rules, makes her eat salad, and practice clarinet. But, at least for now, I am not her MOTHER. Her mother is someone she has not seen in over two years, a now mystical creature, who Pop Tart still loves (and always will) very much, who she misses, who she feels protective of, and who she worries about.

This is not wrong in any sense. This depth of emotion is part of who Pop Tart is. It is one of the many things I love about my little girl. But yes, on Mothers’ Day, it is really hard to feel like a mom when you know your little girl still does not really think of you as her mother.

Emotionally, Mothers’ Day was complicated in our house. In actuality, it was a pretty simple day. The kids made pancakes. Then I was allowed to be a bum until I took Pop Tart to go get lunch from Qdoba (I love Qdoba) for us all. We took Cupcake to her visit with her mom. C, Pop Tart, and I took the dogs to the dog park, then Pop Tart and I went and got our toes done. We had left over chili for dinner. C took the girls to the store to grab a dessert, then came home and made me strawberry shortcake, and later I got a bit of Girl Scout Samoa Cookie ice cream.

It was a simple day. It was a good day. But it remains complicated.