It’s the day after Mother's Day and I’m finally sitting down to read my texts.
The texts aren’t from my children, but from my friends … my MOM friends …the group of us who have traveled this parenting road together. We have been there for each other through thick and thin, supporting each other during the ups and the downs.
It’s important to note that the role of parenting should not be confused with being a parent. Our parents, the parents of the 1960s and 1970s, were fairly straightforward. They were merely parents. They were parents because they had children. They loved us, hung out with us when they could, threw balls to us, and read us stories. All great things, and they probably made more sense of that than what we did, which was to be engaged in parenting. We made parenting into a participle—going, doing. Like crusading, parenting was a serious and unrelenting business.
So, of course, we need and deserve a holiday!
Who makes the holidays? The nonreligious ones—the secular ones—I mean. And can we even call them holidays? Or are they mere observances? Maybe saying “mere observances” isn’t quite right. It’s kind of like being a “mere parent,” which is a bit hard to fathom. If anyone deserves a holiday, it’s mothers and fathers.
But some of the other holidays seem totally made up. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of printed datebooks. I carry an oversized spiral-bound book that looks ahead five years. Each month spans two whole pages, with a large box for each day. Printed on several days each month are reminders of not only actual holidays, but observances too … and not only those that are celebrated in the United States. For some reason, maybe to save on printing costs, observances for other countries are also included. Days like Boxing Day, which is the day after Christmas in the UK. I was encouraged to see that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the US, UK, DE, FR, IT, and ES. The world can use a day of love. Mother’s Day is celebrated in the UK in March. Earth Day is somewhat self-explanatory, but what the heck is Whit Day? Grandparents have a day in September, and that’s nice. But do we really need Asteroid Day? Or a day to celebrate marijuana? Anyone under the age of thirty will tell you they should have the day off from work on their birthday. I guess I can’t poke fun at them for that, since I celebrate my birthday for an entire month!
Mothers and Fathers, and Grandparents, too, absolutely deserve a day of celebration, but the ways we have celebrated sure have changed over the years. The early years of Mother’s Day at our house were days that began with breakfast in bed, followed by handmade cards and gifts, and children and husbands willingly doing their chores. By the times of the tweens and teens, Mother’s Day was celebrated as a day off—a day for mothers to get away from the kids and do something just for ourselves.
Now that our nests are empty and our kids are far away, we are still parents, but our parenting days are over. Our kids are amazingly charming and successful. They are busy with their own lives, leaving us to struggle to find an hour when we can get on a Zoom call together … each of us more exhausted than the other.
We are so proud of them and love them madly. And as hard as it may be, we have to admit they are now doing things on their own.
We have joined the ranks of our parents as mere parents.
