Is it Mother's Day or not?

Today was the Mother's Day service at my church. I went so I could sing this lovely song, "Requiem," by Eliza Gilkyson. Four of us (SSAA) sang with piano accompaniment. Some people cried, so I would call the performance a success. Here's a video of Gilkyson singing it with her daughter. Even if you don't read further, have a listen.

Probably I would have skipped out today if I hadn't been asked to sing, because the rest of the service was about Mother's Day how anybody who nurtures somebody can be called a mother or how any nurturing can be called mothering or something like that. Instead of the offensive, idealized, Hallmark concept of mothers we used to honor at the Mother's Day service, in the past 10 years or so we have so diluted and expanded the definition of the word mother so that it includes anyone who has ever nurtured another person, and even if we had to nurture ourselves. Whew. That's pretty much everybody. And yet, I hope we can agree not everybody is a mother.

I've been pretty vocal about my feelings on the issue, so I don't have a problem writing about it, even knowing that lot of people disagree with me and find me callous and insensitive. Who the fuck knows? They could be right. If I'm insensitive, I don't know it right? That's what the word means. I wonder if other churches do the same thing, for the same reasons, or if we're just special.

The problem first started for us years ago when the women's group did a special Mother's Day service. It kicked ass. We had people laughing and crying and singing the praises of their mothers even if they hated their mothers. It was such a wonderful service some of the dads in the church felt left out because they didn't get a service like that for Father's Day. "Do one then," we told them. "Nobody's stopping you."

They said it wasn't the same if they had to do it for themselves. Hmmm. That sure sounds familiar. Eventually the dads suggested they do the MD service for us and we do the FD service for them. We did that a couple of years and it worked out pretty well. We all felt duly honored -- those of us who were moms and dads.

But equality for the dads wasn't the only problem with the Mother's Day service. Other people had their own reasons for wanting something different, for wanting to be included even if they weren't actually mothers.

Some women didn't want a service to only honor women who had children because they didn't have kids. Either they wanted kids and couldn't have them or they just didn't choose to. So on the one hand, it was insensitive to point out that some women are mothers and some aren't or couldn't be and were sad about it. And on the other hand, the Mother's Day service suggested that women should be mothers or they were incomplete, and not all women want to be mothers so we shouldn't make a big deal of being a mom.

So language was added to reflect the nurturing women do even if they aren't mothers. And language was added to acknowledge that women don't have to be mothers, and they don't have to be mothers to be nurturers, which is the same as mothering.

(My insensitive response: Not everybody can be or wants to be a mother. It's only one day out of 365, and it's called Mother's Day, not Mothering Day. We can acknowledge and lift up the ways we all take care of each other any other day of the year, but if we're going to have a MD service, it should be about moms. Just for that one day. And it's not insensitive to say that some women are moms and some are not. That's just a fact. However, if the Mother's Day service brings up grief over those issues, that's something that's already there. The service didn't cause it.)

But some men were also upset that they weren't included. They said they were divorced or single and they mothered their kids too. So the language was changed to include anybody of any gender who nurtured (nurture=mother) kids.

(My insensitive response: Men can't be mothers. They don't have uteruses and they don't have vaginas. They can't breastfeed. They do have penises though. A parent who has a penis is a father. It's just that simple. So nurture away dads. The world could use a hell of a lot more nurturing from dads, but that's the topic of another post. Changing a diaper and feeding a kid doesn't make a person with a penis a mother. The day for that person is called Father's Day. Glad to celebrate it with you in June.

Look, I did everything except bring home the big, fat paycheck when LtColEx was flying all over keeping the world safe from terrorists and mad dictators. He was gone for months .... hell, he was gone for a year and a half once. I changed out the guts of toilets (yes, I know what a ballcock is), mowed the grass, shoveled the driveway, put 3000 miles on his brand new red Firebird before he ever got to drive it, and even joined the Boy Scouts, but I wasn't a dad. I'm a woman. No matter what "manly" chores I did, I didn't grow a penis and become a father (or replace LtColEx as the kids' dad). I'm OK with that. I just don't understand why men want to get credit for being both just because they were the primary parent all or some of the time for their kids.)

Another reason some people didn't like the Mother's Day service was because they didn't like their mothers. The same can be true for the FD service. Some people just don't have anything good to say about their mothers.

(My insensitive response: Moms aren't perfect and some are really fucking hideously bad. It's a fact. And nobody has to honor a shitty mom. If you've got someone who was the mom of your heart and wasn't your bio-mom, replace "mother" with that person in your mind. Just don't insist that all of us do the same. Filling a service with language that like "anybody who nurtured you" takes the meaning out of the word "mother." It just does. Do it for yourself if you need a replacement mom.)

And finally, some people didn't/don't like the MD service because they're still grieving over losing their mothers. Or they're grieving over losing a child. The service simply hurts.

(My insensitive response: Grief is inevitable with loss. The service doesn't cause the grief. It just opens the place where grief lives to the air. I remember how Father's Day felt for many years after my dad died. He died when I was in my mid-20's, and our relationship had been difficult. We loved each other, but we weren't close. And his death devastated me. I remember how much I wanted to avoid Father's Day and did, but it wasn't the day that caused the grief. The grief was there already.

The kids in our church have a common blessing, and one part of it is, "Here you find the hands of friends." If you can't share your grief and your tears in a place where you find the hands of friends, where can you share it? And sharing grief during a celebration is OK. It may hurt like hell, but it's OK. You won't be the only one. It won't bring a loved one back, but it's still OK to grieve with your spiritual family. But if you really can't stand it, it's also OK to skip that service and find something to do that feels better.)

  

I understand wanting to be sensitive to people's concerns. I really do. I just don't agree that they are good reasons for avoiding the reality that some of us are mothers. Pure and simple. 

And while some people take issue with Mother's Day, a hell of a lot of people love honoring their mothers on a special day. They give them gifts and cards and take them out to dinner and do extra-special, caring things for them. Some people take advantage of Mother's Day to show Mom a lot of love, maybe to give back a little. Some people even get a fucking tattoo! And what if those people simply want to celebrate their mothers? Is that such a bad thing? Are those reasons that people don't want to celebrate the traditional definition of "mother" really more important? Evidently so.

They are the reasons we now have a service where the kids were shown a really cute slideshow of animals of one species nursing animals of another species, and then at the end were told that "all sorts of people can do the work mothers do." To tell the truth, I don't have problem with the concept or the slideshow, and stories were wonderful; I just don't want to see it on Mother's Day as an implication that mothers can be replaced, especially by another animal.

Those are also the reasons the language of today's service was so carefully wrought so as not to imply that mothers are the only people who are mothers. And why we were told to go forth and honor the nurturers and the mother figures in our lives, and that some of them might even be fathers. What? Fathers? No. Calling everybody, even men, mothers dilutes the meaning of Mother's Day until it has no meaning.

The idea that anybody can do what I did as a mother, that anybody can or could ever take my place, is bullshit. I'm a mother to two people, although I've touched other lives and I've nurtured and cared for and loved many other kids and will continue to do so. I suppose I've even mothered other people; I can't count the number of my kids' friends who call me "Mom." I love that they do that, but we all know I'm not really their mom.

I'm only a mother to those two people -- Drake and Elvira. They share my DNA* and they came out of my vagina and I am their only mother. It's the most special, unique relationship I can possibly have with another human being. Nobody can replace me -- not another person and certainly not another animal. This and only this is the role in which nobody can replace me.

I know Mother's Day can be a difficult day; it's not all hearts and flowers and dinner at a nice restaurant. I struggled today with certain issues myself, things I wouldn't write about here. My heart aches for my friends and family members who have lost a mother or grandmother, and who are still missing her and grieving for her. Nobody can take her place, and nobody can change the memories she left behind. I don't look forward to the day when I face that loss myself.

Those are my thoughts on Mother's Day tonight. I accept that some people don't agree with me and I lost that battle years ago. Whatever. They're wrong.

Am I a callous insensitive whiner? (Only on this issue please.) How do you celebrate Mother's Day in your church? Do you even celebrate it at all?

* Mothers who adopted, consider yourself included. I'm not trying to narrow the definition of "mother" to only those who give birth to their children. I'm not that insensitive.