To Mothers everywhere

by Sally Jack
Contributing writer
Mother’s Day is a strange holiday. Though it is intended as a day to honor and celebrate mothers, it is the holiday that mothers like least.
While most women appreciate the opportunity to love, honor, and revere their own mothers, they positively cringe at the thought of anyone doing the same for them.
I have a friend whose mother was so opposed to Mother’s Day that she called it Blue Sunday.
“Who needs a day to remind mothers of all the things that they are not?” this mother of nine would say. “I’m not your perfect mother, and I don’t want to spend all day hearing about mothers who are.”
As one mother confessed, “I start out the day as Mary Poppins, but by bedtime, I am Cruella De Vil!
So to every woman who dislikes Mother’s Day because she’s not perfect — or because her children are not perfect – or because she hasn’t got any children at all, this tribute is for you.
• • • • •
To the mother across the street who nurtured us, laughed with us, cried with us.
To the mother who never had children of her own, but had a box of Kleenex, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on when my own mother was 500 miles away.
And to mothers and favorite aunts everywhere who mother the children of other mothers.
To the mother who spent hours scrubbing exploded spider legs and guts out of the microwave after her sons put a jar of spiders in it and turned it on just to see what would happen.
To the mother whose son stuck a kernel of corn so far up his nose she had to take him to the doctor to get it out.
And to all the mothers whose children stick beads in their noses and berries in their ears, and get sent home from school because they swallowed a quarter.
To all the mothers who have wiped noses and tears, put Band-Aids on skinned knees, or paced the floor for hours during the night with a sick or wailing child, until she’s crying too.
To all the mothers who taught their children that if you want to grow up healthy and strong, you can’t hide your broccoli in your glass of milk – you have to eat it.
To every mother who has watched her teenaged son drive away in the family car with a new license and the reckless confidence that comes with inexperience, and prayed he’d return home in once piece.
To every mother who has ever said, “If you don’t brush your teeth they will rot and fall out of your head and you will be embarrassed to smile for the rest of your life!”
To every mother who says, “Because I said so!”
To the mother whose children grew up without knowing that Oreos come with frosting because she ate the middles before giving them the plain cookies.
To mothers who bravely leave a child at college and then cry all the way home.
To the mother who has heard every knock-knock joke on the planet but still laughs when she hears them again. And again. And again.
To the mother who made her children sing “Love at Home” every time they started to argue.
To the mother of five rambunctious little boys who break windows and bones with alarming speed.
To every mother who has ever lost her cool.
To every mother who has done a pile of laundry the size of Mount Everest.
To every mother who has received a wilted dandelion bouquet from a grubby little hand, or kissed baby toes, or held a sweet-smelling-towel-wrapped-fresh-from-the-tub baby, or taught a child to pray.
To the mothers who love their six-year-olds with jack o’ lantern grins but forgot to tell the tooth fairy to come.
To mothers who home-school and mothers who don’t.
To mothers who bake brownies from scratch, and mothers who make brownies from a box mix, and mothers who buy ready-made brownies from the store.
And to all mothers everywhere. Your kids love you just because you’re you.
And you’re doing just fine.
Happy Mother’s Day!