Mother’s day a bust year? This might help your next one better.
Every year Mother’s Day rolls in along with hopes and expectations, and leaves either with full hearts or unfulfilled expectations. This day plays a big part in the lives of many women. For some it’s an incredible celebration of the self. For others it’s a day of deep grief.
To me, Mother’s Day is a celebration of any woman, anywhere who cares or has cared for a single soul. Whether it be hers or someone else’s, it’s a day important enough to stand out. Yet inevitably, any time I talk to other women about Mother’s Day, come the stories of husbands everywhere who either don’t believe in celebrating this day for or with their wives or just don’t put in the effort. Disappointments lay the groundwork for conversations about this day. “You’re not my mother,” is the line used by many a male counterpart to justify their reasoning, and it’s often the line most of the moms I’ve spoken with cringe at. What is it about this holiday that ends up very often creating a huge wedge between couples? For starters, it could be the vast differences of meaning, or lack thereof, this particular holiday carries with it.
What does Mother’s Day mean? As a mother, or father for that matter, you’ve held expectations, often unbeknownst ones, of holidays like Mother’s Day since you joined the category. We all hold images and stories in our minds and hearts based on memories, our families of origin, and hopes we’ve created along the way. Even if you didn’t grow up celebrating Mother’s Day, you still carry with you the experience of not having experienced the celebration. Not having a certain experience can often in and of itself create an expectation. We do what we do based on what we want, what we’ve seen and what we know.
If you’re struggling with disappointment or even more of a bummer - resentment - from your Mother’s Day, first, know that many, many moms feel a wide range of emotion around holidays, especially this one. Now’s a really good time to dig in and think about what lies beneath the surface of all that.
Sons and daughters, husbands and wives each play very distinct roles in families. What always amazes me about families is the very different experiences each person has based on their family role and point of view. Think about what holidays like Mother’s and Father’s Day were like for you growing up? What were the expectations put upon you on this holiday? How did you see your own mom being acknowledged on Mother’s Day and whose responsibility was it to do the acknowledging? Did your dad have much to do with the celebration or was it mostly up to the kids? All of these things influence what we bring into our partnerships and parenting. Think about the experience you had, what you hoped for when you became a parent and bring it with you into a conversation with your partner.
In most households, women still carry 70%- 80% of the caregiving roles and the division of labor isn’t really divided statistically speaking, even in homes where both partners have full-time jobs.
While millennial partnerships are starting to close the gap on the work/life balance, according to Ada Calhoun in her book, Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis, they don’t account for the majority by far. This is a big deal and a huge number that often goes unrecognized, underestimated and unacknowledged when it comes to raising kids, and it’s not just unnoticed or unappreciated by men either. While women are getting better at lifting one another up (thank you Glennon Doyle, and Brené Brown, PhD) even within our own gender, the judgement and comparison within our own tribe is palpable.
We’re often left feeling like we’re scrambling, not doing a good enough job and can’t catch a break within our homes, nonetheless outside of them. For many women, while Mother’s Day was a day they’d hoped to be “off the clock,” (“go ask you father!”) it’s also a day most women want even more longingly to be acknowledged for the role they embody and work they do in caring for another or other human(s) being(s). Put simply, that looks like “thank you” and feels like “I see you.”
When I talk to men about their partners’ parenting and caregiving roles, I’m sometimes met with more reasons for not giving the accolade than for simply supporting the work women put into their roles as moms. Comments such as, “but we agreed she’d stay home with children,” and “I don’t get a “good job” at my office either,” are among the few. Outside of some clever responses and light-hearted banter back and forth, I generally acknowledge the feeling that’s behind all of this. “You’re right,” I say. “And think about how much better your work and your role at that company would feel if you were appreciated, seen, and heard for what you did as well.”
We can all agree there isn’t enough support in most work environments including the ones at home. Yet where does that get us? Disgruntled, unhappy and ultimately looking for another position at another company. That’s not exactly what we want for our home life or our stay-at-home parents, is it?
And as for the “we agreed she’d stay home with the children,” well, there’s a lot more to that than what initially appears. When a woman (or man for that matter) agrees with their spouse or partner to stay home and raise kids because it’s what’s best for their family, there’s almost always a sacrifice of self and identity that happens with it. Most of us don’t think that we won’t be able to get back into the workforce when we take the pause but it’s an incredible struggle to get back in once you’ve been gone for an extended period of time. We also don’t consider that a stay-at-home parent role is ultimately a 24 hour caregiving job and not just a day job. Ultimately working around the clock no matter what the position, leads to burnout, resentment and loneliness as well.
For many moms, Mother’s Day is about the constant “do better,” “be better,” motto that runs on repeat all day, every day. It’s not about having the day off of work, it’s ultimately about getting some time and space from our own heads. We get that through validation of the tough job it is being a parent and thereby being appreciated and seen for the work that we do. The “I see you” weighs way more than the “thank you.”
Build up your partnership first, then your parenting.
If you’re married or partnered-up, the best way to acknowledge your other half on a holiday happens well before the actual day itself. In fact, so much so, that for some moms, Mother’s Day becomes the exact opposite of what they’d hoped for. Instead of being celebrated, having a break from being uber-responsible for the children, or making decisions that relate to anyone’s overall well-being that day, the day itself becomes the icing on the cake of feeling totally unseen. A cumulative effect of how many women feel much of the rest of the year.
John Gottman, a Ph.D. and researcher and relationship guru has a tool to illustrate this exact concept. Gottman’s “Sound Relationship House,” illustrates a home of many levels, in which the very foundational layer that everything else is built upon is called “Building Love Maps.” “Love Maps” are about “knowing one another’s worlds.” While this might sound a bit daydreamy and exaggerated, the message is absolute: know your partner. Pay attention to their life, get curious about what happens in their day, their mind and their heart. Mother’s Day can be and mean a lot of things to a lot of people, as every holiday does. What it doesn’t need to be, is a surprising glimpse into the reality of a lonely partner.
Yet it doesn’t need to be a build-up of resentment either. “Knowing your partner’s world” is also about sharing your own too. If you’re walking around stuffing hurt, feeling taken advantage of or building up your case that you do more, stop. Start sharing your experience and start getting to know what all that emotion is about for you. Christine Carter, PhD wrote an exceptional piece around Mother’s Day that was all about the ability we all have to put down the resentment in order to feel more respected and seen as a mother. She also offers some really great questions to dig into work/life balance as well. You can read her article here.
Finally, while most men know the day is an important one, they don’t always understand their own role on this day with their wives.
Categorically speaking, men aren’t wrong when they say you’re not their mother. This is obviously true. What may not be so obvious to them is the part they play in helping make this day a successful one for everyone. But in order to do this, they also have to know what your meaning of this day is, and the wants you may have for it. While you’re obviously not their mother, the children you share together have created roles for both of you. Your togetherness and the health of it is based more on partnership and not patronage. But how often are we as clear about what we want this day to look like, what gift we’d enjoy, or time we’d ideally love to spend? In all honesty, from most of the women I talk to, it’s not very often. Saying “I don’t feel seen by you,” while deep and truthful, is not the same as, “I need you to make every meal on Mother’s Day,” or “I want to spend two hours in the afternoon alone reading a book.” How and why should they know that otherwise if we’re not clear? Brené Brown, PhD says it best in her book Dare to Lead, “Clear is kind.”
So if this Mother’s Day didn’t work out for you or your partner, the good news is you can start by putting together that foundation of knowing one another to make it better. And...there’s always Father’s Day ;)
