Celebrating Mothers

Written by Liz, Contributing Writer

note from Rachel: Please meet Liz, a new monthly contributor who loves motherhood although she isn’t a Mom quite yet. She is learning to embrace motherhood as she helps encourage birthing mothers as a doula. 

Since the beginning of May we’ve been inundated with advertisements for the upcoming day that all moms look forward to; Mother’s Day. Everywhere we go we are reminded, until it gets annoying, to buy our moms jewelry, flowers and chocolate and to celebrate our mothers. 

And then as soon as the day is over, we collectively forget. As someone who has made a job out of celebrating mothers, I appreciate this sentiment but find it incredibly ironic. Why?

As a whole, on every day except Mother’s Day, our society does everything it can not to celebrate mothers.
Think about it. Our maternity care system pushes mothers into C-sections without considering the consequences. The ultimate removal of motherhood; abortion; occurs 3,500 times every day. 

Unlike other countries, women are not usually granted paid maternity leave. Mothers are ostracized for breastfeeding in public; making them feel as though they have no other choice than to be hermits or to quit breastfeeding. 

Yet the crunchy crowd judges mothers every chance it gets for choosing to formula feed, circumcise, birth in hospitals or use the cry it out method. So does it strike anyone else as odd that on one day out of the year, our society all of a sudden gets excited about moms and then promptly moves on the next day?

Mother’s Day came and went about a month ago, but I don’t want to forget. This year, I am making a vow to celebrate moms every day of the year. I am surrounded by mothers every day, and I will seize the opportunity to remember their worth. 

So who do I celebrate?

• My mommy, who gave me life.
• My step-mom, who has been a part of my life as long as I can remember and is like a whole extra mommy figure to me (how lucky am I?!).
• My four grandmothers: two who are with the Lord and the other two who like to visit with me every chance they get.
• Midwives, who are mothers to all their mothers.
• The mothers in my life who give me the opportunity to join them in the most sacred yet grueling time in their life that is called motherhood ; as their doula.
• The mothers who have lost their children and mourn even when others have forgotten their sorrow.
• The women who desperately want to be mothers, but have yet to get a positive pregnancy test.
• The adoptive mothers who give their hearts to orphans.
• The mothers who join each other across the world in every second of every day, birthing together and sharing in the pain and joy of that.
• The mothers who are awake at any hour feeding babies, stripping sheets, changing diapers, caring for sick children.
• The mothers in crisis pregnancies who see abortion as the only option and just need love.
• The new mothers who are just trying to figure out this whole thing and maybe want to rip their hair out in the process. Or just take a nap. Or a shower.
• The pregnant mothers with morning sickness, back pain, mood swings, exhaustion.
• The mothers who get epidurals, birth in the woods (or just at home), breastfeed, formula feed, have elective C-sections, cry it out, co-sleep, babywear, use strollers, vaccinate, don’t vaccinate, use donor milk, homeschool, send their kids to public school, send their kids to private school, work, stay at home, eat their placentas, get their babies’ ears pierced, never let their kids get their ears pierced, cloth diaper, practice elimination communication, disposable diaper, circumcise, don’t circumcise, have natural hospital births, use an OB and a doula, use a midwife and a doula, use just an OB, use just a midwife, use an OB and three doulas, and those who do a mixture of some or all of these things.

Because they’re moms, and they work their butts off to make sure they’re doing what’s best for their children. 

And that’s all that matters.

So can we all agree to work together towards creating a culture of constant appreciation of mothers? To not judge mommies no matter what, to reach out to our fellow moms when they need help, and to recognize them as an extraordinarily important part of society? Cause I think they deserve it.

Related posts:

I’m a Mother and I’m called Mom Laying Down My Isaac Loving Your Husband With A Newborn At Home Seeing the Death of Jesus Through the Loss of a Child