Happy post Mother’s Day! I felt like yesterday was the beauty of motherhood: sweet children dressed up with picture perfect mamas: having brunch, planting gardens, and moms sipping glasses of wine or mimosas. Husbands went to Facebook or Instagram and raved about how extraordinary their wives were. It was the glorification of all things mom. 

And now it’s the day after Mother’s Day. For some, Mother’s Day was tough for so many reasons: maybe they just lost their mother or desperately want to be a mother or they lost a child. Or maybe they are moms who didn’t have picture perfect days. Children are not snapshots. They have tantrums at fancy brunches, fling dirt in your face when you are planting gardens, refuse to take naps, refuse to eat dinner, refuse to go to sleep, refuse, refuse, refuse. (Can you tell I am the mother of a two year old?) And then these moms go online and see other moms and wonder how THEY do it. 

Then Monday comes and maybe you took the day off from household stuff and you are faced with the Mother’s Day Hangover. Back to reality. Back to laundry and dishes and making appointments and existing. 

This morning was just plain tough. G’s new trick is to run away and hide. Even in public. G2 prefers to open packages at the grocery store, including raw chicken. And while our society adores looking at those picture perfect pictures of motherhood, the public does not look as fondly at the frizzy haired mom snapping as she tries to mop raw chicken juice off her two year old and keep her four year old from running into the parking lot and hiding all the while trying to check out groceries and get to an appointment in 15 minutes. 

Haters are going to hate. Should I have crammed that grocery trip in between gymnastics and an appointment? Maybe not. But we do need food this week and my options are limited as I have to make sure the two year old does not sleep in the car and therefore not nap. And I am almost at the end of my budget, so going to a huge but cheap store had its appeal. Will I do it again in the near future? Heck no. 

In addition to society not loving a real mom having a hard day, I also don’t think our society does not do a great job of acknowledging mothers in society who don’t have children. You know the people: the friend who gives you a hug when you need it, the teacher who would do anything for her students, the aunt who lives for her nieces and nephews. 

I’m all about motherhood, but I’m about celebrating it in every aspect. The kind look to a harried mom at the store, the broadening of how we define mother, and the compassion for those who struggle on these days. 

And I would love to go on more soap boxes but my two year old is refusing her nap and ironically, screaming ‘Mommy’ over and over again at this very moment. 

I challenge you to show that same Facebook glorification for all the moms out there: the harried, the childless, and the ones who need a little mothering for whatever reason. Put them on the pedestal this week in any way you can.

And ignore my grammatical errors: I need to get to my two year old before she breaks out of her crib. 


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