Mother Rant

Today is a day to reflect upon mothers. I have one. I'm fortunate to have had one that loved me very much and I never doubted it. I was also very fortunate to have her home with me in my younger years (not so for all of my siblings, but I was the oldest, and that's one of the pay-offs for being the guinea pig child) and when she went back to work she worked at a school so I still saw her all the time at home. I love my mom. Every day I see more and more how much she's impacted my life. Especially when Matt says things like "OK Ruth" to me. I'm her daughter in more ways than I could have understood as a teen. She raised me the best way that she knew how and I'm grateful for her love and sacrifices for me and my siblings over the years.

There's also a hard part of Mother's day for me. I'm LDS, will be 30 this year and married for almost 10 years. This makes me a bad person because I have no children. No one says it. No one hints directly to it, but it's the unspoken rule about being Mormon. No one asks WHY my husband and I don't have kids. They just ask when we're going to start. This is a REALLY personal question to be asking. This is when I feel like saying things like "we can't seem to figure out how, can you come over and teach us?" What? Why can't I say that? Because it's rude? So is asking me about starting a family. I started one when I married my husband in 2002.

I hate going to church on Mother's day. I love my religion, I love my congregation, I love my mother. I hate Mother's day at church. They have the kids get up and sing a song to their mothers (fine, and cute actually). They have speakers get up and talk about mothers, or being a mother (a little painful on the 2nd item, but I'm still OK). Then we have the closing hymn and prayers and this is where the torture starts. As a child, they used to have all the mothers stand up and the teenage girls would walk in with a flowerpot or chocolate or some small token to hand out to all the women standing. Then they'd make a contest in jest about the oldest mother, the newest mother, the mother with the most children etc. All that has been changed to "all women 18+" to stand because we're ALL mothers to children around us.

Guess what. I find the whole ritual insulting and painful. A person's relationship with their mother is a sacred, personal thing and shouldn't be paraded around. I'm not a mother to anyone in that room. No child on this earth calls me Mommy. Some days I wonder if anyone ever will, but at least I have my husband by my side to take that pain with me. There are many women in the church that never get married, or do so very late in life that having children isn't an option anymore. There are many women in the church that CAN'T for one reason or another have children. Are we lesser people? No. Stop insulting us. It's hard enough being in a faith that puts so much emphasis on having a family, and not "having one." I do have one. It's composed of 2 people. We may not be perfect, and may or may not grow in number, but it's the one I've chosen and love. I have a large extended family full of people, including children, that love me. I have children of good friends to be around. Those kids, I wouldn't trade them for the world. I love them and am thankful for them being in my life everyday.

But I'm still not their mother.