It's Okay to Hate Mother's Day

On having been there myself...

I spent years not thinking much about Mother’s Day other than placing a sticky note on my fridge or writing on a wall calendar to call my wee Irish mother. The day itself held only positive associations for me in my childhood and youth. A blessing.

It wasn’t until my 30s when I entered what would become a 9-year relationship that I began to contemplate becoming a mother myself and that’s the decade I came to loathe the date.

Happy day to all who can relate to this. Make your own damn dinner. Anne Taintor.

Each year families would gather for Mother’s Day brunch and I’d watch other young women their bellies round and their hearts seemingly content, young mothers rocking babies or chasing toddlers, families dressed their Sunday best gathered in honour of this major figure in all our varied lives.

I love my own mother very deeply. She’s generous, loving, kind, sweet, hilarious, beautiful and inspiring. If you opened a dictionary to the word Mother, a photograph of her would stare back at you. All my friends at every stage of my life have made the same comment about her. How they adore her. Wished she was their mom. She’s 91 this year and our family knows we all won the Mom Lottery. If I have had any success in my own role as mother, it is absolutely down to her stellar example.

And still I came to dread the approach of this annual holiday. Inevitably strangers meeting a couple in their 30s will ask, “do you have kids?” My partner and I would smile and answer in the negative and leave unsaid all the heartache, pain and despair of our infertility struggle behind closed doors.

My then-partner once described the experience as though we were stood on a dock watching all our friends pull away on some luxury boat cruise, laughing and partying, streamers flying and drinks raised in festivity while we were left behind waving at them from the shore, alone and forlorn.

Around my mid-30s, I decided to boycott Mother’s Day. My partner would go celebrate his mother with his family alone and I’d make excuses to avoid the annual family brunch where mine gathered. I’d arrange an alternate day to visit my mom. I’d write her a heartfelt Hallmark card and put it in the post.

Between the two occasions my partner and I managed to achieve pregnancy (that each sadly ended in miscarriage), six agonizing years unfolded during which 16 babies were born to immediate family members, close friends and acquaintances within a 10 km radius. I attended so many non-stop baby showers, I felt like I was stuck in a revolving door of inadequacy, envy, and abject failure.

Around this time, I took up knitting again. My mother taught me to knit and purl in my childhood. I think it must have been the fifth baby-shower in a year when I abruptly abandoned the lineup of a local baby store crawling with expectant couples loudly complaining of back pain and swollen feet to each other. I headed to a knitting store and purchased some newborn sweater patterns. For my own improved mental health, I decided a handmade gift would be the best approach for everyone involved. No more wandering shops filled with cribs and onesies that poured unending salt on my physical and emotional wounds.

In August 2008, after ending my long-term relationship and taking a much needed break from all and any attempts at motherhood, I pursued In Vitro Fertilization surgery alone via anonymous donor at the former clinic where my partner and I had tried and failed for years to make a family of our own.

I was over 40 and could only afford one IVF attempt after which I resolved to move on and accept whatever hand I was dealt. I really just wanted some closure on the anguish of it all. My partner and I had tried everything else but this one procedure. I needed to feel I had given it all I could before closing that door.

By some miracle, the surgery worked. A pregnancy resulted. More than that, I made it for the first time safely into the second trimester, then the third.

I will never forget the Mother’s Day of Sunday, May 10, 2009, the week my baby was due. I was not yet a mother, but it was the first time in years I allowed myself the chance to celebrate among family. It felt a long, laborious road (no pun intended) to grant myself that small moment of elation. Like opening a window to springtime after endless cold, harsh winter months. I would finally give birth days later after close to a decade of trying.

I write this today for all the humans out there who dread or loathe Mother’s Day, for whom this day feels especially wretched or has become a non-day. Maybe they’ve lost their mother and are missing them. Maybe they never had a mother, not in the traditional sense. Maybe their mother represents fear or abuse or rejection. Maybe they love their mother, but have never had any inclination to be or feel maternal. Maybe they love other people’s kids and are happy to hand them back at the end of the visit. Maybe they carried pregnancy, briefly or many months before it ended. Maybe they think about abortions they’ve had in regret or relief. Maybe they gave birth, but their babies did not survive. Maybe they had a baby they gave up for adoption. Maybe associations with pregnancy and motherhood are filled with grief or occurred without choice. Maybe they love being mothers, but they don’t feel it’s the only role in life that defines them. Maybe they resent the way they only feel honoured or recognized one damn day out of the year.

Whatever the reason(s) may be, I lift my glass to you today. I have been there and felt the dread of this day. I have put my all into seeking to dismiss this annual holiday. To be indifferent, even if that wasn’t always successfully achieved. I send you hugs and solidarity. I empathize. I wish you comfort and healing if you need it. I fist-bump all the decisions you have made and continue to make for your own health and happiness and personal fulfillment.

I want you to know I am aware exactly how privileged I am to no longer dread this day. To allow myself joy today. That every Mother’s Day since finally giving birth 15 years ago, I still feel incredibly lucky. I count my blessings and I try my damndest not to take it all for granted. That doesn’t mean I’ve been or am a perfect mom. Far from it. I try my best and often fail every day. But I know deep within my core that it’s an honour to mother the child I have been gifted and to get to watch them grow. I won the kid lottery and it is a damn lottery. I know intimately how much achieving parenthood by choice is a crapshoot. A one-in-a-million win. I hope all the mothers out there recognize this and don’t take that for granted. I wish them a good day, too.

Meantime, I remember the decade of my 30s. And today, I think about all of you, the ones not partaking of celebrations today for whatever myriad reasons you hold.

I wish you an especially beautiful Sunday and that you celebrate yourselves today.