On Mother's Day

So, it's Mother's Day.

I'm never quite sure what to do with this day, as a single, childless woman.

And maybe I'm just more aware of it this year, for whatever reason, but I am feeling caught between two narratives about this day, neither of which feels like it quite fits for me.

The first is the traditional narrative about Mother's Day, which has tended over the years to idealize motherhood, often at the risk of equating womanhood with motherhood. It's the narrative in which all the mothers are asked to stand up in church to be recognized. It's the narrative that tends to forget that not everyone has had the privilege of having a mother worth celebrating. It's the narrative that tends to forget the deep pain of those women who wanted children but who, for one reason or another, have been unable to fulfill that dream. Or the women who have consciously chosen a different path, recognizing that they are wired for different roles in life than that of mother. It's the narrative that raises motherhood up high, forgetting that this isn't a one-size-fits-all sort of narrative.

Obviously, that narrative doesn't fit my reality as a single woman who has no children, and who is content with the season of life I finds myself in, who doesn't feel like I need marriage or children to make me whole and fully alive.

This year, I'm becoming increasingly aware of another narrative. It wants to say that all women are mothers. I appreciate the impulse to create space, opening doors to include more people within the embrace of this holiday. I appreciate the recognition that there are women who ache to be included, who have in the past been left outside, reminded of the loss of what could have been, what once was, or what was not to be.

But that's not me either.

I have a wonderful mother, who has always been there for me and who is my role model of the kind of strong, intelligent, capable woman that I want to be. Today is a good day to remember that her presence in my life is a gift that I never want to take for granted. Today I am grateful for the fact that she is in my life. Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

As for me? I wish we could find a way toward inclusivity, while letting go of the need to make the label 'mother' fit everyone, as much as I appreciate the recognition that the nurturing work that I do as a pastor can be a reflection of God's parent-like qualities, and recognition that the love that I have for my friends' children and my niece is valued and appreciated. I don't feel like it needs to be equated with mothering. I wonder if saying that every woman is a mother is helpful, or if it is unintentionally painful, for the women who longed to be parents but for whom that hasn't come to be.

Maybe the solution is to put Mother's Day back into its appropriate context--a good thing, for those who have something that is worth celebrating on this day--either the gift of their own mother, or the gift of motherhood, in whatever form that takes in their life.

But not something that is universally appropriate, or that all of us have to find our way into. Maybe there are instead ways to honour other stories. To appreciate that while parenting is a crucial vocation, that it's not everyone's vocation, nor does it need to be. To say strongly that women come in many different shapes and sizes, and that it is NOT necessary to be a mother to be a woman. What if we released ourselves from the need to fit ourselves into the idea that 'all women are mothers' and simply recognized that it's just not that simple?

In an age when we're learning that gender cannot be boxed into the simple categories of 'male' and 'female,' perhaps we also need to learn that we can't simply equate women and mothers as being two labels for the same category.

I'm not a mother, and I'm okay with that. At least on some level, it's a choice that I've made. It reflects the person that God has made me to be. One that in no way diminishes me. One that in no way diminishes the hard but immeasurably valuable work done by those whose vocation is motherhood, whether that fits the definition of traditional motherhood or pushes the label into new directions.

Thanks be to God that in the Kingdom of God there is space for all of us.