Mother’s Day for the Rest of Us

Every year about this time I hear from people for whom Mother’s Day evokes feelings that are anything but warm and fuzzy—people raised by mothers who overall did them a lot more harm than good.

If you are someone whom the celebration of Mother’s Day leaves feeling cold, isolated, or anxious, then these five thoughts are for you.

1. You’re not alone. Many people had mothers who were no more fit to raise children than wildebeests are to raise sea horses. People love to think that just being a mother makes you a good mother. But that’s like saying falling out of a plane makes you a good flyer. It doesn’t. Hallmark’s stock would go through the roof if they made Mother’s Day cards that said things like, “Here’s to you! / You insufferably toxic narcissist,” or, “ Happy Mother’s Day! / I’m sending you my therapist’s bills,” or “Roses are red /  Violets are blue / Europe had the plague / And I have you.” (Note to self: start Happy Crappy Mother’s Day line of cards.) 

2. Be depressed. The key to a happy depression lies in not trying to not be depressed. If Mother’s Day makes you sad, be sad. Lean into that truth. Trying to pretend it’s not happening—that your depression isn’t real and valid—serves no purpose. Give yourself permission to do nothing on Mother’s Day. Lie on the couch, cover yourself with a blanket, eat food you know you shouldn’t, and binge watch TV. Or work out. Whatever. Just let yourself be bummed. You got severely dinked in the mom department. You deserve some self-pity and self-love.

3. Be angry. If you’re depressed about Mother’s Day, guess what? You’re not really depressed at all. You’re angry. Depression is anger that’s turned in on itself, because it has nowhere else to go. You’re not sad; you’re mad. You’re mad at your mother for not doing her job. Instead of loving and nurturing you, she (chances are) mainly used you as a pawn in her own ongoing emotional drama. Instead of dealing with you, she made you deal with her. You couldn’t get mad at her then for treating you the awful way she did, because your literal survival depended upon your pleasing her as much as you could. But that was then. Today, you can allow yourself to feel the anger towards her that you’ve always felt. Do. She certainly deserves that. So do you.

4. Feel the love. Reject the common mistake of believing that in order to heal from your dysfunctional childhood you must so utterly reject your parents that you effectively cease to love them. No person can stop themselves from, at some level, loving their parents, no matter how harmful or toxic their parents were/are. Loving our mothers is simply hardwired into our, well, motherboards. So while you can’t negate that love, you can contain it. It’s not your adult self who loves and needs your mother. It’s the child in you. And that’s okay. Because you yourself can give your inner child all the love that child needs. Just give yourself permission to give, and receive, that love. Be the parent to your child that your real parent never was. 

5. And now a poem I wrote called “Raised Too Alone.”

If

your mother

was caustic,

toxic,

abusive,

vindictive,

twisted,

dangerous:

If she was irresistibly drawn

to making much too clear

that her unhappiness—

her pain,

her dysfunction,

her drama—

was more precious to her

than you could ever be,

so that as a child

you

had to live your life

frightfully and desperately

scrounging

for whatever

corrupted version of love

you could squeeze from her,

then this Mother’s Day,

while others

(as you imagine; as we all imagine)

are basking in the warmth

of their exemplary mothers,

you close your eyes,

and say a prayer

for two mothers:

the one you never had,

and the one she never had.

And then say a loving prayer

for yourself,

for the child

raised too alone.

And then open your eyes—

and there is the world,

beautiful again.

Uncorrupted again.

And

[Screw] ’em.

[Scew] ’em all.

Because you are still here,

and you are not done yet.