I know that this may be like saying that I don’t like the American Flag and Apple Pie (which I do!!!) but I have to be raw and vulnerable with you. I am coming out. I hate “Mother’s Day”. It’s just not a comfortable holiday for me. And I am not alone. It’s so loaded for so many people. It’s hard to wish people a “Happy Mother’s Day Weekend”.

Do you know their life? Do they have a mother? Did their mother recently pass? Are they still grieving for their mother? Do they talk to their mother? Are they a mother? Do they want to be a mother, and is it eluding them? Are they struggling with infertility? Are your kids with you? Fighting with you? Not around? Ignoring you? Plus you get to pay double for fried eggs at the diner. It’s all about the “Mother’s Day Pre-Fixe Menu”.

I feel like such a curmudgeon. Maybe it’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I hated “Mother’s Day” when I was going through infertility. Going into a restaurant and having someone offer me a “Mother’s Day Rose” that I didn’t feel I had earned. When my first IVF son was born – I think there was a moment of feeling like I had made it on “Mother’s Day”, when I kind of enjoyed my first official Mother’s Day. Perhaps there is a picture of it – somewhere.

Perhaps, it’s over the years that my idea of what a mother is has also changed. Men can mother. Women without children that they have birthed mother too. Does the Hallmark Card include them? Or are they left wondering if they should accept the rose?

So, this is why there is no Mother’s Day blog. This day created to celebrate Mom is probably a very good thing all in all. It’s just that for me, it becomes something loaded, full of mixed messages of who is included and who is not. Who welcomes a day of celebrating mom, and those who would like this day to silently pass.

Yesterday, my husband and my youngest son met my protest over my complex feelings over Mother’s Day and redid my terrace. They laid green carpeting over the cement of our terrace floor. They planted flowers in boxes and threw out the garbage to make it a pretty place for me to work. They did it because they love me. And I guess, “Mother’s Day” gave them the excuse to express their love. There is that.

And for all of you that ducked and covered on “The Day of Mom”. I feel you. You are not alone.

Author: Pamela Madsen, The Fertility Advocate, Guest Blogger