From The Raven: Mother's Day Edition
Do you find this holiday complicated? Join the club. Plus, some fiction that will help you get through it.
By Leah Eichler,
Mother’s Day appears to creep up me every year. Sure, I know it’s coming, since it automatically appears on every digital calendar I possess. There are other signs that I try to ignore — the extra flowers at the grocery store, notifications from restaurant reservations sites warning me that time is running out to book my table. Even a spam email from an appliance company asking me if I’d like to opt-out of any Mother’s Day specials. (To their credit, at least corporations are beginning to understand that Mother’s Day is not a happy day for all.)
Even as a mother, these this holiday always left me feeling empty. In previous years, I tried to play ball, and would organize elaborate brunches for my family as well as my kids. Did anyone leave these meals feeling more appreciated or seen? I doubt it. My kids, to their credit, always pony up their expected gifts, creative arts they made in school or offers of bringing me coffee in bed. Again, always appreciated but at the risk of sounding entitled or insensitive, I still struggle to see the point when Mother’s Day rolls around.
Perhaps these feelings of discomfort come from my own difficult relationship with my mother. Perhaps there’s a loss, knowing that the mother figure in Hallmark-style movies doesn’t really exist (at least not for me). Perhaps I miss the other mother figures in my life who are no longer among us. Perhaps.
It was with that frame of mind that I read A Mother’s Love that Wasn’t, A heart-breaking first-person essay by Juan Gaddis in The Cut about the cruelty he endured from his mother. She had him as a teenager, and he learned early in childhood that he had a brother who was given away. His mother used that knowledge as a weapon and would tell him “she gave away the wrong brother.” Read the essay; it beautifully and painfully captures how he learned to manage that relationship. Anyone who loves but doesn’t like a parent will be able to relate.
The story made me remember how fraught this holiday is. Some of us choose not to be mothers. Some of us no longer have ours. Some wanted to be mothers but never could. We are a society that loves but doesn’t like our mothers. For evidence, check out the states banning abortion but not offering additional support to mothers and their children. (And subscribe to Abortion Every Day by Jessica Valenti.) Stay-at-home mothers continue to face stigma, as do women who return to work after taking time off to raise their kids.
To highlight some fictional accounts of complicated mother-child relationships, here are some of my favourite stories from Esoterica Magazine that touch on motherhood.
Alone on a Bridge - by George F. Walker. Part of this heartbreaking play is a story about a teenager raising two kids in a big city without a support network. Stacey’s story haunts me still.
The Tea Leaves - In Mitzi Dorton’s short story, a young girl watches her mother struggle to find love again after the death of her father and learns valuable lessons.
The Dangers of Ice Fishing and Billy Benjamin are both by Emily Weedon and demonstrate the complex dance mothers need to go through to protect their children.
Pancake Day by Sarah Edmonds highlights how we crave our mother’s love, even when we shouldn’t, and the toll motherhood takes on those who aren’t in a position to be one.
Yours in reading and writing,
Leah Eichler
What a lovely article. This past Mothers Day my new husband, who never had kids, was upset that neither of my daughters had sent me a card. They video called instead, with grandchildren & husbands on the calls. They are both busy mothers with small children & full time jobs. My oldest daughter's husband is fighting cancer. I love them & see what they are dealing with day to day & they have persevered through difficult times, including Covid, with my youngest giving birth to her 2 year old in a mask. My family is what matters & while I miss my own mother & mother in law, cards do not a mother make.