UnMothers Unite

Mother's Day: A day of flowers, of jewlery, of blatant consumerism. Sunday morning, many churches will have a pastor's wife or other female preach on the "highest value of womanhood". While we're all at church, waxing lyrical on the value of mothers, there are millions of women skipping church because for them, it's the worst day of the year.

I would know, for seven years I hated Mother's Day with every fiber of my being. You see, the doctor had told us that I probably wouldn't be able to have kids, and for seven years that proved true. Sure, I sucked it up and went to church, but I never actually listened to the sermon on mothers (something that I would never be). Instead I wrote bitter tirades against God, the church, life, any spirit from the dark beyond that was screwing up my life. And then I finally had a kid, for which I'm forever grateful; but not everyone does.

Along with the childless, there are those that are childfree by choice. Either because they weren't ready and are no longer able, or they choose to devote their life to their calling. Whatever the reason, it is a valid choice. They too feel denigrated and less-valued on Mother's Day; especially in the church. How horrible it is, that in the one place where everyone should be welcome, we alienate and disdain.

On top of that, there are those who recently lost a mother, or whose mothers were horrible mothers (read: abuse, molestation, even infanticide). Too often the church pretends that everything is all shiny, and that all mothers deserve to be lauded, or that simply by giving birth they gain a sort of sainthood. I've known some terrible mothers and I would certainly never praise their "motherhood", such as it is. I would like to see the church recognize Mother's Day, and then go on with business as usual. Perhaps some churches wouldn't see a drop in female attendance on that day.

In the US, Mother's Day was originally a day for women to protest war. The spirit was activism and empowerment for women, not a mindless indulgent consumer holiday. Consider Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870:

Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity,
I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

So, in the original spirit of Mother's Day, I hereby claim this day for all women, mothers or not. I claim it for the childed, the childless, and the childfree. I claim it for their God-given gifts, their creativity, and their many and endless births (of children and projects and creative manifestations). I claim this day for what we are capable of when we band together and by ourselves. On this Mother's Day, celebrate all the women in your life simply for who they are: Mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, friends, and children of the Most High King. Motherhood notwithstanding, of course.