What is Mother’s Day to a Single Mom?

I became a single parent the year JT was 6.  The separation happened in June so it wasn’t until the next year that I had to experience Mother’s Day on my own.  Mother’s Day is a strange holiday when you are a single mama.  There will be no sleeping-in, no breakfast in bed, no sweet card made by your child, no gift from a loving partner grateful for the ways in which you mother the child you share.  That Hallmark version of Mother’s Day is so distant from the reality of the life of a single parent that the idea seems laughably unreal.  And it’s a bitter chuckle at that. 

When I was in the thick of my single mama days, Mother’s Day passed by with nary a thought.  I couldn’t afford to wallow in the ways the holiday made me feel left out.  After all, there was laundry to wash, a lawn to mow, and grocery shopping to organize.  I wouldn’t have had time for breakfast in bed even if it were forthcoming. 

And it wasn’t forthcoming.  

That reality was mostly a secret, however.  There is no space for mamas like me in the world of Mother’s Day celebrations. When people would wish me a Happy Mother’s Day, I would say thank you.  If anyone asked about my plans for the day, I lied and made up a story about those plans.  The first Mother’s Day on my own, I went to a Quaker Family camp with my friend S and her son D.  It was lovely.  Soon after that, my ex and I came to a parenting agreement that meant JT would be with her every 2nd and 4th weekend of the month and with me for every 1st and 3rd weekend.  Just like that, I’d solved the Mother’s Day problem by spending it on my own.  I continued to lie if anyone asked about my plans - there was no need for them to be exposed to my sad little reality.  I would have welcomed their kindness but would have recoiled at their pity so I avoided the whole landscape. 

When T was first in my world, she took me garden shopping and made me breakfast on Mother’s Day.  It was nice - the first celebration that actually made me feel special.  By the last few years of our relationship, she’d tell me to go garden shopping on my own and then she offered to pay me back for the flowers.  At least I got flowers, I reasoned.  But Mother’s Day had returned to form. 

In advance of Mother’s Day 2023, I’ve seen moms on-line getting impressively angry about what they truly want for Mother’s Day: an actually decent national parental leave policy, serious and significant gun control, action on maternal and infant health, affordable, good quality day care; a Constitutionally-protected right to make decisions about their bodies…it’s a lengthy list of requests that reveal just how very little this nation actually cares about mothers.  And make no mistake: not nearly enough of our leaders give an actual damn about the lives of women. 

The honesty of these expressions has been freeing for me.  This week, when people asked about my Mother’s Day plans, I told the truth:  Mother’s Day isn’t really a big deal when you are a mama on your own.  If that is a deflating notion for them, I haven’t felt bad about it.  At age 55, I’ve grown weary of being the woman who makes everything okay for people while suppressing my own feelings.  I am over that bullshit.  I’m not mean, but I speak my truth. 

I approached Mother’s Day 2023 in my usual manner: I made a plan to look after myself.  I bought some fruit syrup for the waffles I will make myself this weekend.  I picked up a cute postcard at a shop a few weeks ago and set it aside to admire on Sunday morning.  I am all set for Mother’s Day. 

After all this time, the funny thing is that my 23 year old son has told me that I should be ready at 2 pm on Sunday.  He seems to have a treat planned.  I’m touched and charmed but also afraid to hold that hope.  After so many years of not-very-special Mother’s Days; Sundays in which I swallowed my feelings and got on with life, I’m a little nervous at the glimmer of hope I feel.  I hope it works out.  When it comes to feeling valued and cherished, I am more fragile than I seem.

Update: JT took me to dinner and then to see a play, Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.  It was a special and lovely Mother's Day, and that was really nice.

Mother’s Day 2020

It’s my custom on Mother’s day to write about my life as a mama.  Last year on MOther’s Day, JT was finishing up his first year of college, taking exams and packing up his dorm room.  This year finds him home, where’s he’s been since the madness began in March.  Having him back home has been a chance to reflect on life as the mama of a young adult.

I’ve discovered that I like my young adult son and being home together has had moments that make me laugh.  He’s become a coffee drinker and some mornings find us standing before the coffee pot grateful for the caffeine that is coming our way.  From my office, as I teach class on Zoom or respond to e-mails, I watch him stretch and then find the day’s stick which he holds as he heads out to run.  I think about the years he played with sticks in the front yard and I smile at the little boy still contained in this 20 year old young man of mine.

He's helped in the garden and yard and I've plans to hire him as my gardener's assistant after his classes end.  He's handy when there are large branches that fall in the backyard.  This stick has been deemed too large to carry out on a run.

I’m the person I am because I am a mama; his mama.  As always, even as we three shake down in the house together, I am grateful for that blessing.

That’s Happy, What Else?

Several women that I know have had babies this Spring and as I’ve bought tiny little sets of pretty clothes for the new mamas, I’ve added a book from my vast collection of children’s books to their gifts.  This has been a way to share some lovely stories as well as a way to thin my collection, which fills two enormous plastic bins and is far more than I can use when my grandma days arrive (several years from now, if you’re reading this, JT!).  It's also been a treat to look through these familiar books.

Reading is one of my greatest pleasures in life.  So it should be no surprise that as a mama, reading books to a small child was one of my great joys.  I read to JT every night for years, reading books until he drifted off to sleep.  I stopped when I could be sure that he would read to himself at night.  The stories that we read, especially those that we read over and over, served as the very foundation of both his world and mine.  

As he got older, I read to him to slow the evening into sleep and to set him up for a lifetime of imagination.  When I look book at all of those books, I see a philosophy of life coming in to view.  The stories we loved the most were the books that valued unconditional love and taking pleasure in the natural world.  They celebrated shared laughter and joy in the every day.  Some of them served as mantras for the living of the rest of our lives, as did a lovely book called Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep.

In this story, a big brother bunny named Willoughby settles his little sister Willa to sleep by reminding her of the happy things she will find when she wakes up in the morning.  Willa, eager to stay awake, responds to each happy thing (her chicken slippers, her sailor suit, her breakfast, and her toys) by saying, “That’s happy.  What else?”

Toddler JT loved this book, with its sweet pictures and gentle reminder that there was happiness to be found in the every day things and practices that made up our lives.  Saying “that’s happy” became a part of our lives, one part reminder to enjoy the here and now and one part reminder that happiness is not finite; there is always more to be found.

On this Mother’s Day, we are apart as JT finishes up his first year of college, and I can’t help but think of this story and Willa’s chant.  In a few weeks, he will be home again and I will be so glad to give him a hug and hear the sound of him in the house.  I’m looking forward to that happy moment, confident that more happiness is around the corner.

That’s happy!

Motherhood: A Tale of Search and Rescue

This Mother’s Day finds me with a 17 year old and with 17 comes a good deal of independence.  Not so much independence that I don’t have to find all of his missing things, typically after 10 pm when I have clocked out for the day and tucked myself into bed with a book that I am reading one sentence at a time, just before I crash asleep.

He never loses his car keys, his iPad, or his phone, but for the love of god, my son loses a lot of crap.

Lip balm is chief among his missing items and I have bought gallons of lip balm over the years.  One day, I will find it all and then I’ll have a lifetime supply for all of my friends and acquaintances.  That day isn’t today.

In the time I have left after locating the lip balm, I find the sport-related clothing my son needs RIGHT NOW.  It’s typically washed, folded, and in one of the many laundry baskets we own.  They are invisible to teenagers and that’s why he passes them by in the living room, forgetting to carry them upstairs.  This is also why he can’t find his running shorts.  Pants for school also go missing in this very same fashion.  Any number of school-themed sweatshirts, all in the color of maroon or black, also fall into this black hole. I can find them all.

Remaining time is spent locating items in the pantry that my son is sure we are out off: peanut butter and granola bars, I’m looking at you.  

Someday soon, JT will head off to college and I will miss these moments when he’s desperately searching for an item that is right in front of him.  Or, at least, I will miss him.   I fantasize that I won’t miss the search and rescue portion of the job.

Until then, I am the search and rescue genius of Sassafras House.  It’s a skill I have honed over the years, all made possible because I have a uterus.  And never-ending patience when I need it most.

Happy Mother's Day to my fellow travelers, the women who always know where things can be found.

Mother’s Day

We celebrated Mother’s Day early and last weekend found me admiring flowers and selecting some for my front porch, a tradition begun with T that I very much enjoy.

T sees to it that the day we choose to celebrate is special for me and I appreciate that.  Being able to share both the joys and burdens of motherhood with her makes my world both happier and easier to manage.  A trip to the flower store makes that even nicer.  Now my porch is shaping up for the summer, with impatiens and begonias in bright colors.

I have two hanging pots of double begonias.

Soon enough, I’ll be enjoying hours of leisurely reads on the front porch.  That’s happy!