If You're a Mother, a Child of a Mother, or Really, If You're a Woman, Read This

And then send it to the women in your life

One of my favorite books is by Shonda Rhimes, and it’s called Year of Yes. I highly recommend it—would make a great gift for any woman in your life.

With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, I want to share this excerpt from the middle of Chapter 10:

“I am on Twitter, checking on the world, and I see a tweet from some motherhood site. It says, ‘Sleeplessness is a badge of honor for moms.’

WHAT? A badge of honor? ... Who believes that crap? Who is drinking that crazy Kool-Aid? But a lot of people are. Most people are. I don't think it ever occurred to me before how much and how often women are praised for displaying traits that basically render them invisible.

When I really think about it, I realize the culprit is the language generally used to praise women. Especially mothers.

‘She sacrificed everything for her children.’

‘She never thought about herself.’

‘She gave up everything for us.’

‘She worked tirelessly to make sure we had what we needed.’

‘She stood in the shadows.’

‘She was the wind beneath our wings.’

Greeting card companies are built on that idea. Tell her how much all the things she does all year long that seemed to go unnoticed really mean to you with a $2.59 card.

Mother’s Day is built on that idea. ‘This is good,’ we're told. It's good how mom diminishes and martyrs herself. The message is, ‘Mothers, you are such good and wonderful people because you make yourself smaller, because you deny your own needs, because you toil tirelessly in the shadows and no one ever thanks or notices you. This all makes you AH-MAZING.’

Yuck. What the hell kind of message is that? Would anyone praise a man for this? Those are not behaviors anyone would hope to instill in their daughters, right? RIGHT?

I'm not saying motherhood shouldn't be praised. Motherhood should be praised. Motherhood is wonderful. I'm doing it. I think it's great. There are all kinds of ways and reasons that mothers should be praised. But for cultivating a sense of invisibility? Martyrdom? And tirelessly working unnoticed and unsung? Those are not reasons. Praising women for standing in the shadows? Wrong.

Where's the greeting card that praises the kinds of mothers I know? Or better yet, the kind of mother I was raised by? I need a card that says, ‘Happy Mother's Day to the mom who taught me to be strong. To be powerful. To be independent. To be competitive. To be fiercely myself and fight for what I want.’

Or, ‘Happy Birthday to a mom that taught me to argue when necessary, to raise my voice for my beliefs, and not back down when I know I am right.’

Or, ‘Mom, thanks for teaching me to kick ass and take names at work. Get well soon.’

Or simply, ‘Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to make money and feel good about doing it. Merry Christmas.’

Where are the greeting cards for the mother I try to be? The kind of mother I need my kids to see? The kind of mother I want my daughters one day to be? And if there is no greeting card, what is there? There's me. I have to be my own greeting card.”

Ugh, love that so much.

And on that note, I have to leave you with some powerful words from Dr. Martha Beck that I heard on a podcast a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about:

“Your children will not treat themselves the way you treat them. Your children will treat themselves the way you treat yourself.”

I needed this reminder, and I just know someone else needed it too.

Happy Mother’s Day. To the mothers, the mother-figures, the stepmoms, grandmothers, and chosen moms. To those who are hoping to become mothers, those who have lost children, and those who have lost their own moms. To anyone navigating infertility, adoption, estrangement, or grief, I see you.

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