Mother’s Day can be difficult.
As a mother of three it feels wrong to admit this.*

Yet the last ten years have left me unsettled; even when treated to breakfast in bed and a chore-free day. All thoughtful for sure – but part of me feels outraged. As the years roll by the insufficiency of the gesture compounds. I know mothers are not supposed to be ungrateful and I am not sure that is exactly what I feel. I also know discussing this is breaking a golden parenting rule.

To be clear I am not complaining about diaper changing, house cleaning, grade monitoring, meal cooking or parent volunteering. Those things are par the course. Instead I am thinking about the additional job of parenting children with emotional issues and/or substance use disorder. These aren’t small add-ons; they are really, really big ones. Twenty years, and by my count, I have yet to drop “the ball.” I imagine this ball resembles a self-made rubber band one; constructed from layers of colorfully taut bands. Each band representing doctor visits, therapist visits, medical research dives, parent groups, medication trials, multiple schools, exercise regimens, courtroom scenes, police intervention, inpatient and outpatient hospitalizations. Then add layers of worry justified by dozens of 2 am phone calls, too many emergency room visits and hundreds of nightmares. It’s a pretty big freaking ball.

A bagel in bed doesn’t quell the unease this day can bring. Do I need to be congratulated for my super-sized role? I hope that isn’t what this is about. My kids are legally grown and the job of active parenting is no longer mine. But this day does incur reflection. What if, looking back on my parenting journey, I am presented with equal measures of both horror and joy? Maybe I am adding too much weight to the destructive part. But destruction always carries more weight doesn’t it?

When I look around I see a lot of mothers who seem to be pretty satisfied and duly feted. Am I comparing? I guess I am. it’s juvenile, I know. But it’s hard not to, especially on this day.

Sometimes I envision lying in a field and having people pile on top of me. It starts as one hug. A nameless, faceless person finds me alone in this immense field and gets down to envelop me. Then another joins. Then another. Layering on top of me like rubber bands on that mess-of-a-ball. I end up smothered (in a “smothered into stillness” sort of way). I can feel a tower of hearts beating on top of me. Although it becomes uncomfortable, it is a bearable weight. Does the dream personify my mothering experience? (Acceptance of the trapped nature of self buried under the leaden weight of my little slice of humanity?) Or is it instead my friends recognizing my distress and mercifully burying me in a form of living oblivion? I just don’t know. But a new Mother’s Day tradition may be called for. Something a little less pretty and a little less conventional than what has gone before. Maybe next year we should play tackle football. I can see it now: no one will follow the rules and everyone will want to win. We will struggle together and against each other. And in the process trample the hell out of my carefully planted flower garden. Maybe then this holiday will feel a little more honest. #vivathetruth

* I will be blocking my children from reading this: i may be ungrateful but i am not cruel.