The WM Parenting Connection

by Marina DelVecchio

In thinking about Mother's Day and mothers, good and bad, I feel that one solitary day does not cover the breadth of a woman's experience with the maternal. Mothers are treated unfairly in the work force and at home for participating in the most heroic and extraordinary feats of humanity. Life springs from our loins, and yet we are still considered the "second sex," most aptly penned by feminist Simone D' Beauvoir ages ago when women had fewer rights than we do today. Let's face it, without us, humanity would cease to exist. But once a year, we get the most special and red-carpet-like feeling from everyone and from everywhere. We are handed carnations from fast food restaurants and strangers greet us with smiles and words of "happy Mother's day, sweetheart." Our children are coerced by their teachers into spending hours in school making us special cards and presents, and our husbands are peer-pressured by Hallmark and Best Buy and Jared's and Spa treatment ads to spend money on us. If they don't, they don't love us -- they don't appreciate our sacrifices in our work, our place in society, our appearance, and our self-esteem.

Because we suffer these injustices, whether we volunteered for them or not, (and let's admit here and now that when we forged on to the road of motherhood, we didn't know we would lose all these "things" -- these crucial and vital "things" that all men and women need to feel good about themselves), because we give so much of ourselves, let us enforce the rule that we don't want to feel special one day a year -- we want that feeling every day. Therefore, here are five words that we, mothers, givers of life and breath and sustenance, the members of the "second sex" should hear and feel every day -- not just here and there -- or once a year:

Respect: We should be respected and feel respected by everyone. Our kids should speak to us in respectful tones -- the same kind of tones they use when speaking to their teachers. Our husbands should respect us every moment of every day for the things we do for them and our family. They should know to the core of their existence that they would fall on their faces without us to find their keys, their shoes, their money clips, and their scruples. Car salesmen, mechanics, teachers, doctors -- all of them -- men and women alike should know that without mothers they would not exist -- and they should give us the respect that is due.

Reprieve: Mothers need reprieve. Taking care of children, trying to anticipate their individual needs and meeting them -- and they're all different, so their needs are different (and here I don't mean their wants -- I mean their needs -- the needs they don't know about, but that scream out to us to be met or else they will suffer psychological strains because of us) -- and it is up to us to meet them so that they don't end up talking about us in a therapist's office the way we are about our own mothers. As soon as we become moms, everyone's needs, including the pets', become our responsibility -- and we don't even have PhD's in psychology. It's mind boggling. It's exhausting. And we need emotional and physical reprieve -- a break or two or three a week. And I don't mean when they're in school and you get to clean the house or do the dishes or make the beds. I mean time for you -- to do what you want to do -- and not on Mother's Day or your birthday. I mean every week. Go to the movies, a book club, a writer's group, dinner or coffee with a girlfriend. Find activities for you -- outside of the family. Hold on to your identity and passions, because it's so easy to lose them in motherhood -- and no one misses them more than we do once they are lost.

Communication: Communicating her own needs is crucial to a happy mom. Because we're always focused on the needs of others, it becomes easy to be complaisant about our own. We put ourselves and our needs on the side burner, thinking we'll tend to them at a later date. But we forget them there, until one day we miss them -- perhaps without even remembering what it was that we needed so long ago. When we do this, we teach others -- our husbands, our friends, and our children -- that our needs aren't important. That it's OK for our needs to go unmet, unsatisfied. It isn't. Those who abandon themselves grow bitter and resentful, and everyone is miserable. Tell your loved ones what it is that you need -- even if it is a reprieve or respect or something else. Don't hold your tongue and silence yourselves; people don't generally want to spend their time guessing as to what you need or want or hold back. They're too busy articulating their needs.

Understanding: When you communicate with those closest to you, you provide them with an understanding of what makes you tick or tock or blow up. In any circle, it is important to understand one another's needs, moods, conflicts, etc. to function. When you are understood, they who adore you will understand when you don't always get it right. They will accept you and your foibles and many shortcomings. Kids, especially, need to understand the inner workings of their mothers -- they need road maps to our personalities as much as we need road maps to navigate their needs and moods and the thoughts they have and hide from us. We're adults and we can't figure them out -- imagine what it's like for them to figure out why we get mad or sad when it has nothing to do with them. And this leads to my most favorite topic of motherhood:

Forgiveness: It is as important to forgive ourselves as it is to be forgiven by our children and husbands and other loved ones for not being perfect, not getting it right all the time, not assessing moods or feelings or needs accurately or in a timely fashion. We are not perfect, no matter how perfectly advertising companies want to portray us. We are human beings with our own problems, our own unmet childhood needs, our own personality deficiencies, insecurities, and our own very personal and sometimes unrealized Achilles' heel. We wake up every morning and do our best, and just as we forgive our children for being rude and spiteful to us, and our beloved men for forgetting to administer to our needs, we have to forgive ourselves for our mistakes, bad judgement, verbal tirades, and imperfect foundation.

How about you? What word do you want to hear or feel every day?