Recently, I was relayed a discussion had by a group of people revolving
around Mother’s Day. It left me a bit
upset and riled up. Well, so upset I'm actually remembering I have a blog. Wrote some thoughts:
I did not come to this earth to learn to be a child, I came here to learn to be a mother – like my Heavenly Mother before!
I love holidays! Big, popular and month-long celebrations like Christmas, but also small and obscure ones like National Ice Cream Day, and all the ones in between. I love to celebrate! When life gets harder and feel heavier with every passing day, we must celebrate the little things or we will get swallowed up and completely lost in the heaviness!
The discussion mentioned above was about how to best approach and celebrate Mother’s Day in church and church meetings, and still remain sensitive to all the possible feelings that hover around it. The overwhelming answer: DON’T TALK ABOUT MOTHERS! What the #$%^&*! Fill in any expletives you can’t even think of and that’s how emotional I became! Are you kidding me? Don’t talk about mothers on Mother’s Day = Don’t celebrate mothers on Mother’s Day = Don’t celebrate motherhood = Don’t celebrate the god-given gift that every single woman ever to walk to earth carries within in her.
“Of all the words they could have chosen to define [Eve’s] role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve ‘the mother of all living,’ and they did so before she ever bore a child. … Motherhood is more than bearing children … It is the essence of who we are as women.” (Sheri Dew). We are here to “celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage …” (Dallin H. Oaks)
Mother’s Day is not about the woman who has wanted a baby her entire life and has never been able to conceive. Mother’s Day is not about the woman who had a horrible mother that beat her, and abused her, and abandoned her. Mother’s Day is not about the woman whose own mother died, too young or old. Mother’s Day is not about the woman who had an unplanned pregnancy while still a child herself, and no matter what decision she made of how to proceed, has carried a burden of heaviness within her every day since. Mother’s Day is not about comparing the great public successes of one mother to another’s private “failures,” for as her own worst critic, she has shamed herself for every “poor” mothering moment she’s ever made. Mother’s Day is not about the woman whose body will never get back her slim pre-baby figure, despite every effort possible, and feel hideous and grotesque in her incredible and beautiful life-giving body. Mother’s Day is not about the woman who finally had a baby only to be told it is too dangerous for her to ever attempt another pregnancy. Mother’s Day is not about the woman who has faced the death of one, or heaven forbid multiple children, no matter the age. Motherhood is not about the woman whose marriage ended only to leave the only parent of her children. Mother’s Day is not about the woman whose child is taken from her, never to be seen again in this life, but leaving the woman filled with questions, worry and pain for the remainder of her days. Mother’s Day is not about the woman whose child rebeled against her and her teaching of values and morals leading her child down a path that mother cannot understand. Mother’s Day is not about the woman who despite all her best efforts to love and care for her child finds herself in a courtroom hearing a guilty verdict read for heinous and violent crimes committed by her child. Mother’s Day is not about the woman whose own poor choices have required the courts to removed her children from her care and given to another’s for their safety of body and mind. Mother’s Day is not about the woman whose children have not spoken to her in years for reasons that she would erase a million times over, given the chance. Mother’s Day is not even about the woman who has cared for not only her own biological children, but so many fostered and adopted children that her home was always bursting at the seams. And in fact, Mother’s Day is not even about the woman who has ten perfect children who always show up to everything on time, with perfect hair and perfect clothes and sit perfectly still and always act the right way and say the right things. Mother’s Day is not about A woman, the above or any other possible story that has every been lived.
Am a heartless and selfish to say such things? Does my heart not break and weep in anguish for such sorrow that women have endured all in the name of a word: mother? Oh, my heart does break. I have cried my own tears over my personal experiences surrounding “mother” and many of the pains above. My eyes have watered my pillow over the pain of friends and loved ones enduring all of the above! But I tell you if we do not talk about mother’s on Mother’s Day, if we do not celebrate mothers it is all in vain! For we are letting Satan win! He has no body of flesh. He NEVER will. He will never have a mortal mother nor father a mortal child. He will NEVER experience the joys and explosive love that comes from being part of a mortal family, or the sorrows. And how he hates that, envies it. Hates us because we are here in pain ridden, sorrow laden, and mistake filled families! Families that began with a mother who is still shamed by many to this day for the choice she made to leave her beautiful and perfect garden home to gain the knowledge of motherhood. Despite how you feel about mothers, your own or yourself, you are here because of a mother!!
Mother’s Day IS about celebrating mothers – celebrating motherhood; yesterday, today and forever!! Because motherhood is an eternal rite! Mine and every woman’s eternal motherhood is secure! “If life matters, then a mother matters, for without her, there is not life. If eternal life matters, then a mother matters eteranally, for without her, there is no eternal life” (J. Erickson; L. Marks).
We must celebrate and ban together in support and strength, not shy away from the discomfort of another’s pain, because it is oh so hard, but how much harder to be alone in that pain instead of uniting together
My own children’s births were so very different. The first was: standard of care. I labored for 60+ hours, at some point being told that my own goals and desires were unsupported and not worth the effort so I should just make it easier for everyone else and do what was more convenient. I did, and while I came home with a beautiful and healthy little girl, it left me unsure I could emotionally do it again; honestly unsure I could anything ever again. After a very stress filled second pregnancy and some late in the game realizations, I ended up in the hospital again, with my mom trying to advocate for my but being confronted herself and her attempts to make my labor and birth more comfortable and easier for me. My third pregnancy ended with a large trail of blood from my house to the hospital, and me in the labor and delivery wing hearing all the tiny new babies crying for their mamas, and my heart broken and my arms empty. My fourth pregnancy ended with my most difficult delivery yet: a ten + pound baby. My husband literally holding my body up. My doula running around trying her best to make things easier. My midwife was using all her tricks to help get that baby out safely. At some point my doula said, “Can you feel them? All the angels here to help you!!” When I cried and said it was too hard, and I couldn’t do it anymore, my midwife looked into my eyes and said, “Yes you can!”
I tell these stories to illustrate what I believe motherhood can be. It can be lonely, and we trudge along believing we must do it alone, because we wouldn’t want to inconvenience someone else. We can doubt ourselves at every turn, see every single mistake we make and become fixated on them so much that we don’t think we can do it, sitting alone with our wrenching sobs and broken hearts. Or we can celebrate together and surround each other in love and support. When one of us hangs our head in sorrow and exhaustion from the pains and shear difficulty of the tasks at hand, there will always be someone to remind us, “Can you fell them? All the angels here to help you!?” And when we say, “I can’t!” someone will lift our faces and look into our eyes and say, “Oh yes you can!”
Celebrating the good and bad, the hard and the harder together; of what there is as well as what there isn’t; that is what cheers us on and will remind us, “Oh yes you can!”
Let us celebrate Mother’s Day this year and truly celebrate motherhood; despite ALL that comes with it, the very idea of it. Satan cannot win. In fact, he will not win, for the end is known. The atonement of Jesus Christ does cover motherhood, the very idea of it, all that comes with it, and even the lack of it. Hurrah for Israel! But most of all, Hurrah for the Mother’s of Israel! Hurrah for Motherhood!
-Emily (May 2025)
