Let’s Tell The Truth About Mother’s Day

Sigh. Facebook is at it again. well, not Facebook itself, but the community of FBers. As I type, with a day and a half until Mother’s Day descends upon us again, one of those “copy and paste this and put it in your status line if you’re a Mom!” thingies is virusing its way around. (And yes, I just made virus into a gerund, sue me). Here’s the version I saw:

Mothers’ Day Declaration ~ I wanted you before you were born. I loved you when you were born. I saw your face and I knew that I was in love. Before you were an hour old, I knew I would die for you. To this day, I still will. This is the miracle of life. ~Put this on your status if you have children you love more than life, itself

Riiiiight. Like I’m going to join that particular party. Here’s what I detest about these status-line “declarations.”

1. I like to conjure my own sentiments, not borrow them from someone else. Okay, that might just be me, and it might be (no, wait, it is) the reason I mostly buy blank greeting cards.
2. I don’t like the not-so-subtle pressure to post this on your status, which comes with an implied, because if you don’t, it means you don’t love your child as insanely as I do.
3. And here’s the big reason: I don’t agree. Even if I took it and rewrote it so it didn’t stink of Hallmark flowers, I would still disagree.

Am I the only one?

Am I the only mom out there who didn’t fall in love with my baby the very minute he emerged into the world? (I wrote about this, my admission that it took weeks for me to fall in love with my firstborn, and my theory as to why we don’t tell each other this dirty little secret when it happens, but instead prefer to perpetuate the myth, in American Baby, years ago.)

So I created my own Mother’s Day Declaration, which I want to post on Facebook, but FB is telling me it’s too many characters:

I barely saw you when you were born. To be honest, at that point, after two days of labor and surgery, I felt like shit and you looked a little weird. Oh, I fell in love with you, sure, but it took like 6 weeks, and it wasn’t a miracle, it just was. I guess I’d die for you, but frankly that’s not something I think about every day; I’m just busy keeping our heads above water and packing your f-ing lunches every day. Love ya, kid!

Everyone who knows me knows I love my children. I’m a writer, and even I can’t manage to come up with the words that express those feelings. But I tell you, Mother’s Day or not, I refuse to rely on someone else’s words, on words that only graze the surface, or on words that — most dangerous of all — turn mother love into something false and a little bent out of shape. Mother love isn’t flowers in a field; it’s messy and angry and crazy (like me!).

There was another of these “declarations” going around a few weeks back, this time sending the (icky) message that we were supposed to be proud of the fact that we gave up on ourselves (from decent haircuts and jeans that fit, to showers and eyeliner) in order to give all to our kids. My friend and writer Meagan Francis wrote an excellent post on that topic on her blog, The Happiest Mom, and since she more or less took the words out of my mouth but used them better, I’ll leave her response as the record on that score.

I’ll just add this: Give up good haircuts? Why? I would give those up if I couldn’t afford them, not because wearing my hair in a gray-streaked greasy ponytail makes me a better mom. If I don’t shower all day, it’s because I have work to do, not because I’m too busy teaching my five-year-old his times tables.

And if I admit that I don’t like pushing the kid on the swings, or playing with Play-Doh (which I loved as a kid but hate now, because let’s face it, it gets everywhere), or if I admit that I like Monday mornings because they mean the kids are back at school, or dread school holidays for the opposite reason, then I’m not a bad mom. I’m just an honest one.

This is all I ask, folks. This Mother’s Day, for once, can we tell the truth?