Dealing With Mother's Day Phobia



Me: My Name is Nick and I’m a Mother’s Dayphobe.

You: Hi, Nick.

Me again: I don’t know when these negative feelings started….decades ago, and I adored my Mother. Maybe it was the day I realized that McDonalds’s, Disney, and Hallmark had decided to take over our psycho-emotiono-culturo-familio world.

Now you can add to that Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Starbucks,….well, you probably have your own list, but you get the idea.

We are whipped into a frenzy of brunches, and little bouquets, and very expensive cards with somebody else’s poetry instead of our own words, and so when Father’s Day rolls around we’re ready, and by Halloween, we’re really ready, so that by Thanksgiving we are in a positive frenzy, to be sure that by Christmas the rate of neural transfer in our brains cannot be measure by any machine on this earth. There is a brief respite until Valentine’s Day, and St. Patrick’s Day seems like just a bump in the road of life. And then, there’s Mother’s Day.

In parts of my family, the definition of conflict can be measured when Mother’s Day is on the same weekend as “the Opener,” which, in these parts refers only to the first day of legal fishing for the serious game fish, and that conflict will erupt again next weekend. In another part of the family, that particular Sunday reminds us, uh, them that outdoor drinking has resumed , and that never, repeat never, and especially never, stands in the way of Mother’s Day. In fact, it probably helps some of us deal with it.

My mother and I had this unwritten agreement. I called her the day before Mother’s Day to remind her that yet again, I was not celebrating with the rest of America. We would have a nice chat (so much better than a card with poetry by a stranger), and she would thank me and head off to think about what she would be wearing the next morning at brunch.

So on Mother’s Day, I think of my Mother and all the others who’ve helped us paddle through our lives – parents, teachers, step-parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, social workers, doctors and nurses, therapists, ministers and rabbis, social workers, and all those who take it upon themselves to care about and for others formally and informally (including four footed creatures and other pets, and I celebrate them, too).

In spite of my trying to be inclusive, I thought about putting politicians on my list, but upon reflection decided to take the Fifth….and on Mother’s Day maybe drink some of it. (Well, we can each celebrate in our own way, no?)

There isn’t a day that I don’t think about my parents, both gone now, but our conversations continue in their own way, and one day a year will never be enough to honor what they – and others - have done for me.

Thank you.

Posted: Mon - November 24, 2003 at 04:47 PM          

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