Mother's Day for Minnie

My sister-in-law was the first to post the reminder of how badly some people handle this particular Hallmark holiday. Whhich made me incredibly sad, because she is one of the most amazing mothers I know - even if she hasn't expelled a parasite of her own, or taken just one or even two of the creatures from someone else.

Pregnancy, honestly, is all about a woman and her issues. Pregnancy can help you resolve issues around your bodily integrity and sense of self control, but so can a good therapist and a will to change. Don't get me wrong, because I loved pregancy, and I'd have happily been pregnant 12 more times just for the balanced horomones I don't have any other time of the year. But pregnancy is something that happens to and about one person. (Plenty will disagree, but in any case, pregancy and mothering really don't have anything to do with each other.)

Things mothering is not - it's not the feeding, cleaning up poop, remaking lunch, doing laundry, cheering at a soccer match which you hate, making tea party 8 times a day which you used to love, or really, even kissing boo boos.

Mothering is different, and harder, than all of those things. Mothering is having the back of some half formed human being that will turn on you in an instance and then ask why you are mad. Over and over and over again. Mothering is seeing that someone is struggling or celebrating or about to sneeze and being there with a hug, a high five or a tissue. Mothering is anticipation. Mothering is tolerance and acceptance of human foibles.

You don't have to live with someone to do this - you don't have to be a woman to do this - you don't even have to be an adult or have a legal minor in your home. Mothering is what we do when we we see the needs of others and unfailingly think that their needs matter. (Mothering is not martyrdom; mothering is seeing someone falling into martyrdom and stepping in with childcare and a pedicure and a stern word about "killing yourself.")

A couple of decades ago, "it takes a village" was popularized by the First Lady. And it does. When my spawn were small, we called their childless mothers "auntie" and without MacKendrie and Tabitha, they would not be alive. How would any of us survived my own forays into personhood without Jessica and Jeremy to anticipate things I was flat out ignoring. And childed mothers, they usually were called by name, as opposed to "somebody's mom." Adolescence would not be this wonderful without Shannon and Kelly to have been able to take up the slack of anticipation and joy in things that were frankly freaking me out.

Without "biologicals" we might die out as a species, but without mothers, all the instances of mothering, we would die out as human beings. For all the mothers in my life and the life of my parasites, I honor you on this day. Especially the ones that mother the whole world and "other" people's children. (The rest of you can wallow in your dry toast and over creamed coffee.)