You heard me right– ALL women on Mother’s Day. Whether you are a mom, a soon to be mom, an aspiring mom, a step mom, or you have a mom or know a mom. You.
Now that I have your attention- holidays are HARD, amiright?
Don’t get me wrong. I think the intention behind the holiday is great. It’s a beautiful thing to publicly designate a day to celebrate motherhood, whether it’s your mother or being a mother or both. Life gets busy and families are complicated and no matter what, motherhood deserves to be celebrated.
It proooooooobably should be celebrated more than one day a year… Just saying. But that’s another rant.
My beef with holidays like Mother’s Day (and Valentine’s Day, etc.) is that they create EXPECTATIONS.
Women, you know what I’m talking about. You used to have to watch the flowers and gift deliveries to your coworkers all day. Now with the luxury of facebook, you get to see what EVERYONE ELSE gets on EVERY holiday, birthday, anniversary, etc. It’s hard not to start expecting the same kind of treatment.
Now don’t misunderstand me–I’m not saying you should lower your expectations. Nope. You’re amazing, beautiful, hardworking. You deserve to be celebrated. It’s ok to expect to be celebrated. Expectations are not the bad guy. It’s when we don’t COMMUNICATE our expectations that we have a problem.
You see, you don’t just want flowers on holidays and gifts at birthdays. You want MIND READERS to bring you these things, even when you’re saying, “No, it’s ok, I don’t really need all that stuff.”
It’s like a biological curse. I can say every time, “I don’t need all that.” AND I REALLY MEAN IT. But then the day rolls around with no special measures taken and what do I do? I POUT.
It ain’t pretty.
Let’s face it. It isn’t fair to ask people we love to read minds. It sets them up for failure. And when they fail, everybody fails. They don’t win. We don’t win. Nobody wins.
Some people are really really good at celebrating other people. And some people celebrate others differently (aka not the way we “expect”). But when we get so caught up in how we expect someone to celebrate us, we forget to pay attention to how they are actually celebrating us.
Allow me to share an example. This morning was Mother’s Day morning. The baby woke up at 4:30. I rolled over, hoping my husband would volunteer. He was sound asleep. I sighed and got up and fed her. I didn’t feel miserably tired. I got extra snuggle time. But do you think I was in an appreciating mood? Nope.
Baby back to sleep and I crawl back into bed. One hour later at the glorious hour of 6:30 a.m. she is awake and cheerful again. Again I look toward the husband thinking surely….
Nope. Sound asleep. Another sigh and I get up. Feed her again. She is snuggly and the sun is coming up. Am I feeling grateful for this beautiful start to Mother’s Day with my healthy child in my arms? Nope. I’m re-reading the post from Scary Mommy in my head about how all moms really want for Mother’s Day is sleep.
He gets up at 8:15.
Eight. Fif. Teen.
Says, and I quote, “Thanks for letting me sleep in, honey.”
Am I feeling appreciated and generous? No ma’am I am not.
I get the other kid ready for Sunday school, and then I cook breakfast for everyone. He says, “thanks for cooking breakfast, babe. I feel like I am supposed to be the one doing that for you today.” And laughs.
Do I laugh? No I do not.
Except here is the piece of the puzzle I left out. Almost every other day of the year, my husband is the most amazing, generous, hard working man I know. I can’t tell you how many times he has taken the early shift so I could sleep in. How many times he has cooked breakfast and changed diapers and given bottles. He is the husband most women would kill to have.
So on the few days a year, like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, and birthdays, etc. that I feel like I have something to complain about, is it really him doing something differently than he always does?
No. The difference is my expectations. It wouldn’t have been hard for me to say, “Will you get up with the baby?” But I didn’t. I just got crabby.
You would think it would be really easy to just say what you expect/need/want.
It’s not. It’s hard. I’ve known this little “communicate your expectations” trick for several years. But I still fall into this trap. The only difference is, now I can realize what I’m doing: expecting him to read my mind.
Can you see where I’m going with this? You’re probably thinking I’m just about to the punch line where I say, “Tell other people what you expect from them.” That way we are setting each other up for success. Wrong!
PLOT TWIST!!!!
Kind of. I still think you should communicate your expectations. Have you read Momastery’s blog post on how she teaches her husband to celebrate her? It’s the best.
But I have another proposal for you.
How about, instead of relying on other people to celebrate your motherhood or love or birthday or whatever it is, why don’t you celebrate yourself?
CELEBRATE YOURSELF.
Celebrate the fact that you get to be a mom. Celebrate the little people who call you mom. Celebrate the husband who helps you be a mom. Celebrate your own mom. Celebrate the mom friends you know.
Celebrate the intense joy of motherhood. The love. The laughter. The worry. The grief. The anguish. The powerlessness. The community. Celebrate the human experience of motherhood.
Make yourself a breakfast you love. Hand the kids off and go take a nap. Help them make a project for you.
Don’t wait for someone else to celebrate you. Celebrate yourself.
Because something beautiful happens when you decide to celebrate. You step out of the fog of expectation and into the light of gratitude. You begin to see a reason to celebrate each of the precious people around you.
And suddenly the day is full of gratitude and celebration. Which is what you wanted all along.
Invite other people to celebrate with you. Tell the people you love how you want to be celebrated. But even if they get it wrong sometimes, don’t let it stop you.
You’re beautiful and strong. You work hard every day at the center of your family universe. You deserve to be celebrated.
So celebrate.