Mother's Day

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mother's Day is more about women than it is about moms. I think whoever made up Mother's Day made a serious misjudgment about women.

When I was in Young Women's and Mother's Day rolled around, I used to be embarrassed that the bishopric asked the girls to stand with all the mothers present when the boys handed out flowers or cookies at the end of the meeting. The reason for this is I didn't understand why I was being included if it was a day for moms.

I understand now that I've been a mom for a couple of years that Mother's Day celebrates the qualities that a mom shows as she nurtures her children. Selflessness, kindness, generosity, service, to name a few. But I believe that all women posess these qualities as a gender and women who are not moms can develop these qualities by doing things other than rearing children.

For this reason Mother's Day should be called women's day or sisterhood day. And then it probably wouldn't be celebrated as much, but at least it would include those of our sisters that feel left out by the term "mother".

So this day I pay tribute to all of my sisters, my friends and family who are moms and not moms. I pay tribute to the generations of moms and women before me who made me who I am today. How blessed we are to have eachother to learn from, to lean on, and to love.

pictured above: me, my grandma, my mom, and Emma