Mother’s Day: A shout out to the unsung, underrated heroes of our lives

Glory, Mother’s Day is coming! That means, of course, that it’s the favorite time of year for shops selling proton-sized heart-shaped cakes, cards, flowers and chocolate. And of course, no Mother’s Day would be complete without the army of judgmental busybodies crawling out of the woodwork to condemn us for being sheep and warn us all that Mother’s Day is nothing more than a wannabe Western commercialization. “I don’t need a day to show my mother love,” says one official comment in a thread titled “Is Mother’s Day Halal?” “Why do I need a card and flowers to celebrate Mother’s Day when I can celebrate my mother on my own every day?” Lip Services to Celebrate Motherhood This formal Mother’s Day celebration is by no means limited to sharing their views in the online world. Its real-life counterpart permeates our daily lives and will always be on hand to express the view that mothers need treasure on a daily basis. If you give them enough time, they will also remind you that according to religion, heaven lies under the feet of all mothers. The advantage of this heavenly conception is that it allows these supposed mother celebrants to bypass the tedious task of actually celebrating earthbound mothers, with the mother’s promise of divine reward and all. Their theory is that if mothers are being given all this heavenly reward anyway, there is no point in wasting anything on them here and now. If you’re a tearful mother tasked with holding on to an equally tearful baby who left your body eight weeks ago, the typical amount of sympathy you can expect to receive is the remark, “You’re not just given heaven below off your feet for nothing. , You know! You have to earn it.” If the person making the above observation is an older woman with grown children, you can also expect the helpful revelation: “We’ve all been there. It’s not a big deal.” Fatherhood, on the other hand… It won’t surprise anyone to learn that fathers—in all cultures and in all hemispheres—are viewed in a much kinder light. And, by the way, not all men judge .Most men, in my experience, are oblivious to who is doing the childcare as long as it does not affect their lives in any way.It is the women – seasoned die-hard mothers – who can always be counted on to give their unsolicited judgment. .The last wedding I attended featured a young family with a child nearby "shamelessly neglecting" her motherly duties and flying from friend to friend, untethered from her child and the baggage it came with. The mother’s liberated behavior did not go unnoticed. “Look at her,” commented an aunt from one table, whose eagle eye glanced at the young mother from the grass. “He’s just wandering without a care in the world! Where is her daughter?’ The daughter was at the opposite end of the lawn, fleeing from her father’s clutches. The father, meanwhile, was in the process of winning a gold medal in parenting. He had a large pink baby bag slung over his shoulders. As he collected his young daughter, who had zipped between the tables, the same aunt fondly remarked, “He’s such a good father.” Her equally impressed boyfriend, who was sitting at her elbow, was also admiring the performance and said: “He’s so involved.” Both ladies continued to regard the object of their admiration as if he were a military hero. When moments later the young dad unlocked the next level in the parenting game by putting a mouthful of roti in his daughter’s mouth, it was as if he had built a ladder to the moon. “Just look at it! He feeds her! And the mother is nowhere to be seen!’ They weren’t wrong. The mother was indeed nowhere to be seen, hiding with the friends she hadn’t seen in months, seeking an hour’s reprieve from the endless demands of her little one and the vicious judgment of her elders. In previous marriages this particular young mother had done exactly what her other half did. Instead of being awarded gold medals by admiring onlookers, she was informed, “I don’t think roti is suitable for her at this age. It is too difficult. It will upset her stomach.’ The Invisible Grunting Work of Motherhood The catch to motherhood’s heavenly reward, you see, is that you’d better be prepared to soak it up here on earth. It’s a bumpy road, wherever you land on the mother spectrum. So for all you moms out there – new moms, old moms, tired moms, single moms – I see you. I see all the invisible work you do and I appreciate you. Thank you for putting your body through this shocking, punishing sleep deprivation regime of the early years. Thank you for weaning your child on the right food, even when he would rather have eaten yesterday’s toast crumbled behind the sofa. Thank you for purchasing next size clothing. Thank you for always buying the right bread. Thank you for booking these parent teacher meetings. Thank you for taking the time to get to know your child’s friends. Thank you for knowing when just a Panadol will fix things and when to seek proper medical attention. Thank you for learning how to beat lice. You are a superhero, both in this world and the next, and if celebrating you with a card and some flowers for a crappy day means we’re sheep, then so be it. Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.

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