The Sweet Hypocrisy of Mother’s Day

Call me a horrible mother, but although I am willing to take care of my child with everything I got, I have no interest in being a martyr.

It’s coming soon! The day in which we celebrate the woman who “gave us life.”

Cheap chocolate boxes will take over drugstore shelves; there will be flowers, bath salts kits, and who knows what else.

There will be balloons and mugs with the phrase, “#1 Mom.” All around, people will confess they would be lost without that woman that birthed them, raised them, and virtually shaped their lives.

Brace yourselves, people! Mother’s Day is coming, and it’s bringing its usual sweet hypocrisy in tow.

The art of a mother’s sacrifice.

Being a mother implies making difficult choices and sacrifices that become essential for our family’s well-being.

If we didn’t make them, no one else would.

As the current pandemic situation has proved, when the going gets rough, mothers are the ones who get the worst of it: not only have many women been forced out of their jobs, but they have seen their duties at home increase exponentially.

However, few people bat an eye. After all, this is the way it should be, right? With mothers sacrificing everything and anything for their families. Otherwise, they would be bad mothers.

No martyrs here.

Confession: I hate Mother’s Day.

I hate the invasion of candy, the sentimental ads, the manipulative music… And the reminder of how, for so many people, being a mother is basically just about sacrifice in the hopes that, one day, you’ll feel happy because your children achieved what you denied yourself.

Call me crazy, but I want to be happy now. Call me selfish, but I want to be successful too in whatever endeavor I choose. Call me a horrible mother, but although I am willing to take care of my child with everything I got, I have no interest in being a martyr.

I want to give my son the best life he can have. However, I have a life too, and it is also valuable. Receiving a box of stale candy once a year isn’t going to help me with that.

The shadow of our kids’ lives.

Hey, I have nothing against chocolate…that’s not the problem.

The issue is, the rest of the year, we turn a blind eye to the struggles of women who have become mothers.

Simply put, we don’t look at them as people. Rather, they are a cog in the machine of their children’s life. A significant one, yes, but it is still believed that’s to be their only role in life.

I can’t shake the feeling that, should motherhood really be deemed sacred, then mothers worldwide would receive the support they need.

From basic staples such as giving them the time and space to breastfeed; to life-transforming benefits such as affordable child care, there is actually plenty we can do to make mothers’ — and fathers’ — lives easier.

But we aren’t doing it…because then where would the struggle be?

We are so conditioned to seeing mothers disappear behind the shadow of their kids’ lives that it doesn't feel strange. Why fix it if it ain’t broken, right?

Except it is broken. It has been for a while.

That’s one of the reasons women are having fewer babies. Some of us wanted to have more, but it has become so freaking expensive, demanding, and hard that it will likely remain a dream.

From partners who don’t do their part to companies that quietly refuse promotions and raises to women who become mothers, this has become a tough choice. And, I’m sorry, but throwing a party once a year will do nothing to make it easier on us.

What’s the point in celebrating motherhood when the rest of the year we actively make mothers' lives more difficult?

A labor of love, indeed.

There’s nothing hypocrite about a mother’s love. She gladly makes all of the sacrifices necessary to protect her children and make sure, to the best of her abilities, that they will be happy.

Society, families, and the workplace have evolved…why can’t our view on motherhood do the same? Why can’t we truly share the workload? Why can’t more companies establish policies to ensure mothers won’t be penalized with fewer opportunities than their peers?

Forgive me, but I actually want motherhood to be an ordinary thing, not an unusually tough one. I want to think of the time raising my child as a collection of happily boring days in which we did the best for each other, not a brutal struggle that I barely managed to survive.

The reason? Because then I would be able to focus on what truly matters — this thing called family, this parent-child love that we only get one chance to enjoy.

When it comes to this sweet hypocrisy, we have had more than enough.