Mother's Day
posted by Sybil Vane
When my daughter was born, my in-laws got me a subscription to one of the mainstream parenting magazines. I am not ungracious, so I said "Thank you," and totally ignored the thing after an initial read discovered a million needless products being marketed to keep my baby safer from, well, everything and a lot of articles about getting back my flat tummy by combining exercise with household chores. Suffice it to say, I am not the target audience for this particular publication. And yet, it still comes because neither Mr. Vane nor myself really care to make a thing about it.
So last month, Mr. Vane is flipping through the Mother's Day issue reading some choice pieces aloud; he finds this amusing. Every bit of advice in this magazine emphasized "giving mom a break" from her domestic labor. "Cook dinner with the kids!" "Wash the dishes before she asks!" "Do the laundry with the kids - make a game out of it!" And then various other suggestions that involve "pampering," wherein "pampering" is understood as spa treatments, shopping, and desserts.
So, I love 2 of those 3 things (I loathe shopping). I'm not going to turn them down. But as a paradigm for understanding Mother's Day, this sucks. One because the former suggestions are all predicated on the notion that domestic labor is mom's job and by sharing the labor for a Sunday you are giving a gift. That sucks for fairly obvious reasons. Sharing domestic labor should be part of the partnership. Skirt up and do it all the time, not as an exceptional treat. Furthermore, domestic chores are not the same thing as mothering. This should be obvious.
Further, while "pampering" is nice, it is a pretty insubstantial way to think about mothering, what it entails, and what constitutes recognition and appreciation of that work. We can bemoan Mother's Day as a Hallmark holiday, but it didn't start that way. Two kick ass feminists, Julia War Howe and Anna Jarvis, are credited with making it a national holiday. Howe wanted it to function as a day for anti-war activism, seeing women as crucial shapers of national and foreign policy. From her "Mother's Day Proclamation" - "Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause."
Jarvis advocated for the holiday after the death of her own mother, Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis, who was also an anti-war agitator. The younger Jarvis was appalled by the eventual commercialization of the holiday, noting "A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!"
These women would not have been at all amused by a "Get out of Laundry" coupon from their spouses.
What I want for Mother's Day is some demonstration that the adult-ish people to whom my mothering matters (which is currently only my husband as our daughter is young) have reflected on what it means to try to mother with intelligence, grace, courage, and kindness in this historical moment. I want a recognition that I am under-served by social and business policies that do not value the work I do as a mother, and that I am under-served by the sentimentalization of motherhood. I want awareness that while the domestic labor I do is unpaid, it is not, de facto, my labor and has very little to do with mothering. I want conscious decisions to value the social and political influence of mothering, and commitments to increasing the visibility of the ways mother's are disenfranchised.
For my own part, I will try to give these things to my mom. I will think hard about the obstacles she overcame, the work she quietly and sometimes invisibly balanced and the sacrifices she made, in particular the ways that she shouldn't have needed to make them. I will promise to do my part to make those sacrifices less necessary for my own daughter, should she decide to be a mother herself. I will try to show my mom that I recognize what she did and the fights she had to do them how she wanted.
And if I get a pedicure too, I will count the day a real success.
So last month, Mr. Vane is flipping through the Mother's Day issue reading some choice pieces aloud; he finds this amusing. Every bit of advice in this magazine emphasized "giving mom a break" from her domestic labor. "Cook dinner with the kids!" "Wash the dishes before she asks!" "Do the laundry with the kids - make a game out of it!" And then various other suggestions that involve "pampering," wherein "pampering" is understood as spa treatments, shopping, and desserts.
So, I love 2 of those 3 things (I loathe shopping). I'm not going to turn them down. But as a paradigm for understanding Mother's Day, this sucks. One because the former suggestions are all predicated on the notion that domestic labor is mom's job and by sharing the labor for a Sunday you are giving a gift. That sucks for fairly obvious reasons. Sharing domestic labor should be part of the partnership. Skirt up and do it all the time, not as an exceptional treat. Furthermore, domestic chores are not the same thing as mothering. This should be obvious.
Further, while "pampering" is nice, it is a pretty insubstantial way to think about mothering, what it entails, and what constitutes recognition and appreciation of that work. We can bemoan Mother's Day as a Hallmark holiday, but it didn't start that way. Two kick ass feminists, Julia War Howe and Anna Jarvis, are credited with making it a national holiday. Howe wanted it to function as a day for anti-war activism, seeing women as crucial shapers of national and foreign policy. From her "Mother's Day Proclamation" - "Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause."
Jarvis advocated for the holiday after the death of her own mother, Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis, who was also an anti-war agitator. The younger Jarvis was appalled by the eventual commercialization of the holiday, noting "A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!"
These women would not have been at all amused by a "Get out of Laundry" coupon from their spouses.
What I want for Mother's Day is some demonstration that the adult-ish people to whom my mothering matters (which is currently only my husband as our daughter is young) have reflected on what it means to try to mother with intelligence, grace, courage, and kindness in this historical moment. I want a recognition that I am under-served by social and business policies that do not value the work I do as a mother, and that I am under-served by the sentimentalization of motherhood. I want awareness that while the domestic labor I do is unpaid, it is not, de facto, my labor and has very little to do with mothering. I want conscious decisions to value the social and political influence of mothering, and commitments to increasing the visibility of the ways mother's are disenfranchised.
For my own part, I will try to give these things to my mom. I will think hard about the obstacles she overcame, the work she quietly and sometimes invisibly balanced and the sacrifices she made, in particular the ways that she shouldn't have needed to make them. I will promise to do my part to make those sacrifices less necessary for my own daughter, should she decide to be a mother herself. I will try to show my mom that I recognize what she did and the fights she had to do them how she wanted.
And if I get a pedicure too, I will count the day a real success.
Labels: mama, war, women and kids
Posted at 7:49 AM
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