Happy Mothering Day!

Happy Mothering Day to all the people out there doing mothering in one way or another.
Happy Mothering Day to the biological moms in a nuclear family who look just like what Hallmark thinks a mom on Mother’s Day should.
Happy Mothering Day to all the adopted/adoptive moms and step-moms and grandmas-acting-like-moms.
Happy Mothering Day to all the double-mom households.
Happy Mothering Day to all the men out there filling the roles of both dad and mom.
Happy Mothering Day to all the working parents who feel like they don’t spend enough time with their kids.
Happy Mothering Day to the stay-at-home parents who are going crazy spending too much time with their kids.

Happy Mothering Day to the people who are mothering someone else’s children, in whatever way.
Happy Mothering Day to the women whose children are being mothered by someone else, for whatever reason.

Coretta Scott King leading a march of “Welfare Mothers” in 1968

Happy Mothering Day to the parents struggling to get by.
Happy Mothering Day to the teen/young/new moms and pregnant folk.
Happy Mothering Day to the surrogate moms. Both literal and figurative.
Happy Mothering Day to the women who chose not to continue their pregnancies.
Happy Mothering Day to all the people who can’t have children, and all the people who don’t want children.
Happy Mothering Day to those who mother animals, or who part-time mother other humans through volunteering.

Happy Mothering Day to those moms who are missed and those who are missing children.
Take some time today to reflect on what makes you and your mothering awesome; you deserve it.

Today is a day to celebrate all the caretakers in our lives and honor the incredible and priceless work caretakers do for our societies. Raising babies and children and teens to be respectful, loving, contributing members of society is one of the most, if not the most important job in society, and yet the people who are tasked with this enormous responsibility are not seen as “earning a living” because their work is unpaid. The people who raise individuals who love others, who fight against injustice, who work for peace, and who shine positivity into this world ought to be praised and commended and recognized regularly, not just one day a year. And this praise and recognition and commendation ought to come in the form of eternal gratitude displayed with regular acts of kindness and love towards them and everyone else, not by buying into the commercialism of Capitalist Mother’s Day.

Diamonds and many other gems are mined from the poorest countries with slave labor and not only siphon wealth away from that country but deplete its natural resources and fund illegal and terrorist activity. Flowers are raised with pesticides and fertilizers that poison the planet and the farm workers who harvest them. Chocolate too is full of dangerous chemicals and is harvested with child slave labor from some of the poorest countries on earth. Even the founder of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, eventually fought against it because of the commercialization surrounding it.

Motherhood is an option, not an obligation

Truthfully I can’t tell you what your mother or your mother-figure wants, but I can tell you that she and all people who mother would be better off if everyone who wanted to become pregnant or have a child could, and if no one who did not want to become pregnant didn’t. Happy Mothering Day pro-choicers! May every motherhood be a wanted one.