Mother's day is a time for action

On this mother’s day, I want to reflect on what it means to honor motherhood. In this time of pandemic crisis, it becomes clear how empty words and gestures are, and how sorely all of us need concrete action. To remake the world, we do not need new words, or new ways of simply talking. On mother’s day, we don’t just need public posts on social networks. In cities we don’t need buildings to light up in support of the ‘heroes’ on the front line. We need action.

As a mother, the best way to honor me is to see the work that I do and help me do it well. What does that look like? Six weeks ago I gave birth to my third and what will be my last child. Patrick and I have been through this before, and now know what we want out of parenthood, and more or less how to make that vision happen. After the baby was born I stayed in bed for a few days with her while Patrick brought the other kids to friends’ houses and did the dishes, cooked food, did laundry, helped me shower, filed the baby’s paperwork, talked to doctors, you get the idea. This work, this offering by Patrick and our friends, is how they honored my labor and delivery.

After those first few days, we decided to keep the older kids home as COVID spread and we didn’t know if or where we would get it. For the next six weeks, Patrick did the vast majority of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, caring for the older two kids. But more than that, he would put the older two to sleep each night and then hold the baby and stay up for a while so I could get a few hours uninterrupted by her little body and little sounds. In the morning, he would get up before me, and recognizing the work of feeding and caring for her all night, he would take all three kids and feed them breakfast while I slept another uninterrupted hour or so. He would only wake me when it was clear that the baby needed to eat.

For most of these past 6 weeks, my days consisted of lying and rocking with my new baby. These moments, early in her life, allowed me to make her transition out of the womb and into this world with air and gravity smooth and easy and without stress. Lying with her, barely moving most days besides a daily walk, also allowed me to recover from the immense changes my body undertook, for the last time, in pregnancy. It is obvious to me that mothers and babies need to be allowed to be quietly together for at least a month postpartum, and Patrick honored that last sacred moment for me by allowing us to be together, getting to know each other, and recovering from our shared experience of birth.

On top of doing the actual work that allowed me to transition to a life with 3 children, it is important that Patrick, nor anybody else, made me feel guilty about getting this sacred time with my newborn. Too often we make the people we ‘honor’ most feel bad or unworthy for asking for or needing help. Or, we make them feel like it's normal to be stressed and worn out and they should just deal with it. Instead, our friends and Patrick made me feel worthy of this time, and actively offered to contribute to the collective effort of welcoming a new life into our family and community. It is this feeling of solidarity, that they are here to help me in this time where I need it, that makes me feel connected to all of them and waiting for the moment where I can return the favor. Paradoxically, accepting this help makes me want to do more work, contribute more to others, and results in a virtuous cycle of sharing and support in our community.

Our lives are already quickly returning to the chaos of caring for children constantly, but for one short moment I got to fully immerse myself in the mystery of new life, mostly uninterrupted. This work, this active effort, honors my motherhood, and I could not be more grateful that I am surrounded by people who made it happen. So, it is with all of the people in our world who deserve honoring. We don’t need cards, we need you to make breakfast and start the washing machine. We don’t need a parade, we need masks and pay and benefits and time off. We don’t need you to simply say you appreciate us, but to show it by asking ‘what do you need?’ and ‘how can I help?’ and ‘you are worthy of the help you are receiving.’ 

This is a political/sociological point, we have to be the change we want to see in the world, and it starts with us. Happy mother’s day to all the amazing, brave, selfless mothers out there. May your efforts be valued, and may you be so lucky as I have been to be surrounded by those who truly do value what you do. I wish you a wonderful day where at least one person asks you: ‘how can I help you today?’