Every Day Should Be Mother’s Day

I don’t really care about Mother’s Day as an excuse to celebrate. I think of all the comments I heard today about fathers and/or children making breakfast-in-bed for Mom and then I find myself standing at the sink doing the dishes thinking, “this would look like something I do on Mother’s Day as a treat for Laura.” The thing that bugs me is, it’s not. I’m doing the dishes on Mother’s Day because they need to be done, just like I do the dishes on a rather regular basis because it’s a courteous thing to do. I watch the kids on Mother’s Day so that Laura can have some time alone just like I do on other days because it’s nice for her to be relieved of the endless strain of taking care of the kids every second of the day.

So I begin to wonder why we have Mother’s Day, is it just a cheap excuse to fail to honor and appreciate mothers on the other 364 days they are working for us? I would be surprised if there was a mother anywhere who would honestly prefer to sleep in and have breakfast in bed twice a year to pamper her (Mother’s Day and her birthday) rather than have someone step in and help with the dishes, the kids, the laundry, and the cooking multiple times a week just because that’s what it means to be partners in family life.

The best purpose that Mother’s Day should serve is to have an outward celebration of motherhood that our children can recognize while they are too young to notice that Dad is always finding ways to help relieve the burden that Mom carries every day.