The Mother's Day Response

For those of you who don't know, my sister posted a blog entry a week or so ago lamenting the upcoming "holiday", and in it she made mention of the perspective I have on the whole fiasco as the preschool teacher that is expected to produce the gobs of paste and glitter that mothers everywhere will be consigned to treasure for the next few weeks until they are forgotten by the developing and cohersed artist and can be discretely disposed of. For those of you who do not have access to her blog, let me sum up: We were raised with a particular distaste for the day. Our distaste for the hallmark-fabricated fiasco is genetic, passed from mother to daughter, in a sarcastic and guilt ridden tradition. It boils down to this. Mom hated it because the whole church production of having various and sundry self-appointed authorities parade to the podium declaring either the definition of motherhood or that their own mother was the very best of moms merely produced guilt in every woman in the congregation who wasn't the mother of that particular speaker. I remember distinctly one mother's day as a 10 or 11 year old when the youth speaker talked about bunny shaped pancakes being the end-all of good motherhood, and my mom asking us after church if we still thought she was a good mom even if her pancakes were not bunny shaped. We as the children in said situation knew quite well that what mom really wanted was peace and quiet and for someone else to do the dishes for once, but we were also being brainwashed by an entire society of teachers (public and primary) that insisted that what mom REALLY wanted was this piece of construction paper on which we had written a poem that someone else wrote, or else on which someone else wrote down the things that we said about moms. Add to that some clay or paste structure in a hideous construction of red and pink, and you have not only met your societal expectation, but promptly destroyed mother's dresser top and jewelry box organization for as long as it takes for her to convince herself that she is not a bad mother if she trashes it. Multiply the inconvenience of the entire process by the number of children she has, and you have, not in fact a celebration of all that mothers do, but a bigger mess for mothers to clean up once you go back to school and leave her alone.

In my sisters, as they have grown up, this tradition of resentment has matured into similar feelings of frustrastion and guilt. It's probably less of the guilt, since they watched mom deal with that and realize that they are not in fact the only target of the inadvertant shaming of the day, but more frustration as they balance 4 kids and a potted plant while trying to keep the toddler from ripping into the chocolate bar that is melting in their purse. In me, the tradition of resentment has matured a little differently. One difference is for obvious reasons. I am not a mother, and yet they still force some form of potted plant on me, which only feels both insulting and fraudulent. I understand the need to offer the paltry plant to all of the women in the congregation, but I reserve the right to refuse it. Do not coherse or manipulate me with statements about how "all women are mothers in some way", it only diminishes the sacrifices that real mothers make. And do not declare that I must accept it on the grounds that someday I might be a mother. To an 18 year old, the statement is sweet and cute, to a 32 year old, it merely rubs salt in a wound freshly opened by the sermons of the day. I have, in the past, received a "mother's day" gift of sorts from a generous student or parent of a student, declaring my contributions to a particular child's education to be worthy of some bit of honor. That I can accept and find gratitude for because of its sincerity and sensitivity. But carrying the generic flower out of sacrament meeting alone is painful. Better to balance it with some number of children and watch it be destroyed by a teething infant than to have the thing make it home safely because I don't in fact have any children that are willing and capable of destroying it.

The other reason for my distaste for the whole production would be evidenced if you had seen me at all today. I have been covered in glitter since 8:53 this morning. You see, it is my duty to produce the pasty thing that your child will be presenting you with this Sunday. I know that the first question anyone will ask is "if you have such a great distaste for it, and conviction that it is worthless, why do you participate?"

Well can you imagine how much worse it would be if I didn't? You mothers that are aggravated by the sticky amorphous thing still sitting on your dresser from last year, how would you judge the teacher that didn't send your child home with anything at all? Admit it, with all of the guilt and fatigue that the day brings, there is still some curiosity as to what will be underneath the newspaper wrapping in your child's bookbag on Friday. There is some pride in the product, as mysterious as it may be, and most of all, there is still some hope that someone will do something that appropriately honors the real sacrifices of motherhood. And if nothing at all comes, you will only question your motherly merits more deeply.

I work with wealthy children. Their parents spend perhaps an hour or two per day with them. Many of them have nannys on top of day care and preschool and weekend babysitters. Part of my job is to produce a scrapbook of sorts (we call it a "portfolio", but I know the truth) that documents their child's development, because they will in fact never see any of it. I get to help five year olds with their first loose tooth, and the big prize at the end of the day is that they get to call their parents when it finally falls out. I will be the first person that they read a book to, all by themselves, and I will have to convince them to read the book again to a frequently unappreciative parent. ("that's nice, johnny, but we are late to meet the sitter") Parents of younger children sign a statement as to whether they want their child's teacher to call them for their first word, their first roll-over or crawl or steps. Some parents request that the teachers don't call, so that they can just lie to themselves, and say that that first milestone happened when they saw it. Others don't understand what the big deal is, just take a picture and email it to them.

What I know is this. The really good mothers, the ones that deserve to be honored on a day all their own, celebrate Mother's Day every time their child learns something new, blows them a kiss, or hands them a dandelion plucked from the front lawn. It doesn't happen just in May. A piece of pottery and a flower from church are nothing in comparison to a bedtime story and that feeling of a baby's head resting right at your chin. It is ridiculous to think that anyone can atone for the hours and years of lost sleep with a carnation or a candy bar. The most priceless gems will never compare in cost to the number of noses wiped and slime stains on your shoulder. And they will never approach the worth of that first giggle and the bandaids sealed with kisses.

The kids in my class are making flower pots that will hold pens for an office desk. This plus the email I send out during lunchtime will be their mother's connection to them throughout a 9-10 hour workday. It's their badge of honor, along with a scrapbook of pictures taken by someone else. Some of the moms in my classroom will treasure it as the only evidence they have of motherhood. Some of the mothers in my classroom will let it sit and collect dust while they do everything in their power to make up for lost time. Some of the mothers in my classroom will trash the thing because it doesn't go with the decor. Each of them will get out of the gift exactly what they put into it.

I wonder if that isn't part of the reason why my own mom resented that junk so much. She could honestly look at it and say "I taught you better stuff than this. That teacher shows you how to paint a flower pot and glue construction paper to popsicle sticks. I teach you the gospel of Jesus Christ" But somehow we kids thought the treasure was in the paste product.

So here I am, the teacher of things painting and paltry, knowing that I will be coated in glitter every day for the next week, in an effort to assist the production of 22 flower pots. I have a budget of $2 per child in my class, and I know perfectly well that they can never approach the potential value of what each parent-child relationship holds. My hope is that the respective mothers will see in it what they can. We are, all of us, lousy at expressing the real value of the relationships in our lives. We have imperfect language and a society that values money spent over moments shared. Whether you are a mom that is away from your children far too often for your liking or a mom that is with them so much you have forgotten how to grocery shop with two hands, take this Sunday with a grain of salt. Open the crumpled newspaper package with care, rave over it's beauty and craftsmanship, then stick it on your dresser and let it collect dust while you rock your baby to sleep and read "Where the Wild Things Are" for 1,973rd time. Be the mom that recognizes the truly valuable moments in life, and instead of making room on your dresser for another clay construction, make room on your rocking chair for an extra pair of arms and legs. We teachers will keep sending you the pictures and the poems. It's your job to figure out why they are treasures. I recommend you start with a slimy kiss and the breakfast in bed tray accidentally spilled all over your stairwell.