Mother’s Day is not for me. Yes, I am a mother, and this will be my second Mother’s Day, the first happening barely a month after the birth of my daughter. So why do I say that Mother’s Day is not my holiday? I consider Mother’s Day to be for women who have sacrificed, who have given up gym time to watch band concerts, who have stayed up beside a child’s hospital bed, who raised their grandchildren, or go it without a partner. But we have not yet been through any of the hard stuff. With my daughter still in diapers and not quite walking, she has caused little trouble. Other mothers have given up time, peace, and other resources in the interest of their families. Mothers should invest in self-care, of course, but there is still so much they give up in order to care for their families. I am not about to claim that parenthood has been easy for us, but we have had so much help from family, friends, community, and coworkers that we have bravely gotten through the sleep deprivation, extreme schedule change, and stress of keeping a helpless infant alive with little incident. Yes, high five, we made it through the first year, sanity relatively intact.
But my sentiment comes not just from my relative lack of sacrifice, but also from the depths of gratitude I have for having a child. I married late, after the magical age of thirty-five, when a woman’s fertility is supposed to greatly decrease. I watched friends as young as myself struggle with fertility, and witnessed the emotional and physical stress they experienced. There is a history of fertility challenges in my family, so I had reason to think we might not have the easiest time. I spent the beginning of our marriage waiting anxiously every month for my period not to come. And every month, when it came, I felt defeated.
On my commute to work, I began watching people with their children. They pushed strollers while watching their phones or dragged their kids across the street, hollering at them for not moving fast enough. I wondered how they could take their kids for granted. Children, I surmised, must have come easily to them, perhaps so easily that they did not understand the blessings they had. Not thoughts I felt good about and I realized that it was specious thinking—I knew as well as anyone else that kids can be difficult and not every moment of parenthood is filled with blissful adoration. My harsh judgments came from a place of sour grapes, a painful place of intense desire.
Similarly, when I attended baby namings and brit milot, my happiness for my friends was tempered by my fear that I would not be able to raise a family of my own. We went to see a fertility doctor, and the news was not good. Results showed that my fears were correct—I was not very fertile. With intervention, the doctor said, we might be able to have children.
One Shabbat afternoon about a month after receiving the various test results, we were at a friend’s home, where they were having a kiddush to welcome a grandson. During my friend’s grateful speech, I had to slink into the bathroom because I could not stop myself from crying. The test results had fed my growing despair. The thing that my body had biologically been made to do, it could not do.
Two weeks later, we found out we were pregnant.
We were blessed not to have to begin fertility treatments and not to have to wait years—in fact, by our first anniversary, we were already expecting. I felt terrible about my selfish thoughts and promised myself that I would be sensitive to the feelings of others while remaining grateful for the gift we had been given. I was so grateful that it showed on my face. During my third trimester, when I was encumbered by more than forty extra pounds, I still took the stairs every day and hit the gym before work. When I showed up to work in the morning, my coworker marveled at my smile. She did not understand how I could be so uncomfortable and still be happy. But what she did not know was that according to the data the doctor collected, I should not be pregnant. Statistically, the odds were against me. And soon I was to meet my baby. I was smiling because I did not feel any discomfort, just joy and excitement.
Mother’s Day, with its endless efforts to fill the coffers of the florists, chocolatiers, and, of course, the greeting card companies, can feel omnipresent. I remember the last Mother’s Day before I was a mother. Walking through the store during preparation for the greeting card holiday, it was painful to see all of the cards and chocolates and stuffed animals. I feel for my friends who are childless and wish not to be.
Regardless of whether you have children or not, whether you want to have children or not, I wish you a day of comfort and contentment. I hope that you have people you love to be with. I will spend the day with my beloved family. Maybe next year, when my daughter is causing holy terror running around and speaking intelligibly, I will demand a Mother’s Day full of presents and no domestic work. But for this year, I am good.
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