Mother’s Day – what exactly are we celebrating?

One of my lovely home made cards

I’m now a motherless mother. So I have no mum to pamper like I used to. But I am mum to two wonderful young people and though they are absent again now I’ve have enjoyed some lovely Mother’s Days in the past with home-made cards and unidentifiable nibbly things!

They might not be around on this Mother’s Day but I still ask the girls ‘how are you going to celebrate your wonderful mother today?’ and we have a good laugh together.

This brings mums to their attention – they know not all mothers are as wonderful as theirs (I tell them often!) and not all mums and kids enjoy the same relationships that we have had. But mostly I ask because I want them to acknowledge, as they’ll probably be mums one day, how important mums are – and that’s what we’re celebrating.

We’re celebrating the value of mums in the world. The fact that without the things mums do it would be a very different world. That the often invisible work that mums do, the time they put in, the example they set and the love they give is also given to the world as their children step away from them and spread those lessons around. Making their own loving ripples as they go.

That’s the effect mums have upon the world – definitely worth celebrating I’d say.

Before I became a mum I didn’t get this.

I did appreciate my mum as much as I could – she was such a beautiful blossom in my life and we had a terrific relationship (I think ‘A Funny Kind of Education’ became a bit of a tribute to that). But although I was filled with love for her I didn’t really get the enormity of what mums did.

Now I do.

Now I know the impact all mums have in the world. They have the opportunity to enhance everyone’s future. (See this post). And it’s so important to give some time to getting it right.

And I completely uphold that they should be celebrated for doing so, today, and every day really.

So to all mums everywhere; wishing you a happy Mother’s Day.

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