Ah, Mother’s Day—a time for brunch reservations, heartfelt greeting cards, and social media posts where people gush about their perfect mothers. You know, the ones who apparently made them soup when they were sick and encouraged their dreams or whatever.
But what happens when your mother wasn’t exactly the warm, nurturing figure Hallmark likes to pretend all moms are? What happens when she was… well, terrible? And to top it all off, she’s no longer around, so you get to enjoy the bonus confusion of grieving someone who wasn’t even good to you.
This lovely holiday is basically built to make people like me feel like aliens.
Let’s talk about the absolute emotional whiplash of Mother’s Day when your relationship with your mother was complicated. Society expects you to either:
- Be devastated because you lost your mother and “miss her every day.”
- Celebrate her memory with flowers and a glowing tribute, even if she didn’t exactly earn one.
There’s no space for people like me—the ones who lost their mothers but are also left with wounds from them. The people who feel a weird mix of relief, sadness, resentment, confusion, and maybe even a sprinkle of dark humor.
So, what do you do when your feelings don’t fit the narrative? You embrace them anyway.
Mother’s Day doesn’t have to mean forced sentimentality. It can mean acknowledging the reality of what you went through, even if it’s uncomfortable. It can mean taking the day to care for yourself instead, maybe treating yourself like the parent you wish you had. It can even mean dunking on the whole holiday altogether.
If Mother’s Day makes you want to scream into the void, you’re not alone. I’ll be over here, celebrating “Not Having to Buy a Card for a Woman Who Made My Childhood Awful Day.”
Happy Sunday🌼🌻
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