What is the best gift for Mother’s Day?
It is Mother’s Day and my social media feeds are full of messages glorifying the great thing called Motherhood. But I am not sure what Happy Mothers Day really means.
My mother has been significant influence in my life and has shaped me in so many ways. Being a mother to an amazing daughter has been one of the most wonderful things in my life. Yes, being a mother is great and mothers have been doing a fantastic job in bringing up kids and holding it all together.
Mothers are sacred across cultures.
The Manusmriti says- “The mother excels even a thousand fathers in glory”
Swami Vivekananda has said- ‘The position of the mother is the highest in the world, as it is the one place in which to learn and exercise the greatest unselfishness.’
Our Indian movies have glorified two kinds of mothers- the long suffering sacrificing martyr or the nurturing cook who is forever feeding her offspring her ‘ haath ka khana’- food straight from her hands!
Recently, I saw a film called Marriage Story in which a divorce lawyer played by Laura Dern makes an impassioned speech about the difference between mothers and fathers- “We can accept an imperfect Dad….You will always be held to a different higher standard” she tells the mother.
Mothers are supposed to be perfect- unselfish, self sacrificing, relentlessly nurturing, the model of abnegation and unconditional love. If a woman does not live up to this notion of motherhood, , she is torn between guilt and inadequacy. Others, especially other women will judge her and label her as ‘ Bad Mother.’
It is exhausting to constantly live up to your own and the world’s expectation of The Ideal Mother.
This Mother’s Day, all of us including mothers, need to remember that –
Mothers are women with needs and ambitions.
Mothers can be vain, messy, selfish, foolish and weird.
Mothers are allowed to make mistakes.
Mothers can sometimes lose their cool and use a ‘bad’ word.
Mothers can forget things.
Mothers don’t have to know everything.
Mothers can go to work and still be there for you.
Mothers can stay at home and still not be taken for granted.
Mothers are Human.
I feel that the best gift anyone can give to a mother is to help her down from that pedestal that we have put her on, the pedestal that stands on the foundation of all our expectations. Let us give mothers the gift of unconditional wholehearted acceptance. Mother is a person in her own right not a Goddess or a Superwoman. That would make it a Happy Mothers Day.
