An Unprecedented Mother's Day

By Claire Booth

This is not going to be an eloquent essay on motherhood. This is not an eloquent time. This is a hanging-off-a-cliff-by-your-fingernails time. So this Mother’s Day you deserve to be lauded for surviving:

- lockdown,

- quarantine,

- toilet paper rationing,

- The Tiger King on Netflix,

- working from home,

- pointing out that you’ve always worked from home because motherhood is work, and isn’t it nice that everybody else is getting a dose of it right now,

- trying to sew a face mask that someone would actually agree to wear outside,

- homeschooling,

- having to cook actual legit dinners because everyone is home at 6 p.m. and staring at you like they’re members of the Donner Party,

- Zoom meetings,

- homeschooling,

- really, really wanting a happy hour with your friends to take place in person,

- the complete absence of sporting events and the corresponding sad, aimless wandering of certain family members through the house,

- caring for sick relatives,

- Common Core math classes,

- guilt over totally giving up on screen time limitations,

- cleaning up the leftover mess from craft projects and wondering where they got glitter because you could swear there was none in the house,

- cats who can’t stand you by now and dogs who are starting to feel the same way,

- antsy kids who just want to go outside and play,

- “unprecedented” everything,

- being reminded even more than usual that you have no idea what you’re doing,

- taking grim satisfaction in the fact that no one else knows what they’re doing either.

If moms are heroes every Mother’s Day, think about what they are this year. Send them your love, and your congratulations that they’ve survived it all. Because we’re moms, and that’s what we do.

Happy Mother’s Day.