Not Your Typical Mother’s Day

@chenzo

This one is for the moms. Whether you are one or have one, you know how much these women do for everyone in their lives. I often say this: motherhood is the most thankless and rewarding job there is. The pay is crap. There is no time off. If you are fortunate, there is vacation, but with kids. Is it really though? We can’t get sick and if we do it’s just being sick while you mom. Yet, it is the single most important job some might ever have and if you are a warrior queen who puts everyone and everything before yourself, you know that you can sleep when you are dead because, until the kids are fed, raised and kept out of juvy and on to being functional and happy humans in the world, it is all about everyone who doesn’t have the name “mom”.

Now, I am not trying to make this gig sound like it’s the pits, because it’s not. Being a mom is the single greatest joy of my life. But, if I can be frank, my kids exhaust me and I have to mentally prepare for bedtime. I worship the ground they walk on and am an enabling Italian mother. So there is that. However, we moms don’t stop until the last head hits the pillow and lord knows what the night might bring. Moms can use a break. Don’t ya think?

Consider this: today’s mom looks a little different from the mom I knew. Many of my fellow moms aren’t solely managing the family and the home. Which, by the way, is a massive undertaking in and of itself.

I seriously bow down to all of the mothers across the land. But, and as my 6th-grade teacher used to say, “that is a big butt”, the modern mom is also the working mom and that, my friends, is some superhuman shit.

The mom that is leaving for a job every day is cramming everything a non-working mom does in the hours before and after she returns home from her job. That feat seems nearly impossible, yet the working mom never wavers. The working mom does it all. Moms are multitasking S.O.B.s.

This brings me to my point: there is one day in the entire year that honors mothers. That day is called Mother’s Day and, although the sentiment is lovely, it has never really felt the way I thought a Mother’s Day should feel. Don’t get me wrong. That single day is filled with incredible family time and perhaps, a delicious brunch and memories that will last a lifetime.  However, that day also comes with a whole lot of other junk moms have to do because, well, we are moms.

I would like to propose something. Perhaps start a Mother’s Day Movement of sorts. We talk a lot about making moments and creating experiences and enjoying the simple pleasures in life because, let’s be real, life is only speeding up. I have the best idea.

I think moms across America should take their Mother’s Day on the road. Yes. I am saying ditch your family and your kids, grab your besties and make some plans to do whatever your utterly exhausted mind, body, and soul desires.

Book a hotel in the city. Drive to your friend’s lake house. Buy some tickets to a place you have never been and get the heck out town for a bit. You deserve it. It is okay. There is nothing you need to be doing on the day that is called Mother’s Day that doesn’t consist of only doing you for a change.

You will find me in Austin with my high school besties. This isn’t my first Mother’s Day Rodeo. I have left town on this blessed event once before. Let me speak from experience:  it was, and will forever be, the best way to honor thy mother. I slept. I laughed. I cried. I ate…a lot. I felt like I rediscovered the gal that sometimes gets lost in the thick of it. If there is ever a day a mom should feel no guilt about taking a day…or three, make no mistake, that day should be Mother’s Day.

xo, Michelle