Mother's Day & Motherless Day

In honor of Mother's Day this weekend, I'm reading an amazing book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety," by Judith Warner. Ms. Warner lived for six years in France, giving birth to and raising two young children there, before returning home to Washington, D.C. in 2004. After partaking in and benefiting from the European culture of parenting, and feeling no guilt about being a working mother, she was stunned by the guilt and pressure she felt after returning to the U.S. In France, women are encouraged to work and to spend time with other adults, including their spouse, instead making children the center of their lives.

In fact, a mother's over-involvement in her child's life is discouraged in French society, considered neurotic and unhealthy for both mother and child. Childcare is provided, for a negligible fee, by the French government, midwives and nannies are subsidized and affordable, and public schools are beyond adequate in providing education to all children, from preschool on. Warner was shocked to discover a culture of guilt, anxiety and perfectionism in the suburbs of middle class America. She dissects this profound difference in cultural values from a personal and well-informed journalistic perspective. Highly recommended to all, but required reading for any mother who has ever felt stressed out by the impossible standards and expectations placed on us by society, each other, and most importantly, ourselves.

Mother's Day is always a complex and bittersweet experience for me. When I was my daughter's age -- Talya is 11 -- I got up early and tiptoed downstairs to make pancakes for my mom. My little brother would join me and help as much as he could, setting out plates on a tray to take upstairs, and offering suggestions for the shape of the pancakes. I made hearts, animals, and even spelled out "MOM" with a few splatters and blobs of batter. It was fun, I felt grownup, and my mom loved having her breakfast served to her in bed. Even if it was a little bit burnt or gooey. My daughter is the best and most wonderful daughter that I ever could have imagined. She's smart, funny, artistic, and unique. But, she doesn't make me pancakes on Mother's Day.

That was a different time. These days, most kids don't use the stove without adult supervision, and most moms don't get to stay in bed, or sleep in on Sundays, or ever. I love Talya's hand-made cards and art projects from school, and keep them all. She has to do double duty, because she has two moms, so it's especially lovely to see her joyful face when she hands us our two Mothers' Day cards! But there is another, less joyful feeling that rises up in my chest on each and every Mother's Day. There is something missing, and the absence is profound. My mother, Ellen, would have loved Talya's cards, because she, too, was an artist. Talya never got a chance to meet her grandmother Ellen, because my mom died a long time ago. I miss her still.

If you're like me, part of an ever-growing tribe of adult women who no longer have a mother to call, send a card to, or make pancakes for, Mother's Day can feel lonely and surreal, a celebration and a memorial, all rolled into one. Over the many years since my mother died (26 Mother's Days have passed without her), I've found strategies for dealing with my sadness, and a community of Motherless Daughters -- kinfolk, so to speak -- to share my complicated feelings and dispel the loneliness.

Four years ago, I was privileged to be part of a wonderful and much-needed project that focussed on the motherless among us. It was the creation of the anthology, "Kiss Me Goodnight: Stories and Poems by Women Who Were Girls When Their Mothers Died." Lovingly edited and midwived by Ann O'Fallon and Margaret Vaillancourt, this book became a living, breathing project when the many contributing writers began to gather for readings at bookstores, colleges, and community centers around the country.

I organized one of the many Mother's Day readings of "Kiss Me Goodnight," at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Amherst, in 2005. Several contributing authors showed up to participate. This small reading, publicized only with flyers, word of mouth, and a small announcement in the local paper, attracted the largest audience of any book reading at that popular college-town bookstore. To say that the motherless daughters of western Massachusetts were feeling a need to gather, and honor the memories of their mothers on Mother's Day, was an understatement. It was standing-room only.

My daughter came up and sat with me as I introduced the authors, and later read my poem. My partner, in-laws and brothers were there to lend support. It took all of my self-control and composure to keep from weeping as I looked out into that sea of women, and saw myself. The admiration, kinship and love I felt for those complete strangers threatened to overwhelm me. We are members of a quiet, nearly invisible club, and when we see and recognize each other, it is like turning the light on in dark room after a very long, dark night. I was so impressed by the authors who joined me that day, who were brave enough to bare their souls to all of us, and share their sometimes painful, truthful, less-than-perfect memories.

Since moving to Los Angeles, I've been lucky enough to find another group of Motherless Daughters, organized and sheperded by Irene Rubaum-Keller. Irene's group gathers every year on Mother's day, to honor and pay attention to the mixed feelings of our special group. A couple of years ago, I joined them, to have brunch and participate in another reading of "Kiss Me Goodnight." I was excited to hear Hope Edelman read from her second book about the psychology of Motherless Daughters, "Motherless Mothers." Again, I felt the unspoken kinship with and unconditional acceptance from the women there, who are all so much like me: broken, fierce, tender, loyal, melancholy, brave.

We see each other as we truly are, wounded, strong, memory-holders, courageous, truth-tellers; we all go on without a mother, we have no choice. Some of us are still angry at our mothers for leaving us, or for mistreating or neglecting us while they were alive. But all of us long for someone to make pancakes for on Mother's Day, and to turn to for advice, forgiveness, encouragement, perspective, or just the familiar face of our childhoods.

We go on. And we remember. We're here for you, if you ever need us. I hope it won't be anytime soon. But if you ever need to find us in that dark, lonely room, just turn on the light.

Happy Mother's Day & Compassionate Motherless Day to us all!


RESOURCES:

"Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety," by Judith Warner. Riverhead Books, New York, NY, 2005.

Kiss Me Goodnight: Stories And Poems By Women Who Were Girls When Their Mothers Died," Edited by Ann O'Fallon & Margaret Vaillancourt. Syren Book Company, Minneapolis, MN, 2005. http://www.kissmegoodnightbook.com/
http://www.itascabooks.com/

Irene Rubaum-Keller: Motherless Daughters of Los Angeles.
http://www.motherlessdaughtersbiz.com/ Irene's Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

"Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss" by Hope Edelman. Delta Press, 2004; "Motherless Mothers" by Hope Edelman. De Capo Press, 2006.
http://www.hopeedelman.com/



A Poem for all the Motherless Daughters:



"1983"

for Ellen

Fresh scent of frozen rain, fresh-turned red
earth thrown on her open grave, plain wooden
coffin etched with a simple star.
Born in Iowa, Episcopal Church, buried a Jew
on a whaling island, my mother chose
her epitaph from Chaucer: "And gladly wolde she learne
and gladly teache," in the barren winter ground
beneath a stone.

Young men with Uzis edge the Negev
fields - here it is spring. I harvest oranges
bigger than my fist, gather avocados deep in shaded groves
prune countless peach buds, fingers stained
dusk-rose and faintly sweet. Delicate white blossoms
limned by light, the bony breast of earth
lifts to the sun, another morning
motherless.


Rachel E. Pray
c. 2009

From: "Kiss Me Goodnight," Edited by Ann O'Fallon & Margaret Vaillancourt, Syren Book Company, Minneapolis, MN, 2005. Copyright c. by Ann O'Fallon & Margaret Vaillancourt, 2005.