Happy Mother’s Day! To all the moms, stepmoms, bonus moms, godmothers, favorite aunties (real and play), all you women who are devoted caregivers to children, thank you for your service!!!! Thank you for your caring, your devotion, your going beyond what is expected and understanding what is needed, for doing things you never thought you’d want or have to do, for making a way out of no way, for consistently putting in the work, for creating and shaping the future of the world.
Take some time today to own the vital nature of your work, and to congratulate yourself for getting through one of the hardest years of mothering on record. We joke about the thankless role of mothering, but it is actually no joke: it is a job for life, which you have to pay lots of money to do, with a ridiculous amount on on-the-job training and no manual. By the time that you figure out whether you are doing a good job, it is often too late to do anything about it. If you do a good job, your children leave you and don’t look back too much–that is actually the goal. But we do it, lovingly, happily (sometimes), with joy (sometimes) and we do it consistently. We do hard and important work, which needs to be acknowledged and valued more than one day a year.
In a recent New York Times article, “The Perfect Gift for Moms: Money”, Reshma Saujani offers more concrete ideas about how motherhood should be valued. She is the founder of Girls Who Code and a founder of The Marshall Plan for Moms, a Congressional resolution to support mothers in the American workforce. Saujani notes, “We don’t need more gestures of appreciation; we need a national reckoning about the economic value we create with our bodies and our time, without adequate remuneration or support.” Great Mother’s Day reading as you focus on all the hard work you do.
More great Mother’s Day reading: “12 Mother’s on their Secret Strengths”. Mothers regularly focus on what we are not doing right and what we need to do better. In a needed change of focus, these 12 moms talk about their super powers. We all have them; as you read theirs, think about yours!
I created Ground Control Parenting years ago to support, encourage and inspire moms, because the work is hard and the resources are scattered. Through this blog, the podcasts, classes, webinars, panels and presentations, and in all the work that Ground Control Parenting does and will continue to do, we will continue to give access to important resources, champion parenting as essential work, and lift up and celebrate moms and dads as we put in the work to raise our Black and Brown children. We deserve it!!!
