Am I worth being celebrated as a mom?
Celebrated my 12th Mothers Day yesterday and my 2nd lockdown mother’s day. Hence got a lot of time to think & reflect. The countless mother’s day wishes and messages from well-meaning friends and acquaintances made me seriously reflect on the collective expectations that the society has from us MOTHERS. And also made me ask myself the question, am I worth being celebrated as a mom?
Post summarizing the messages I received yesterday, I could see two prominent categories of moms being praised and celebrated. One, the SUPERMOMS- the moms who manage to cater to all their children’s needs perfectly despite being a working professional, always well dressed with sparkling clean children. Second, the SELFLESS MOMS, perpetually smiling, goddess of patience kind of mothers who never prioritize their needs and always put their children & family first.
For a little while someone as strong willed as me found myself under tremendous pressure because I know for sure that I don’t fit into any of these two categories. Because, I am a mom who loses her patience, who travels with her friends leaving the kids behind at home, who at least couple of times a week gives them junk to eat to just ensure they are happy and she can continue with work, who often prioritizes her work meetings and orders in food especially during lock-down when house-helps are not available, whose house is often not sparkling clean. And I know plenty of other moms who are just like me. We are NORMAL MOMS, perhaps? So are we worth being celebrated?
My immediate answer was- Yes absolutely, we are worth being celebrated and we should celebrate ourselves, It’s ok if the world doesn’t celebrate us, do we need their validation? It is very likely that we won’t get celebrated ever as we are the women who refuse to fit into any image created by companies to promote their products. A little bit of research shows that both SUPER-MOMS & SELFLESS-MOMS are creations of FMCG & jewelry brands. Hence, are completely designed to suit the biases of the society so that it can boost the sales of their products. As per most commercials that I have seen, the super-moms deserve respect & gifts because they know exactly how to juggle and they are perfect and they can do everything on their own without any support. The selfless-moms deserve respect & gifts because they are always thinking about others so others should also think about them. And the moms who can’t juggle perfectly or can not be selfless are not the ones the society wants to acknowledge. As these are the moms who demand equal parenting, these are moms who demand support from employers, these are moms who demand equal respect in the families, these are moms who demand equal pay and the list is endless. So for a society as biased as the one we live in currently these are the moms who are troublemakers. And trouble-makers are not celebrated!
So lets come together and celebrate ourselves and our tribe, and collectively work towards creating a future tribe that will not try hard to fit into any image but rather create their own. So here’s wishing a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all the NORMAL MOMS like me, remain who you are forever.