Excerpt from Judith Hannan's "Mother-To-Mother" published on The Huffington Post
"Mother-To-Mother" by Judith Hannan, The Huffington Post
I decided this year that I wanted to give myself a Mother's Day card. The equilibrium that had been knocked askew by children's departures for college and work has been restored -- no, reformulated -- and I have been filling the vacuum left by their withdrawal from my daily life with my own thoughts and reflections. What happened over the past quarter-century of being a mother? What does it mean to be a mother now? While I know my children will call me and that my husband will give me flowers, I want to pick my own card to help me ruminate on these questions.
So I went to the stationery store hoping to find myself in the racks of Mother's Day greetings. The first group of cards I sifted through included those that depict what I have dubbed the "glue stick moms." These show families in various states of anxiety and collapse because Mom is taking a break from holding the house and everyone's lives together.
Next came the tributes to the "modern mom." In these cards, mothers are congratulated for being young and hip, for not being an embarrassment to their children, for being their children's best friend. They have pictures of cocktail glasses filled with colorful libations which let us know that these mothers have lives beyond home and hearth. Rather than the Sex in the City images I think these cards are meant to portray, I could only conjure images of my mother, a 1950's suburban mother, reaching for emblems of glamor in which to clothe her lack of fulfillment...
Read more on The Huffington Post... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-...
I decided this year that I wanted to give myself a Mother's Day card. The equilibrium that had been knocked askew by children's departures for college and work has been restored -- no, reformulated -- and I have been filling the vacuum left by their withdrawal from my daily life with my own thoughts and reflections. What happened over the past quarter-century of being a mother? What does it mean to be a mother now? While I know my children will call me and that my husband will give me flowers, I want to pick my own card to help me ruminate on these questions.
So I went to the stationery store hoping to find myself in the racks of Mother's Day greetings. The first group of cards I sifted through included those that depict what I have dubbed the "glue stick moms." These show families in various states of anxiety and collapse because Mom is taking a break from holding the house and everyone's lives together.
Next came the tributes to the "modern mom." In these cards, mothers are congratulated for being young and hip, for not being an embarrassment to their children, for being their children's best friend. They have pictures of cocktail glasses filled with colorful libations which let us know that these mothers have lives beyond home and hearth. Rather than the Sex in the City images I think these cards are meant to portray, I could only conjure images of my mother, a 1950's suburban mother, reaching for emblems of glamor in which to clothe her lack of fulfillment...
Read more on The Huffington Post... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-...
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