The importance of hating Mother's Day

The only holidays we need are the ones we hate

A vintage motherhood illustration.
(Image credit: North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo)

Social media is flooded this time of year with calls to be sensitive about Mother's Day. The holiday means a lot of things to a lot of people, some not positive at all. It can be painful because it reminds people of the children they don't have at all, or the children no longer with them. It's a day that makes some mothers sad because of how little their partners or grown children appreciate them, and others are sad because they can't share it with their own mothers. There are reminders to honor the labor of stepmothers who do all the work with a fraction of the acknowledgement. There are reminders to honor birth mothers, teachers, people who nurture without being parents.

The barrage of "have you shopped for mom?" emails and advertisements hit a lot of people right in the gut, not least because the purpose of the day, when it was invented, was to honor mothers by not risking their children in pointless wars. It wasn't a Hallmark holiday, it was a pacifist holiday.

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Catherine Nichols

Catherine Nichols has written for Jezebel, Aeon, Electric Literature, Full Stop, Triangle House Review, and other sites. She lives in Massachusetts.