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Moher's Day Is Over

      It is evening and Mother's Day is over. What a beautiful portrait is painted of loving mothers. Women who sacrificed themselves for us, who taught us to care for ourselves, taught us to pray and be good sports, who instilled wonderful basic values in us.

      Right. If mothers everywhere are so loving, so nurturing, so kind, so uplifting, then why do we live in such a sick world? Why do women still let their sons grow up to be chauvinistic pigs, and users/abusers of women? Why do so many young women have such low self esteem, if Mom was so supportive and encouraging? You know I want to answer my own questions before I pose them. Because very few people actually have those wonderful mothers.

      I was one of the lucky ones. So are many people on WritingDotCom. We can wax nostalgic on our mothers, but we were the exception, not the norm. Even our loving mothers were flawed. They had their own problems which they passed to us. (I can hear my Mom's voice in my own negative thoughts sometimes.)

      Even in churches, with all those images of virtue, many people have had bad mother experiences. Many people were abandoned by their mothers to others. Many were misused. Some mothers are self-centered and immature and really only provide the necessities of survival, but no love, not guidance, no nurturing. Some mothers are abusive.

      A fine Christian gentleman, who himself is successful and has a lovely wife and great grown kids, told me his mother verbally berated him and his brother constantly. She burned them with cigarettes when she was angry. He remembers at age 14 struggling to figure out what they had done wrong, why they were so bad, why they had earned her anger. They bent over backwards to do what she told them, to please her, but never satisfied her. She called them stupid and burdensome, and he wondered why God made him so bad, what was so wrong with him. He never knew happiness until he had long left home. I'll tell you he's a wonderful father and a great youth worker. He broke the cycle, but many can't, preferring not to rub salt in wounds that won't heal.

      I had a pastor who, after decades of counseling with people, vowed he'd never preach another Mother's Day sermon because it hurt too many innocent people. People who had never known the love or sacrifice of a mother would only feel set apart and be reminded of their own childhood pain. He would preach on other days about parenting, breaking wrongful traditions,  and honoring parents.

    I'm afraid that in our self-indulgent, me-driven culture that bad mothering is becoming epidemic. Far too many people experience Mother's Day as just a fairy tale.