Let Joy and Sadness Mingle This Mother’s Day

I saw the above article reprinted under the title “The Dark Side of Mother’s Day” yesterday and I thought, “What?”

Let me explain . . .

Every holiday has some people who cannot join in the joyful merrymaking, either because they are of the wrong religion, or because they don’t fall into the category of person/family that is being celebrated that particular day (in the present case, families with two dads, for example, but they get to double dip on Father’s Day), or because they have suffered loss and are too sad to join in.

Compassionate people understand that and mourn with those who mourn, as the Bible says.

However, only Mother’s Day leads to a widescale guilting of mothers (like almost everything else in life conspires to do). Every year there is a wide slate of articles and Facebook posts reminding us to reach out to those who cannot celebrate while we are enjoying our day. As though we would not do that without being reminded . . . (mothers nurture–it is what we do! And please do *not* read that to say *only* mothers nurture because that is certainly untrue!).

We don’t try to make fathers feel bad for enjoying Father’s Day, do we? Or Christians for enjoying Christmas? Or Jews for enjoying Chanukah?

So why do we single out one holiday and try to put a damper on it?

I propose we go one of two ways. Either stop singling out Mother’s Day as a day to say “Enjoy yourself but not too much in light of those who are suffering” or else we start caveating *every* holiday with that phrase. What say you?