I am not going to rant about how commercialized mother’s day (and every other holiday with the possible exception of National Panic Day) has become or how it was essentially created with commercial interests in mind. I’m not even going to go into my feminist schpiel about motherhood and maternity as essentializing discourses.
I’d like instead to contemplate mothers. With all the pressure to be the perfect mother, it’s nice to have a day to celebrate the effort that mothers make to do the best they can with what they have.
I think it’s also important to recognize mothers who may not have children: the women who have lost their children, who have had miscarriages, who have been unable to conceive or adopt. And also those who mother friends, who mentor, who mother pets, and nieces and nephews and neighbors and entire communities.
I remember a church service I attended a few years ago where there were flowers for moms, but not just biological moms. We gave flowers to each other recognizing that together we make community, that I may mother a woman 20 years my senior, that I may cherish another person’s child, that mothering should not be reduced to a biological function but is the presence of spirit, a sharing and loving presence.
I know I’ve had many mothers at many points in my own life and I know I have mothered many others and been blessed in so doing.
We sang to a mothering God (yes, this was a Christian service, no, gender does not matter) and celebrated each other.
I may not have children yet but I celebrate mother’s day all the same. Think Hallmark will catch on?
Bochinche Bilingüe: Borderlands Writing 
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