Mother's Day Blues

"Happy Mother’s Day!" This phrase was said millions, maybe billions, of times on May 10. For many, maybe even the majority who hear and say those words, they signal happy and joyful thoughts. This is especially for moms who get to spend Mother’s Day with their children and those who get to spend Mother’s Day with their mom. Yet for many others, Mother’s Day and even Father’s Day in June is a struggle. So many have recently lost a mother or father they dearly love. There are also many women who, like Hannah in the Bible, want nothing more than to be a mom, and yet that prayer has not been answered as they hoped. Others may have strained or broken relationships with their mothers, or maybe some moms feel sadness in being separated from their own children. 

All this said, “Mother’s Day Blues” is a real thing, experienced by millions of people, not just every Mother’s Day, but everyday. Too many moms spend Mother’s Day and many other days alone, without their children, especially their adult children. Too many children of all ages go weeks, months, even years without seeing their moms. We all know people for whom Mother’s Day is a struggle. It isn’t just a sad day but something deeper—a longing to be reconciled to someone we were once close to and the lament over relationships that can no longer be reconciled.  

How do we respond to Mother's Day’s Blues? Here are a couple of thoughts. First of all, if Mother’s Day triggers something difficult inside you, please get help. May is mental health awareness month, and a great time to admit that no one survives growing up without some kind of childhood wound or scar. For some of us, these scars are relatively minor, or we learn healthy ways like counseling to process and deal with them. For many others, the wounds cut deep and the scars keep reopening and manifest themselves in addiction, social disorders, and other self-destructive behaviors. When this happens, it is important to remember that addiction is most often not the problem itself, but an attempted (though failed) solution to something deeper. Again, if you sense your life isn’t working and you think it could be traced to something broken in a relationship with a parent or child, “hug your cactus” and get help. Talk to a counselor, join a support group or confide in a safe friend. Just don’t go at it alone.   

If you know someone who seems to struggle when talking about a parental relationship or Mother’s or Father’s Day, don’t ignore this reality. There is almost certainly something deeper going on. Be a friend who supports and stands beside them, try to get them to seek help if you can, and if you are being an enabler, please stop. Try to gently guide them from despair back to seeking hope. Give them words of encouragement like when it is said about God, I am “a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling” (Psalm 68:5). Or when Jesus uses the metaphor of a hen to show his desire to nurture his people.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34). 

Finally, if you have Mother’s Day Blues, remember that you are not alone or the only one. No matter how lonely or isolated you might feel, there is God who parents, defends, and even desires to gather you under his wings. There is a support community out there for you. You just haven’t found it yet. Mother’s Day was tough for me this year, too. This is my third Mother’s Day without my mom. It still stings a little. I am so grateful for the friends who have walked along beside me on this journey, and if you need someone to walk with you on yours, let’s talk.

uniteleadership.org

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