It's Fraught...

I really do like the word fraught. It's such a nice way to say fucked. Or potentially fucked. It's fraught.

Today is Mothering Day in the UK. It's like Mother's Day here, just a fancier way of saying it. And just like here, it's fraught.

The combination of posts on either day always range from glowing tributes to mom, funny pictures of what your kids did to celebrate, to posts just overflowing with pain from either missing mom, or never having had a good relationship with mom. It's a lot.

If you have known me for any length of time you know I don't celebrate Mother's Day. When my mother and mother-in-law were alive we sent them flowers and tried to remember to call, because even though I don't celebrate it, they still did. So out of obligation to them we made sure to cover our bases. 

And that's a big part of why I don't celebrate. Obligation. 

I have told Katie over and over that she has no obligation to either Brent or me. She did not choose to be born. We did that. So she has no debt to pay, no obligation to uphold, over being raised by us. By the things we did for her while we raised her. Those were our choices. 

I am glad that she's grateful for a lot of it. That she understands how much easier her life is in some ways because of the choices we made. I am glad that she appreciates us as parents and as people. But she owes us nothing. 

I am also glad (and I've talked about it a lot) that she calls me often. That she shoots me texts when she runs across something she thinks I'll like. I would so much rather that, than a once a year phone call, bouquet of flowers, breakfast out. 

It's the same as Valentine's Day. I don't want Brent and I to fall into some trap of making a big deal romantic gesture once a year and forget that the real foundation of romance is bringing home a cup of coffee if you had an early morning errand you ran. Or getting the brand of cereal that you know he loves at the grocery store. Or bringing home a piece of fudge from the fudge lady at work. Or saying, "Hey, your butt looks really good in those jeans!" The daily stuff is what I would rather have. 

We call them Hallmark Holidays in our house. And they are fraught. 

People's relationships with each other, with their parents, with their grown children, they are all complicated. And expectations from those Hallmark cards and commercials make them worse. And now? Now with social media and people posting pictures of their happy families and what they are doing to celebrate? It's too much. 

I can remember standing in front of a Hallmark display looking at Mother's Day cards and trying to find one to send home. It was the first Mother's Day we were living away from New Mexico and my mother and I were not on good terms. I was furious with her. I was debating walking away from my birth family at that point in time. So much anger. And those cards did not help. There was no "Look, I'm trying to understand that you did the best you could, or what you thought was right, but you fucked up." section. Everything was about how wonderful mom was, how special, how giving, how nurturing. How we all held an obligation to her. 

I walked out of the store without a card that day and had to go back and just blindly pick one a few days later. It didn't help the relationship, that's for sure, but if I hadn't gotten the card at all it would have been even worse. 

The obligation.

I hope that you are having a good Sunday no matter where you are. No matter what your history is. I hope you understand that Hallmark doesn't get to decide how your relationships look. That it's okay that life is complicated. I hope you are healing if you need healing. I hope that you are thriving. I hope that if your relationship with your mother is a good one, it brings you joy and I hope that if it was a terrible one you are able to move past that and still be okay. 

I know days like today are fraught. 

Sometimes it just makes it better to find a bright spot about it. 

Like the word Fraught. 

I do so like that word.