Mother's Day Question - Who takes care of Mum?

Mother’s Day is a Hallmark tradition in which mothers are honored and revered, but underneath the cards and flowers lies a rarely talked about conversation that asks; who is taking care of mom?

On Mother’s Day we give thanks for all the love and care mothers give, but do we ask; what does mom need and who is mom as a person outside of her mothering role? These questions are not asked because of our steadfast belief in what I call the “Culture of Female Service”.

The “Culture of Female Service” is a widespread belief that mothers are here on this earth to selflessly take care of their children and family, and that self-denial, self-neglect, and self-sacrifice are the hallmarks of “good mothering”. We have all grown up believing in this definition of motherhood as if it is a fact. The alternative viewpoint where mothers are treated as people first with lives and needs of their own that are as important as their husbands’ and children’s and elderly parents’ lives and needs is so threatening to our ideals of motherhood, society actively suppresses this viewpoint.

The first time I asked the question; who is taking care of mom, years ago when my first book “The Silent Female Scream” was published. Back then people’s eyes would glaze over whenever I talked about mothers being people outside of their mothering role and having needs of their own.

Today, I am seeing a shift happening with women questioning their inherited belief in the “Culture of Female Service”. Daughters are starting to recognize how damaging self-neglect, self-sacrifice, and self-denial is to their own and their mother’s mental and emotional health, their ability to advocate for themselves in their relationships and at work, and their mother-daughter relationships. Daughters are waking up to how selflessness and sacrifice are patriarchal constructs, that are designed to keep mothers silent, invisible, and exhausted. Mothers and daughters are searching for a new definition of what it means to be a mother.

When my first child was born, I was angry when everyone around me started to treat me as if I no longer existed as a person. The only thing people asked me about was how my baby was doing. Questions about my work, what I thought, and what I needed for myself disappeared. I remember recognizing that this is what must have happened to my mother, and it terrified me. I did not want to live a repeat of my mother’s sacrificial life where she didn’t even feel entitled to read a novel. But holding on to my personhood was hard in the silence. Back then, no one understood my anger. And I had little option but to silence it because I did not want to be viewed as a selfish, neglectful mother.

It is high-time that the question; who is taking care of mom is asked and that mothers and daughters are given the freedom to voice their needs and identity as people without shame or guilt. Together we must challenge the patriarchal norm that has taught mothers for generations that sacrificial, self-neglecting, selfless behavior is what makes a good mother, because this is entirely untrue. The truth is, keeping mothers afraid to voice what they need plays right into the forces that are afraid of women’s equality and power.

Mothers and daughters not knowing how to voice what they need is a universal theme that is causing mother-daughter relationship conflict, and this led to “mothers are people first” being the first solution of the Mother-Daughter Attachment Model. This solution is also consistent with every psychological theory that tells us that voicing what you need and having a strong sense of who you are as a person are essential for women’s emotional and mental health.

Mothers do not mother in a cultural vacuum, so this year on Mother’s Day, please ask your mom; who takes care of you? Ask yourself as your mother’s daughter; how do I voice what I need? And talk to other mothers and daughters about the harm patriarchy’s definition of selfless mothering inflicts, so that together we can create a new definition of mothering that ends the epidemic of neglect, role overload, stress, and exhaustion that mothers have suffered from for generations.