All The Mothers

(CN/CW/TW: Advisory. Mentions of child loss, child cruelty and abandonment, childhood trauma, birth trauma, post and peri natal depression, animal cruelty, foster care and adoption.)

Mothers’ Day is here again, with its annual subtext of obligation, disappointment and regret.

Yes, this is going to be one of those Mothers’ Day essays. Sorry.

But, wait! Don’t go yet! This is a difficult piece to write, because those of us with strong, happy maternal bonds don’t really want to read about how hard it is for those who don’t have any on a day that’s about joy and celebration and gratitude. And those who don’t have that relationship, or have a difficult or even toxic one, don’t really want to be reading anything at all about this shit, today of all days.

But I want both groups of you, I want all of us to come together and celebrate the Other Mothers. As a very dear friend of mine puts it, “those who stand in the mothering place”.

Biological essentialism is all very well for GCSE level science or reinforcing the patriarchy, but ‘Mother’ is much more than a living thing that goes through a gestation and/or birth process. In humans (because we’re not discussing lobsters here) Mother is a role to be fulfilled, and Motherhood a process far beyond and not even necessarily including birth.

After all, if it was all to do with the profound nature of the birthing experience, the closeness of the bond formed…