Today, you will see many posts about how mothers are goddesses - flawless and perfect in every way. They do their assigned jobs without complaint. They take on all the tasks like every mother should. They do everything they are meant to do. A mother not only gives us unconditional love and support, but also cooks food, washes clothes, and keeps the house clean.
Because who else would do it except her... right?
The best way to beat someone into submission is by glorifying the very thing you want them to do.
The whole purpose of Mother's Day has somehow become to praise women for doing everything that was forced upon them, and so, to keep them locked up in the endless cycle of enforced gender roles. When you raise 'Mother' to 'Goddess', you are denying her the very basic right to be treated as a human being.
People have traditionally set up some impossibly high standards of what a mother should be. If any woman does not meet these standards, her motherhood is immediately questioned. Mother's Day is the celebration of motherhood as an idea; as an image. It is over-exaggerated, praised to the high heavens and reinforced over and over again. Mother's Day is about reminding women of this image and urging them to stick to it, because if you don't conform to this image, you have somehow failed as a mother.
When you say, 'Motherhood completes a woman,' you are robbing a woman of her choice and of her right over her own body, and reducing her to merely a vessel of procreation. Mother's Day is the celebration of women staying in their "rightful" place - within the four walls of a home, and doing the "right" jobs - that of raising children and maintaining the household.
What we so badly need is for society to stop fetishizing the idea of Motherhood.
For now, let's celebrate Mother's Day for all the right reasons. Let us celebrate our moms for who they are as a person, not just their motherhood. Let us celebrate their awesomeness - their dreams, ideas, passions and achievements. Let's celebrate their individuality.
Instead of an idea, let's celebrate a person.
Happy Mother's Day.
