Belated Mother's Day

“It’s the rougher side of motherhood,” a dad of a pre-schooler told me when describing fatherhood.

Mother’s Day is Sunday. While talking about fatherhood is not exactly what many of you would expect in today’s column, I ask you. What is that softer side of fatherhood we need to take stock of and realize not just Mother’s Day, but everyday?

Mothers do it all. They attend school meetings. They are the ones the teachers expect when they ask for volunteers. They are den mothers for various scout organizations, and home room mothers at school. The list is endless as more and more of them are going to college as they earn eighty cents for every dollar men do. They sew the fabric as well as pick out the fabric upon which the canvas of our country is sewn. You look for change…it happens in the home predicated by the various edicts laid down by mothers. You even have a grandmother in the White House doing much the same the grandmothers we grew up with did.

Still, one of the things most often ignored in these scenarios is the relationship many of the mothers have with their fathers, and later with their sons. It’s no hidden secret many of today’s parents cope with issues they have never faced before. As a result these parents carry either a hope for something better because of the baggage given to them by their dads or covered up by their moms. Dr. Ken Canfield, former president of National Center for Fathering in Kansas indicated in his book “The Heart of a Father,” that 60% of the adult population had unresolved issues with their fathers. Why is that? And why ask that question now? Why focus on it when there are more children moving back home than ever before; when there more boys unprepared for school; when there are more boys unprepared to be adults?

Why? Because many of these issues generally connect with mom and a dad. We often forget that no matter what we do, children grow up. No matter what we do we cannot control how they will turn out. We can be there when they come home. Love them when they feel lost. Look for them when they are lost. But not feel guilty if they choose to make choices we didn’t encourage. We must stop babying them or feeling guilty because there was no one there when they came home, to tell them right and wrong, good and bad, no and yes.

Granted many mothers moved into the work force. That’s a good thing. Unfortunately many men were not taught how to handle that and during this transition, many men never acknowledged the fact they are just as responsible as mothers for nurturing the emotional development of their children, especially their sons.

People talk about how society began slipping when they took prayer out of school. While I won’t argue with this somewhat pejorative statement, look at the way society was changing about the same time when women began entering the workforce in higher numbers. Fewer and fewer mothers were home when Donna came home with a scrape on her knee, or Elmer came home and needed help with homework. Yes, maybe things began happening when prayer was taken out of the schools, but as women moved into the workforce, many men just stayed at work longer.

Men were used to coming home with meals being prepared, homes being cleaned. As men accepted the social economic status upgrade, many men abrogated the additional responsibility of assuming domestic chores as their spouses brought in additional income for the family. Incumbent with a mother who worked outside the home was a mother who had less time to do all the things that were previously done. Rather than become a better team, many men turned deaf ears to change. Instead, as I mentioned, many stay longer at work or left home because they were unaccustomed to this change. So society began its slide. And when Elmer and Donna came home with no one to greet them, these children began to fend for themselves. Discussion around dinner tables was replaced with TV dinners, TV or video games. Help with homework was outsourced to tutors. The once efficient team became a competitive money making machine that gave more to Uncle Sam than each other. See where this took us.

We have children less capable of taking care of themselves than ever before because many ignored the handwriting on the wall. Lower scores in schools. Fewer individuals wanting to be teachers. Conspicuous consumption becoming the driving force rather than just keeping up with the Jones’. Divorce rates and teenage pregnancies rose to all time highs. So what’s the answer? I don’t know, but I’ll take a stab at it. It’s mothering.

Mothering is a cooperative effort. Some of you may just call it parenting. Children need parents, and at no time more so than today. Judith Harris said that parenting is unimportant and children will grow up to be their own no matter what we do. For the parents who subscribed to Harris’ “The Nurture Assumption,” statement, I have one statement. “Don’t have kids!” For the parents who feel they have to be the perfect parents I have two statements. “There is no such thing; but being there is a start!”

I can’t begin to think what our children’s lives would be like without their mothers. Mothers add things dads never could. There are times when couples don’t get it right, but keep trying. There are different ways to do the same thing and the important thing that helps is accepting what may be a good decision today may not work tomorrow. Just like no two children are the same, no two decisions may work in the same circumstances.

I challenge many of you this Mother’s Day to do something for your mother or in your mother’s memory. Let it be something simple, but memorable, an acknowledgement that was it not for her you would not be here. Your legacy is knitted and tied to her and acceptance of any estrangement, differences, or unbridled love you might have at some point needs to find a release. Find it! Find a way to communicate this in a society that deeply needs it. And men, be there. Sometimes fatherhood may be the rougher side of motherhood, but so much of fatherhood is ‘just showing up.’ Do that on Mother’s Day. Show up! It’s an example your children won’t forget.