Sunday 14 May 2017

Grumpy Childless Women Unite!

This is just a way to open a combox to any childless woman who wants to vent about not having been blessed with children and how unhappy that makes her feel. If you hate children and are glad you don't have any, we don't want to hear from you, Baba Yaga. Children are awesome.

Once again a reminder not to attack mothers-in-general, as they will read this post and defend themselves, making us feel bad and ruining all our venting fun.

Here again are some tips for surviving Mother's Day:

1. Go to whichever Mass you feel relatively sure won't do the "Mothers, stand so all the men and the  women whose pain I am ignoring can applaud you" routine. The very early, music-free, 35 minute Mass for the elderly sounds like a safe bet.

2. Make the day about YOUR mothers: visit your mother and your grandmothers, or their graves, and pray for them. If you can't visit the living for whatever reason (e.g. distance, volcanic personality clash), send flowers.*  I have sent flowers to my mother, and at Mass I will pray a bit longer than usual for my grandmothers and the one great-grandmother I got to meet. She was born and raised in Edinburgh, bless her.

3. Think about the children who are already in your life and how grateful you are to be allowed to share in their lives. I have at least eleven--three family, three best-friend's-children, three pupils, and two grown-ups who tolerate my maternal craziness presumably because it comes with food and shelter attached.

4. Think about and contact women who have been motherly to you in some way and would appreciate hearing from you. I shall now send a text to my mother in art. Trish has no children, but thanks to her I had an entrée to the world of Spoken Word. She is only four months older than me, but whatever.

*If you hate Mother's Day (and found this post because you Googled "I hate Mother's Day Catholic") because you have (or had) a terrible relationship with your mother, I say send the flowers (if you know where she is) but go to a spa, if there are spas open on Sunday. At any rate, be gentle with yourself on this highly emotional day.

If you hate Mother's Day because your children have disappointed you terribly or have been taken from you, I don't know what to say except that I'm sorry. That must really, really hurt. I'll pray for you, too.

19 comments:

  1. I'm not completely at the stage where mother's day is painful (at 25 although unmarried, single and with no immediate prospect of meeting someone it's a bit uneasy) I think it's great that you try and express ways people can partake in it while childless. I lost my father ten years ago and still find find father's day painful so I cannot imagine how mother's day feels for women who are childless despite wanting them. It's great that such important things are celebrated but it's nice to see someone note they can be difficult if you don't have that particular person or role in your life.
    I'm also glad BA is on the mend so far. I found your serpahic singles blog by chance about a year before you moved on but I've been following you since. Your such a great read and after your struggles I really hope that God looks after you both now you've found each other!

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  2. Auntie Seraphic, I don't know what I would have done without your blog and your sensible advice to remain rooted in reality, etc. (And funnily enough, I was married before I started reading your blog, but there's so many other applications for your advice. Like when you have to remain rooted in reality and keep remembering that your sister in law probably didn't mean it that way, etc.) You are an amazing example of what it means to be a spiritual mother.

    And on the plus side, we went to a very well celebrated NO Mass this weekend, where the priests do not put up with shenanigans of any kind, and Mother's Day was not mentioned at all. Which, in my humble opinion, is exactly as it should be. I'm all for priests preaching about the importance and beauty of motherhood, spiritual and physical, but otherwise, the Mass isn't the appropriate place to celebrate secular holidays. Anyway, it was so wonderful to not sit in the pews in horrible anticipation of moment of separating the sheep from the goats or being the only woman there without a carnation, etc. I could just relax and shower my own mother and mil with thankfulness instead!

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    1. Thank you! And I am so glad you weren't hurt at Mass today. Being the only woman without a carnation---ugh, ugh, ugh! Why can't grown men SEE how terrible this is? How many years in the seminary? HOW MANY YEARS? Girls know how terrible this is from the age of FIVE! AAAAAAARRRRGH!

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  3. I'm 33 and have been married for a while and it does sometimes feel uncomfortable on Mother's day. After Mass, the mothers are invited to stand and receive recognition and I look around to see the women who aren't standing, and notice most of them are teenagers or very young women in their early 20's (who probably aren't married). It does feel like I missed the boat, but try not to think about it too much. Honestly, I think I'd feel better if Mother's and Father's Day wasn't mentioned at all, but I go to a NO parish and my husband would find me grumpy if I were to say this out loud.

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    1. This is why I hold a Mother's Day open house: we're allowed to be grumpy here. Otherwise, not thinking about it too much is the way to go. If I started thinking about it, I'd be a basket case. I'm so sensitive that my poor priest can't mention the importance of having children at all without me getting all teary-eyed. Of course he must preach this to the young folk who might be tempted by selfish practices, so I have to woman up. But, happily, there are no liturgical shenanigans on Mothering Sunday, which we simply call Gaudete Sunday.

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  4. Thank you for being a spiritual mother to so many!

    Thank you for being a spiritual mother to so many!
    Right now my single state (rather than my childless state) bothers me a bit. I have the flu. Being sick is especially difficult when you live alone and have nobody to cook a soup for you or drive you to the doctor. I can just try to imagine how this is for older, single, childless people. Now I am fit enough to care for myself when I am sick, but how will it be when I get old?

    So today, feeling better, I dragged myself to mass. I skipped the NO mass even though it is closer by and shorter (= better when you are still half sick) because of Mother’s day, and went to EF mass. And how did the sermon start? “As you know, today is Mother’s day, so this would be a good opportunity to think about the role of mothers…” I really had to laugh, thinking of your blog post from yesterday. But it went on very good, because it was mainly about how every person has a mother (dead or alive) and that we should honour her today at the very least by praying for her, and then he went on about Mary as the mother of everyone and the month of May being one big Mother’s day for Mary. So I went home and called my mother, which I would not have done without your reminder and this sermon.

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    1. What a great homily!

      I should warn you though, that being married is no guarantee that someone will make you soup or drive you to the doctor. Men-in-general don't know about making soup (although I'm sure some do) and my husband can't drive. Men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life, but they tend to lack the feminine genius that makes most women mothers of one kind or another.

      Being sick when you're a married woman can be rather enraging. However, it must be admitted that the usual reason the husband isn't being good at comforting his poor sick wife is that he is at work.

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    2. I agree that it's rotten to be sick when you are single (no experience of being sick when married; I'm taking Auntie's word on this). My solution: I keep some emergency "sick" supplies on hand: popsicles and homemade chicken soup in the freezer; crackers and Jello in the cupboard; various over-the-counter meds in the cabinet and up to date, extra boxes of Kleenex, etc.

      I had the flu - the real, bona-fide, 2-3 week long flu - in winters 2016 and 2017. Both times I was able to survive on these supplies, and if I didn't let the dirty dishes pile up, I could have what I craved and didn't wear myself out getting it. I was also fortunate to have a friend I could text a picture of the box of my favorite crackers to, and the next time she went to the store she picked them up for me and dropped them off on my front porch.

      This is not to minimize the difficulties of being sick; just sharing how I've gotten around it with common illnesses.

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  5. I was dreading Mother's Day today, as I've been married for 2.5 years and we are still childless. Thankfully, we go to an FSSP parish, and Father preached on Mary and spiritual mothering, and how modern feminism devalues that tradition. So I got through Mass with no tears (and no panic attack, which I was also dreading, but hurrah!), and then after calls to our mothers, my husband and I baked bread, went for a long walk, and played board games. I'm so very grateful for a trad parish where secular holidays like Mother's Day aren't overly acknowledged-makes days like today that little bit easier

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    1. At my FSSP parish there was no mention of mothers at all--of course, this is the UK, so it wasn't Mother's Day--except Our Lady of Fatima (I think) and so I forgot and had to pray all my extra prayers for my mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers on the walk to the bus!

      I'm glad your priest preached such a great homily. Hooray for the FSSP! Hooray also for the bread-baking husband!

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  6. Unfortunately I had to attend a different parish (not my usual one) and the priest got all the mothers to 'come up to the front' at the end of Mass. What irritates me most about this is that it's a liturgical abuse. At least he gave them a blessing and didn't ask us to clap (at least I don't think I recall being asked to clap, but I was braindead by that point so who knows...)

    And then Facebook informed me that All The People are now engaged or married. (Side note, I find it really odd when people post about 'the day I married my best friend' etc. It's like, take that, former best friend!!!)

    Julia

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    1. All the People: snicker. I am sure it must feel that way!

      Liturgical abuse, indeed. Why do they think women like or need this? The blessing would work just as well if they said "Please bow your heads and ask for God's blessing upon mothers." It wouldn't hurt anyone if they added "and spiritual mothers."

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  7. Oh dear, I'm afraid my parish had the trifecta!! :( All mothers asked to stand, special blessing (not mentioning spiritual mums) and applause. My heart ached for all of us who didn't stand - wherever we are in the world - and I renewed my resolve that if ever I am blessed to have a baby of my own, I will be remaining seated in protest at this ritual (I think the lovely Sheila was the one who started this tradition of solidarity, if I recall correctly?). The visiting priest did wish me a happy Mothers Day after Mass, assuming I was a mum - I took this as a gentle reminder from God of the importance of spiritual motherhood!

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    1. Yes, it was the lovely Sheila. Good for Sheila! I'll always be grateful to her for that.

      Would it be too painful to write to your pastor and your bishop to explain why the trifecta is so hurtful? You might want to mention that childless women around the world feel this way. I've been reading about women's pain yesterday on Facebook this morning, and the most poignant came from a mother whose first child died. Sometimes I wonder if priests are just thinking about their own mother and assuming that their uncomplicated feelings towards motherhood--Mom Proud of Me, the Priest In the Family/Motherhood=Joy-for-All--are universally shared.

      If, by the way, this happened in either Edinburgh or Toronto, I would be happy to write to the archbishop myself.

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    2. That is an excellent idea, I shall do it! Not in beautiful Edinburgh or Toronto, but another corner of the Commonwealth - Sydney. :) Oh that poor lady on Facebook...will offer up a prayer for her! I think you are right about priests thinking of their own mothers (God love them!). Our own archbishop posted a lovely pic of his mum embracing him at his consecration, but his words linked Mother's Day with Fatima and asked us all to thank God for *both* our mothers - our earthly mother and Our Lady.

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    3. You may want to be saying some prayers for Sheila. I saw her comment over here: http://www.carrotsformichaelmas.com/2017/04/26/has-parenting-perfectionism-killed-self-care/#comments (scroll down a bit, after an anonymous and Dixie- in that thread).

      I've been offering up my mothering hardships for y'all and for her today (nothing terrible, just an away on the job husband and a tired but nap protesting three-year-old).

      Being sick while being married is really not that great. My husband tries to take care of me, more than many husband, but alas he still has to go to work and I still have to take care of other people, who are small and dependent on me (and one of whom has to nurse).

      PS Our church had no mention of this during the homily, but near the end of the mass there was the stand, blessing, and applause. Spiritual motherhood WAS mentioned, in more words than physical motherhood.

      Happy mother's day to you.

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  8. No problems at my parish (mothers were mentioned but very briefly, spiritual mothers, etc, and more attention focused on the May crowning that happened before mass, and the dedication of a new statue of Mary outside after), aside from acquaintances from a neighboring parish vising and ending up on the row behind me, so unlike my usual wistful wish for a pew full of littles in the midst of a parish with only a couple of small children, I was in the pew in front of a row full of small children - but I've missed having littles around during mass so much since moving and switching parishes that I actually was rather thankful for them. But it doesn't make one's wish for a husband and a pew full any less. (And while time isn't completely run out for me, at 35, it's getting less and less likely - and certainly less likely to get a whole pew full!) But all in all, not a Mother's day I could complain about. And honestly I feel worse for a friend who has children of her own, but her mother hasn't spoken to her in close to a decade. I do at least have a very good relationship with my own mother. So I'm good. But I do get upset on other people's behalfs.

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  9. Having been unfortunate to arrive to Mass a bit late, I was sitting in front of two young teenage monsters. I've never seen them before, so I have a feeling their mother guilted them into attending Mass. If there was any sentiment of missing having children (and a spouse), those two definitely chased that away. By the end, I was wishing for a screaming baby, which delightfully (for me) happened, during Communion and thanksgiving so I didn't have to hear the constant bickering and swearing.
    The priest himself only mentioned Mother's day in the context of 'we're having a Marian procession today - a good thing to do for Mother's day'.
    So, alas, pretty good and nary a tear.

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