I am a mother of three boys, the mother-in-law of two girls and the grandmother of one boy and tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  I, along with others who have been able to have children, and those who have adopted children will get cards, flowers and lunches out after church.  And all because of the commercialized idea of what Mother’s Day is supposed to be.

We use the word mother in many different ways on a daily basis, probably not even thinking about why.  Obviously things like “mother nature, mother earth, mother country or mother church come to mind, but then we have things like the mother lode, mother ship and mother boards.  We have stage mothers and soccer moms, mother hens, den and house mothers, and brothers from another mother.  Then we use phrases like “necessity is the mother of invention” or “mother knows best” or, if you’re a Ghostbusters fan, “mother puss bucket” or the more inappropriate reference to mother which probably needs no more than that.

If you search the definition of the word “mother”, it describes a woman in relation to her child or children, an elderly woman, the head of a female religious community, an institution or organization from which more recently founded institutions of the same type arrive or an extreme example or very large specimen of something, the latter’s synonyms including humdinger, dilly, doozy, lulu and whopper.  I sure I’ve been referred to a least one of those at some time during my life.

However, if you look at the verb form of mother, this is where it describes the people who exemplify the word “mother”.  To bring up a child with care and affection, or to look after kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so.  To me, this describes so many women, whether they have children or not, who just care about children, period.  Like the moms who come in to help kids at lunch at school, the person who becomes a mentor to young people, someone who volunteers to work with needy children and anyone who works with children in our public schools. Some of them may have been birth mothers, but others may just love children and mother them like they were their own.  And all of them should be celebrated.

On this Mother’s Day there are mothers out there who are unable to have children and who have lost children, there are children who have lost mothers and there are mothers who never should have been mothers.  We tend to be uncomfortable for them when this day arrives because in our culture/society, motherhood is something that is still expected of women and it is a deeply emotional thing for all of us.  After all, all of us who are here had a mother. But this is really a pretty narrow viewpoint.  I know plenty of women who have never had children of their own and yet they have “raised” and mothered thousands of children in their lifetimes and they will never get recognized for that.

Anyone in the teaching profession at any grade level has been a mother.  We have comforted children, laughed and cried with them, bandaged their boo boos, given them hugs, disciplined them when they needed it, encouraged them when they were down and celebrated their victories with them.  We have attended their recitals, watched their concerts and plays and attended their athletic events to support them.  We have taught them not only academic subjects but life skills and life lessons to help them be the best human being they can be.  And we’re there when as adults, they come to us for advice and reassurance.  That in a nutshell is mothering.

So, on this Mother’s Day, let’s not get too caught up on the word mother in the literal sense and give thanks for every women who loves and cares for children regardless.