A thoughtful belated Ma’s Day

I read something beautiful this afternoon that I wanted to link, but wasn’t sure how to provide a context that is true to my thoughts. I could pass it off with a glib, “This is why I don’t want to have kids,” but that would be shallow and untrue and completely unfair to the writer, who did a beautiful job in her post.

I could also go into a sappy, commiserating commentary, but I’m just not qualified. Her situation is not one I’ve ever found myself in, and I can only imagine the depressing horrors of the rollercoaster of her situation. I can feel for her, but I can’t really sympathize because I just haven’t been there.

So what I will say is that it made me think of my mother. Because I don’t know how frequently, if ever, she has had that good type of day since Ali has been born, if not for a while before. I’m not at all sure that she has had the wonderful type of day that leaves her feeling comfortable with herself, where she isn’t struggling to get through the day until she can (possibly, and frequently not) get a break when the Old Man gets home. Maybe things are better and have improved since I was living with them, but I do worry. During my tenure, if you will, she was only appreciated in a very abstract “Of course we appreciate her–she does everything around the house” kind of way, with no attempts to actually improve her situation. Or rather, no attempts to provide some less stressful choices for her to take.

That makes me very pissed at myself, and the choices I’ve made these past five years. I should be able to surmount my dislike of children in general and Ali in particular for the sake of my mother. It’s like the interest in world news: what my father has been attempting to hammer into me for the past five years, I finally learn with the help of a good feed reader. Le sigh.

Happy belated Mother’s Day. I guess.