On This Mother’s Day 2022, What is a Woman?

feminineness

girlishness

womanliness

feminality

femineity

Last week with the Supreme Court leak of the draft decision exhibiting that Roe v. Wade may likely be overturned at the federal level and sent back to the states for policy decisions, suddenly the left decided that “women” could lose their “right” to have an abortion.

The left did not say “birthing person” as we’ve been told recently is the only acceptable terminology for a human capable of giving birth. Their pre-printed signs  said “A woman’s right to choose…”

Women who are Mothers

“Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as ‘Mothering Sunday,’” according to History.com.

The American incorporation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914.

Maybe this Mother’s Day 2022, 108 years after the first one, we all can acknowledge that while we may be celebrating humans who can give birth, we can be thankful for mothers, because we know exactly what a woman is.

This lovely poem from the late New York Times bestseller Erma Bombeck, a favorite of this writer, epitomizes motherhood:

“A Mother’s Love” by Erma Bombeck

“You don’t love me!”  How many times have your kids laid that one on you?  And how many times have you, as a parent, resisted the urge to tell them how much?

Someday, when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother, I’ll tell them:

I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom and what time you would get home.

I loved you enough to insist you buy a bike with your own money that you could afford.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover your friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to a drugstore and confess, “I stole this.”

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your bedroom, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to say, “Yes, you can go to Disney World on Mother’s Day.”

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears in my eyes.

I loved you enough not to make excuses for your lack of respect or your bad manners.

I loved you enough to admit that I was wrong and ask for your forgiveness.

I loved you enough to ignore what every other mother did or said.

I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your own actions at age 6, 10 or 16.

I loved you enough to figure you would lie about the party being chaperoned, but forgave you for it – after discovering I was right.

I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be.

But most of all, I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all.