It is Mothers Day. 

What? One day to celebrate the whole amazing phenomenon of motherhood? You’ve got to be joking!

Mothering goes on every day, all day and often for most of the night.

It’s not my intention to ignore the contribution of fathers in the upbringing of children. I have the utmost admiration for fathers too, but because it is Mother’s Day this month I want to celebrate the amazing reality of motherhood.

We are precipitated into it without any instructions and with no idea what our journey with this new person will be like.

I have mothers bring their babies into my practice. They say: 

“Oh yes, we do get some sleep. Sometimes she sleeps for two hours.”

Or

He does sleep, so long as we are carrying him.”

They are bug eyed with exhaustion but their focus is all on this little one whose welfare means more to them than the exhaustion, the anxiety and the frustration.

Often I long to treat them along with the child they have brought to the practice.

Of course the children I see are the children who are suffering from some form of discomfort which has brought them to me, so life is maybe more challenging for these mothers than for others. But even when a baby is settled and comfortable they still need attention, day and (most of the) night. And mothers go on giving it. 

Whenever I see the enthusiastic praise that film stars get, the huge salaries paid to bankers, or the obscene bonuses for CEOs, I think of mothers, awake in the night changing the bed for the umpteenth time, struggling through their own flu to nurse the children’s illness, making yet another meal to be ignored and then washed up and in some cases coming to terms with illnesses and disabilities that afflict the children they love so much.

And I admire these mothers so much it takes my breath away.

Photo with many thanks to Karin Miller.