What a mom wants

WHENEVER THIS day, Mother’s Day, approaches, I turn to my husband and ask: “What are you getting me for Mother’s Day?” Invariably, he replies: “Why should I get you anything? You’re not my mother!” To which I shoot back: “Yesss…but I’m the mother of your children!”

These days, since our children are now adults and earn their keep, he counters: “So ask your children to buy you something!”

I have my pride, though. A mother asking her children for gifts is more than pathetic, she’s downright pitiable. KSP (kulang sa pansin or wanting in recognition) to the max. I know of mothers who can get what they want from their offspring by working on their guilt, recalling sleepless nights or new shoes that went unbought to buy formula. Other mothers don’t say a word, but groan about arthritis, bursitis, and neglectful “child-itis.”

I wish I could summon the gumption of Nanay Dionisia, the Pac-mom herself, who can unabashedly request of her son, on national TV, an Hermes bag for her birthday. Then again, I wish I were Nanay Dionisia, or at least the mother of a world-renowned pugilist who could earn billions of pesos from just a single fight.

These covetous thoughts spring up though only after thumbing through newspaper supplements “celebrating” Mother’s Day, or rather, the commercial possibilities of the occasion. Every department store or retail chain offers up to-drool-for designer shoes and handbags, chic outfits, fun accessories. One hardware store even suggested plastic bins and repair kits for the “practical” Mom. But, like irons, frying pans and vacuum cleaners, they tend to underwhelm the recipient, especially a stressed-out Mom.

Ultimately, though, I end up ignoring the occasion. Unless my children make an effort, Mother’s Day passes like any other weekend. There are only so many Hermes bags you can collect, and as Oprah says, how many shoes do you need when you have only two feet? And I would rather have my children give me grandchildren in place of designer duds. Unlike consumer goods, grandchildren you can return to sender when they get too stinky or won’t stop crying.

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PEOPLE WHO extol mothers and motherhood sure have a funny way of paying homage to them.

Rita Nakashima-Brock, a feminist theologian writing in the Huffington Post, notes that “This weekend, we will focus one day on mothers. The rest of the year, we abuse and disrespect them. The greeting card sentiments bombarding us right now cover a deep contempt for mothers’ intelligence and moral capacities. One special day a year is woefully inadequate as compensation, especially since shallow sentiments have overrun the original meaning of Mother’s Day as a call for peace in the world.”

Beyond Mother’s Day, she points out, her country’s laws and health care policies “increasingly make it as difficult as possible for women to decide when and how they will become mothers. Using lies to pass laws, predominantly male legislators … harass women, violate our privacy and force us to listen to distortions and emotional badgering regardless of our circumstances or reasons for seeking abortions.”

Nakashima-Brock was writing about the United States amid the current fervid debate over funding for Planned Parenthood, but don’t her words apply, too, to the current discussion here over the RH bill?

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A STORY Nakashima-Brock tells of a friend’s daughter-in-law makes for harrowing reading.

The mother-to-be was in her second trimester of pregnancy when she discovered that the fetus was anencephalous, meaning, “it had no upper skull or brain and would never achieve human consciousness.”

Such babies, if they survive to delivery, “usually die within hours and look like bug-eyed monsters.” But though the mother chose to have an immediate abortion, “instead of caring for her as a grieving mother, (state law) required her to watch films about the fetus as a human and why it was better to carry a baby to term.” Comments Nakashima-Brock: “On top of being devastated at the loss, she felt treated like a criminal. Eventually, they gave her the abortion in some remote section of a hospital basement. She wanted to be a mother, so she tried again and gave birth to a healthy infant last month.”

As I’ve written previously in this space, sometimes a woman has very good, legitimate and moral reasons to opt for an abortion. In my reproductive years, I was sure about not having or wanting one. And if someone I cared about asked for my opinion or help, I would counsel against abortion and offer to adopt the child. But I still support a woman’s right to have options, including the option of abortion. Motherhood is a choice, and given its challenges, we shouldn’t be forcing women to be mothers when they don’t think they’ll be good at it—or good mothers to so many children.

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MAYBE that’s why Mother’s Day makes me more weary than celebratory. Because Nakashima-Brock is right: People who idealize mothers and motherhood (and many of them are men) often harbor “a deep contempt for mothers’ intelligence and moral capacities.”

If they truly respected women, including mothers, they would recognize women’s right to plan their lives, to nurse dreams and value themselves. They would respect the process of reflecting, agonizing and accepting that women go through before deciding on an abortion or carrying a pregnancy to term. They would acknowledge that not every woman was meant to be a mother, and that those who embrace motherhood or come to terms with it, deserve all the support and morale boosting the world can produce.

If we can give these to mothers, I’m sure Moms would gladly forego designer bags, flowers or greeting cards on Mother’s Day.