Happy Mother's Daze

I offer today's post in sympathy to Jeremy's long-suffering mom. I'd dedicate this to the memory of my own mother, except that she hated Mother's Day and adamantly refused to allow us to ever celebrate it. One is, she insisted, supposed to be nice to their mother every day. She was a proto-feminist, before it became about burning bras and creating unisex terms like fireperson and peoplehole cover. Still, she actively and energetically juggled her roles as mom, wife, and career person, never allowing any one to take precedence. She also hugely resented the way the so-called holiday had become commercialized, and that was half a century ago. I can only imagine with a shudder what she'd have to say today. We've come a long and depressing way from the 18th century, when Harriet Beecher Stowe conceived of the idea as a move for peace, a way for mothers to rise up together in protest against the Civil War. "Our sons," she proclaimed, "shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience." You can bet she never expected to be presented with a bunch of roses and served eggs benedict in bed one Sunday a year.