Mother's Day

I live in a world surrounded by mothers. I look out my back seventy and I see mother cows, mother cats, and I am sure I have seen the odd mother gopher. (Okay, they’re not that odd.) I generally don’t bother to check the antelope, mice, and coyotes that invade my land as to whether they are the mommas or the poppas, but I am sure there is a nice mix among them.

And then there is my household: There is one mom here, the proud mom of nine children and one big grown child (that would be me). As you read this there are two more mommas present: mine and my wife’s (in for our son’s graduation). In fact, it would help if I said something nice about them because they’ll still be here as this edition comes out.

Moms make us all do strange, even stupid, things. For example, they will turn a 300-pound lineman into a blathering twit, after an interview, when he greets his mom - not his dad, not his wife or girlfriend - on national television.

And it’s the mom that kids go to for comfort, usually because they know she’ll not spank, scream, or snarl at them, something dads are prone to do. Methinks they see her as an easy mark. However, once the storm of discipline has blown over, the kids trundle on, leaving her in their dust until the next blow-up.

The strange thing is that she puts up with that. If it were me, I would probably spank, scream, or snarl at them.

The circles I run in honour motherhood. They see children as a blessing, not a bane; they view the traditional roles of motherhood as significant, meaningful, and productive. It is not uncommon for our family to entertain other families, with more than twenty people for supper. And I would quickly add that there is less chaos and disrespect at our diningroom table than I would find in an equally-sized classroom.

People take great liberties to ask my wife and me about our family size, and the personal part that goes along with it. Strange, brazen behaviour, I say. I don’t pry into their private affairs, so why should they pry into mine? We didn’t sit down on our wedding night and plan to have nine kids. But it wasn’t long after that we saw the value in having a large family. Demanding? Yes. Draining? Yes. Rewarding? Yes.

But this is a column about mothers, not about large families. I will write on another day of the desperate need for large families in Canada.

As I write, motherhood is fashionable in Hollywood. If you stand in line long enough at any supermarket, the magazine racks will dutifully inform you of how many pregnant actresses are, well, out there. (As if any sane person should take their cue on life from Hollywood.) But for the most part, motherhood is not fashionable anywhere. Limited motherhood is not only the norm, it is the preferred.

So kudos to you moms and moms-to-be. To say we wouldn’t be here without you would be trivializing the obvious. Suffice to say, there is no culture that survives without honouring its women in general, and mothers in particular.