So complicated.

My friend reported her plans.  “I put my foot down this year.  I’m not going to his mother’s for what is supposed to be my day.  We’re going to my mother’s, but I’ll be eating a cold dinner, because my brother and sister won’t wait to eat until I can get there from church.”

My husband began anxious negotiations across the breakfast table.  “How about a plant?  They can walk to the corner and get a plant.  And make a card?” And, in the next breath, “What are we doing for my mother?”

I am a member of the sandwich generation.  Women  in the sandwich generation spend all of their time caring for aging parents with one hand and busy, growing children with the other hand.  They use their third hand to manage all of their other responsibilities -- the house, the job, the bills, the husband, etc.  The glue that holds this all together is . . .

Guilt.

Mother’s Day is the day we set aside to celebrate guilt. 

We shuttle the kids to both grandmas, make phone calls, apologize for broken flower stems and smudged cards.  The National Retail Federation (www.nrf.com)  predicts that Americans will spend $14.10 billion for this Mother’s Day -- an average of $123.89 per person.  I’m afraid that my mother and mother-in-law won’t fare quite so well, but even if we could spend that much, it still wouldn’t feel like enough.

Why?   Maybe because we’re trying to express emotions with stuff.  I love -- past words -- my mother and my mother-in-law.  They are both interesting, opinionated, strong-willed women, each generous and loving in her own way.   They deserve $123.89 worth of stuff -- and more.  But no matter how much stuff we give them, it isn’t sufficient to acknowledge the true cost of their years of mothering.

I’m thirteen years into the whole mothering thing myself, and I get it now.  It’s not the labor, the long nights of walking the teething baby, the vomit in the couch cushions and twice nightly reading of the same mind-numbing picture book.   (“’Barney went to the zoo?  And what did Barney see?’  Okay.  You know what?  We know what Barney saw.   The same thing he saw last night, okay?  How can you still be surprised by this?!”)  That’s all wearing, yes, but that’s not what causes those little lines to form on a mother’s face.

It’s the guilt.  The knowing that you’ve failed this child, over and over again.  You failed to put the show-and-tell toy in the book bag.  You failed to guess that her tantrum was really the result of the onset of a miserable ear infection.  You failed to remember to put the Tooth Fairy money under the pillow.  You failed to see that the dandelion fluff wafting through your kitchen (into the soup pot on the stove) was a gift --  “A surprise for you, Mom!  You get to make lots and lots of wishes!”  You let the child fail.  You failed to let the child fail. 

There is no protocol for mothering, no assessment sheet to let you know when you get it right.  Your only shot for success is to pour everything you have -- your creativity, energy, skills, your very sleep-deprived soul  -- into this person, and pray that your human floundering will be enough.

If you pull it off, you’ll know . . . because your child will leave you.

So, I get what my two beloved mothers paid for my and my husband’s adulthood.  I would withhold nothing from them.  If I had $123.89 to spend on each of them, I certainly would.  The problem is, I would still hand over the gift (what exactly do you get for $123.89?) with that feeling that it’s not enough; it’s not right.  Guilt.

This Mother’s Day, as I admire my crayon drawn cards and new plant from my eager children -- one slice of bread -- and deliver flowers and cards to our mothers -- the other slice of bread -- this slice of bologna will be making her secret wish.

I wish that someone would hand me a card, promising that all physical, mental and emotional needs of both slices of bread would be completely met, without my help, for at least three hours.  Then, knowing that my entire sandwich was just fine for a while, I could take my Get-Out-of-Guilt-Free card and go give my little bologna self an afternoon off.

-- Naomi Dathan

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