The Cost of Being Human

Mother's Day, grief and lilacs

Today is Mother’s Day and if everything goes according to plan, I will be having brunch with my kids and then taking them to a movie. Since becoming a mother, Mother’s Day has always been complicated. When I was married, I just wanted someone to do the dishes and clean the home — someone who wasn’t me. I’d try to get a brunch reservation, but my then-husband hated going out to eat and would lecture me on the cost, or sigh heavily if I ordered a Bloody Mary. So, more often than not, we’d stay home and I’d get middling meals cooked over a grill, maybe a nap if I was lucky, and somehow spend the following Monday morning, cleaning up the aftermath.

Now, as a single mom, it’s a lot easier and statistics back me up on this. Single mothers do less housework and have more leisure time because they simply are not married to a man. Becoming a single mother made me less resentful of the labor, and less frustrated by the mess, simply because the labor is easier and court-mandated at 50/50, and the mess isn’t there. I wrote about this for Glamour in 2020, about how I thought single motherhood would be more work and I was shocked to discover it was the equality I’d been looking for.

Before I had kids, I never believed women when they said they didn’t want anything for Mother’s Day, but now I know that’s true. I don’t want anything except to sit beside the two people I love the most in this hard, beautiful life. I want to ponder the curves of their cheeks, which every week are becoming less and less babyish. I want to hear them talk about their hopes and dreams and TikTok videos that they love. I want to listen to my son babble about Pokemon and my daughter rant about injustice. I want to jump with them on the trampoline and then, when they are in bed, I want to sit on the porch and just feel how full my heart is.