Mother's Day... Father's Day... Grandparents' Day...

Ok, this is partly inspired by the fact that Mother's Day is emotionally difficult for me... but it also got me thinking.

Why does our society feel the need to dedicate a day to showing love and respect for someone who should already be seeing/getting our love and respect on a daily basis? Why do we need to set aside a day to "show Mom how much she means to you" (or Dad, or Grandma/Grandpa...)?

Ok, maybe I'm odd. I grew up doing things for Mom & Dad... buying little gifts of the "Happy Thursday" sort... silly little gifts/cards/treats for no other reason than I love and respect them. This is, in my mind, only as it should be.

So, with that in mind, another day that the marketing people can latch on to and over-advertise and pump up into an event as big as Christmas seems... well... silly. Not to mention downright insensitive to all the women out there separated from their children by distance (physical or emotional) or death. Or the women battling infertility or the sometimes seemingly endless hoop-jumping and breath-holding of the adoption system?

I freely admit, my thoughts on the subject are strongly coloured by both my struggles with infertility and my miscarriages. Mothers Day, for me, sucks ass on a monumental scale. I spent the weekend painting my nails black, hiding inside, afraid to turn on the TV or go anywhere that sells anything for fear of being reminded, yet again, that I'm not recognized by society as a Mother because I have not managed to birth and raise a child. 'Cuz that's a boot I don't need to be kicked with any more, thank you very much.

I imagine Father's Day would be addressed in much the same way in our household, were it not for the fact that both my brother and my father-in-law have birthdays around that time, so poor D isn't allowed the luxury of hiding from the larger-than-life, completely unnecessary reminders of what we have lost and have not achieved.

So, if you buy into the Hallmark Holiday tradition of setting aside a specific day to show love and respect to the people you should always show love and respect to anyway, take the time to show a little sensitivity to the folks for whom it might be a rough day. The parents with kids in prison... the kids with parents in prison... the parents and kids of service men and women on deployment... the parents of the dead... the kids who've lost the parent in question... the people struggling with infertility or pregnancy- or infant-loss, the parents who gave a child (or children) for adoption... show them all a little love and respect, too.