Category Archives: Holidays

Mothers' Day After Divorce

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I was divorced in June of last year after 8 years of marriage. I never saw it coming. Mothers’ Day in the US is 2 Sundays from now on May 12. It will be my first since our family was completely restructured and the ground ripped out from under me.

My mother-in-law was my best friend and confidante, and the best grandmother I could have ever desired for my children. She is loving, yet firm. She spoils the girls as only grandparents can, but has always respected my rules and boundaries. Sadly, my former in-laws have chosen to cut me out of their lives, despite my ex-husband’s very clear indication that he didn’t desire that and wanted the children’s well-being to come first. I won’t be sending my former mother-in-law a Mothers’ Day gift this year after 9 years of cards, flowers, and gifts. The running list I had of perfect gifts for her needs to be put away permanently. The reality that this surrogate mother is forever lost to me is really hitting home. Rejection hurts.

Things with my ex-husband were as polite as divorce can be. We didn’t involve lawyers, except to spend our tax refund to hire a single lawyer to draft a divorce decree incorporating the terms we agreed to on our own. I sent my ex a note a list of things that I’d taken care of for his family that he would now need to own on behalf of our daughters: thank you cards, Christmas and  birthday presents, summer visits and, yes, Mothers’ Day cards.

I’m pretty sure that Daddy’s going to forget about the girls’ Mothers’ Day cards for Auntie and Grammy, but I need to accept that it’s no longer my place to remind him. I can still teach my daughters about honouring those who love them. I can make sure that my ex’s new wife gets a card from our daughters. After all, this is her first Mothers’ Day as a stepmom. If picking up cards for her inspires the girls to ask to get cards from Grammy and Auntie, I won’t say no. It’s not my place to tell them to do so, though. This post-divorce co-parenting thing doesn’t come with demarcations of what duties are his and which ones mine… and that’s not even the hardest part.

Who do you honour on Mothers’ Day? Do your kids send cards to their grandmothers, aunts, and godmothers? Who in your family keeps track of card- and gift-giving occasions?

Sadia is mother of nearly 7-year-old identical twin daughters, M and J. After 8 years as an army wife, she made the surprisingly minor transition to single motherhood. In August 2013, she moved back to Central Texas from El Paso, where she had moved a year earlier on orders from Uncle Sam.

Mothers' Day

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Happy Mothers’ Day (belated) to all mothers, experienced, expecting, both, or otherwise.

Yesterday was Mothers’ Day here in the US, as is the second Sunday of May every year. Mothers, grandmothers, godmothers and mother figures are celebrated in all sorts of ways, from children’s handprints to breakfast in bed, cards to vacations. Like many holidays, this one is highly commercialized, but I have yet to meet the person who considers this celebration of motherhood to be a burden or chore.

My family doesn’t do a whole lot for Mothers’ Day. Our twin daughters, J and M, have their birthdays this second week of May. We’re usually still working our way through their birthday cake leftovers through Mothers’ Day until my birthday rolls around a few days later. As you might imagine, Mothers’ Day gets a little lost in the middle of three birthdays.

My mum lives in the United Kingdom, and British Mothering Day falls two weeks before Easter for her. We do make a point of doing something for my mother-in-law for American Mothers’ Day. This year, however, some fantastic medical news eclipsed Mothers’ Day altogether, and the flowers and pampering headed her way turned out to be more a celebration of her good news than of the annual holiday. I confess that in my giddiness over my mother-in-law’s news, I failed to call my grandmothers-in-law yesterday, which I usually would do. Oops.

Despite my general grinchiness toward Mothers’ Day, my girls always bring some token home from school in recognition of my role in their lives, thanks to their rather less grinchy teachers. J has forgotten to give me hers this year, but I found M’s to be deeply touching.

Dear mom, I hope you like this mother's day. I wish you a lovely mother's day... Love M

“Dear mom,” it read, “I hope you like this mother’s day. I wish you a lovely mother’s day. You are the best mom. I learn lessons from you. Anyways thanks for the cats. I love Sasha. Mom she’s adorabel [sic]! Mom I love you. I miss you so much at school. Love M.”

To clarify, we added two young cats to our family last week. M is usually quite nervous around new animals, but bonded instantly with Sasha, a 13-month-old bundle of purrs and adoration. Fortunately, J and 7-month-old Sookie also hit it off, J giggling helplessly as Sookie attempted to groom her (J’s) toes. I suppose the addition of two new felines for me to mother is a rather decent celebration of motherhood this year.

How are you celebrated on Mothers’ Day? Who do you take this annual opportunity to recognize?

Sadia is currently recovering from her daughters’ sixth birthday party in El Paso, TX. She failed to write this post on Mothers’ Day because she appears to have forgotten to do much eating in the preparation, execution and cleanup phases of the party. Instead, she fell into bed shortly after tucking her daughters in at 8:00 pm, managing only to feed to cats and brush her teeth prior to crashing.

MLK Day Is More Than a Day Off

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Growing up in the UK and Bangladesh, I was raised on Mahatma Gandhi’s life story and words as the embodiment of a worldwide move towards civil rights and mutual respect between people and between peoples. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied those same values, and today’s US-wide commemoration of his achievements is a reminder to discuss his legacy with our daughters, now aged 5.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t taking full advantage on an extra day off work and school. We let J and M stay up an hour past bedtime last night to watch The Empire Strikes Back for the first time. Do you remember the first time you heard the line, “Luke, I am your father.”? It was quite something to see the looks on our girls’ faces! We’re showing the Star Wars films to the girls in the order in which they were released. We’re old-school nerds like that.

Before I read Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, I hadn’t given much thought to talking to the girls about diversity. I figured that our multicultural, interracial, international, interfaith marriage would speak for itself. Bronson and Merryman’s chapter on talking about race influenced me deeply, however, and I committed to discussing these issues with our daughters.

M was the one to bring up MLK at dinner last night. “We watched a movie about King Martin Junior at school,” she told us.

Dr. King

We clarified Dr. King’s name, and talked about his accomplishments. We boiled it down to something pretty simple: Dr. King helped people understand that everyone could be friends, regardless of the colour of their skin. “Oh!” observed M, “Like we’re a family, but you have dark brown skin and me and Sissy and Daddy is peach?” She has previously described her very fair-skinned White grandmother as “pink.”

Sadia and family

That seemed like a decent enough introduction to the lessons of MLK Day, so we left it that for dinner time. Later, however, J brought up MLK, and I had a burst of inspiration.

Me: You’ve always had a sister, right! And that’s pretty special. Does that mean you can’t have friends who don’t have sisters?
J: No. [Classmate] has no sister, and he is my friend. I don’t know very much about having no sister and brother except you have to play by yourself and that is sad.
Me: You and [Classmate] are different when it comes to having brothers or sisters, but you can learn from each other.
J: I love [Former neighbour] and she has no brother or sister.
Me: I love her too. It would be pretty sad if you only had friends who were exactly like you.
J: I would miss [Former neighbour].
Me: What Martin Luther King, Jr. and his friends taught us was to be friends with people who are different in all kinds of ways.

I could use that reminder myself. It’s time for me to stop complaining about how rude and insular people are in our new town, and make a real effort at understanding the culture here. It’s time for me to embrace differences. As is so often the case, teaching my children reminds me to a better person.

In what ways has raising your children reminded you of your values? Are you a better person for being a parent?

Sadia is working US army wife and mother of 5-year-old twin girls. She and her family recently moved to El Paso, Texas.