I’ve just voted in a nationwide contest for the 2018 Mother of the Year award, but the woman I voted for almost certainly won’t win. I didn’t vote for myself, nor did I vote for my own mum. The woman I voted for is indeed an exceptional mum, but not in the way that wins these nonsensical awards. Let me explain.
Holding a contest where women vie to be awarded the best mother in the country is ridiculous. It’s hard enough being a woman in this world today where our every move seems to be measured, compared, and commented upon and/or in competition with other women. Women are measured on their ability to do things, to achieve feats, to ‘make a difference’ on a grand scale. The last thing we need is to bring the role of motherhood into the mix, and yet we have now added mothering to this equation.
To be considered the best mother – as evidenced in the many reasons for nominating for Mother of the Year – a mother needs to give selflessly of herself, put others ahead of her, and needs to sacrifice her blood, sweat and tears for the sake of caring for others.
We define the role of a mother as one of sacrifice and so it follows that the women who choose not to do so, sure, they can be good mothers, but never the best, in the eyes of this Mother of the Year competition and also society. We could also now ponder on how such a way of mothering is in the eyes of her children…
We have given a very natural way of being – deep care – a whole new definition and ask women, who happen to be mothers, to bastardise deep care into meaning the woman must trade off her own wellbeing for that of another.
It is also interesting to notice that nowhere in the application form for Mother of the Year does it refer to the mother as being a woman. To me, this is a travesty, for if a woman has lost the understanding that she is a woman first and foremost, before she became a mother, then she is likely to tie her self-worth up in how she mothers.
The following phrases in italics are examples of reasons mums were nominated in last year’s Mother of the Year competition.
- “… a mum who can’t help giving even when she herself is in need of a little extra TLC”
- “… a tireless mother who never complains about sleepless nights”
- “… often being exhausted but still having a positive nature”
- “… the mother who never leaves her sick child’s side, ‘no matter what’”
- “… pursue her dreams only after her children have pursued theirs”
- “… a great mother because she makes sacrifices to look after a tribe of other children as well as her own”
- “… championed for getting knocked down, then getting right back up again – first checking that everyone else is okay”
- “… thanking mum for always putting everyone’s needs first and never once putting herself first”
- “… ‘Mum has always done everything for her children’”
- “… ‘Mum has not eaten so she can keep food on the plates for us kids’”
- “… ‘I have never seen my Mum break down or cry’”
- “… ‘My mum has never asked for help.’”
I think it’s time we questioned if we are celebrating the wrong behaviours.
What we actually want is for our daughters and granddaughters to know who they are as women first and to be able to ask for support when they become mums.
Perhaps too, we need to change the language around ‘being a mum.’ For is a ‘Mum’ something you turn into when children are in your lives or is it a word that in truth describes a ROLE of behaviour? If we were to understand this concept, we could never BE a mum, only DO mothering. We would remain the Woman first because that will never change.
The woman I voted for hasn’t saved a child’s life from a rare incurable disease, fostered 17 children and completed a masters in astrophysics in record time, or battled through her own cancer and double mastectomy while never missing making a school lunch or getting her child to their French lesson on time.
She hasn’t against all odds given birth while in a wheelchair, invited 10 homeless children into her house while she sleeps on the couch or isn’t pregnant again for the 9th time – despite having always suffering severe pregnancy-related nausea, depression and premature deliveries.
We can all be awesome mums; we just need some guidance as to another way to do this.
I’m being a bit ridiculous here, but you get my point. I write to expose the lies about what we think (the best) mother is and should be. The above examples are (only slightly) exaggerated reasons why someone has been celebrated as a better mother than another. We champion the achievements of what mothers do, like we celebrate the adventurer who makes it to the top of Mt Everest, without ever knowing or even caring about the impact that the desire to make it to the top has had on themselves, their wellbeing, and within their relationships.
Women’s health is suffering on a global scale and I continue to wonder if it isn’t our expectations, beliefs and ideals of what a woman and mother should be doing that isn’t a very major if not the root cause of such illness and disease.
The woman I voted for truly cares for herself, and not at the expense of her family. Caring for oneself is not selfish. She is sensitive, compassionate, a hard worker, a woman who listens and constantly reads her children, always looking to understand why they make the choices they make. She knows profoundly how vital the relationship she has with herself is, in fact THE critical foundation to the relationship she then has with her children.
It is because of these gorgeous qualities that I voted for my friend. People need to see mothers celebrated because of the Woman they are, behind the doing-ness that motherhood has become. We all need to value how the connection we have with ourselves naturally leads to beautiful and true mothering.
And we need contests like these to be disbanded.
As mothers strive to outdo one another in the school playgrounds, so too do these Mother of the Year contests support competitiveness and false ideals and beliefs of how to be a mother and what is expected of women who choose to be a mother.
Mothers will always be busy – that comes with the territory – but how we do ‘the busy’ is the difference. Our society does not need yet another cause asking women to do more and give more, no matter how subtle, without once asking them to stop and feel how loving they are with themselves first.
Mothers might well be the glue that holds a family together. They might well be always there for the children; they may be generous, kind, openhearted, giving, compassionate, devoted, selfless, great knitters and cooks, foster carers or countless other amazing qualities. But a woman should not be Mother of the Year if any of these qualities come at the expense of who she is, how she takes care of herself and how she loves herself. Without the relationship a woman has with herself, her mothering will be functional but empty and our society deserves better than just function.
Let’s mother like in the inflight safety demonstration: “Put YOUR oxygen mask on first before assisting others.”
By, Suzanne Anderssen, 43, B Com, Dip Av Air Traffic Control, mother, daughter, wife, friend and writer, Brisbane, Australia
Further Reading:
What is a Relationship with Myself?
Mother’s Day: special treat or sneaky trick?
Best Mother’s Day gift ever!
420 Comments
We put so much pressure on ourselves already being a women, then when it comes to going into motherhood we raise the bar even higher. But what we need to understand is that with these expectations we keep ourselves busy and numb to what we innately know and bring. Motherhood is very simple, it is not about what we do for others but the love and care we hold ourselves in and thus naturally everyone else equally. It is love and care that lets us strive not the good advice.
These competitions foster guilt – I’m not a good enough mother, kills the true support we can offer one another and ones self-esteem and natural authority – I’m meant to do this on my own though I’m not coping and I’m having to go into drive to do things which is exhausting; I feel ashamed for not being super woman, I am a failure!
The relationship a woman has with herself is what she brings to each relationship. If it’s empty, doing motherhood on function, can create many hurts and issues for those she is caring for. If she is fully present and honouring of herself, what a wonderful role model to learn how to be in this world, able to respond to life’s demands lovingly.
The qualities mentioned above for mothers do not allow me to feel anything about a woman with flesh and blood. It talks about some robot or non-sensing non-human that has no feelings about herself and do not see or meet herself. As a child or family, it would be devastating to feel a mother non-existent in feeling for herself, it would really concern me how she is truly caring for me.
Yes the word is devastating and it is greatly concerning. Though things are done there is a great emptiness as to purpose and already a selling out to ideas of what is good without any reference to what will truly support.
So something as simple as going to Girl Guides is done because it’s thought that that’s where the child will learn to socialize and make friends. This maybe so but if there isn’t a mother there to support and guide, the child is left negotiating interactions and all the difficulties that can go on outside the home without recourse to any true support.
Mmmm interesting Mother first before being a woman! ‘It is also interesting to notice that nowhere in the application form for Mother of the Year does it refer to the mother as being a woman.’ is says it all really in how we have got it so wrong, making first about the roles we play rather than who we innately are.
Very true Vicky. The word ‘mother’ becomes a label that can dismiss the fact that the mother is a woman first. No wonder women lose their sense of themselves when they become mothers.
The normal expectations of Mums is to put themselves last. This is even heralded as a “true selfless act”… and yet it dismisses the woman in who she is, and does not give her the foundation of self-care she needs in order to care for others.
Even before I am a woman I am getting to know an essence inside that is genderless; recognisable and equal in everyone I meet… this is opening up a whole new way of relating to the world, free of so much of the conflict and competition that I use to entertain.
What is the purpose of such competitions? Do women come away feeling more inspired about expressing their inner gorgeousness? Do they have a deeper appreciation of themselves and one another? Are they more aware and embracing of the glory and responsibility of living the sacredness that is their essence? If anything I would say these competitions put a dampener on all of this and ingrain the false belief that people’s worth is summed up in what they do and the acknowledgement they get.
To identify women with being the best mother, or being a mother alone is so devastating not only to the woman but to society as a whole. Women are so much more than the role of mother they may have in their life. But unfortunately that is not what is being celebrated with Mother day or the Mother of the Year award, there it is about the identification that makes us collectively to forget the true quality of deep care and of sacredness that women naturally hold and can share in whole their beingness.
The things we value in women in society is upside down. Her stillness, and ability to hold and nurture whilst giving people space is phenomenal. Yet no little girl grows up knowing this. Instead their heads are filled with ideals of having prince charming, the picket fence and a few kids and all the things that women have to do or be to achieve that.
‘We can all be awesome mums; we just need some guidance as to another way to do this.’ – Indeed, we need true role models who are reflecting true qualities such as the importance of deeply caring and honouring of ourselves.
Let’s not do this. Let’s not compare ourselves or compete with each other. Let us instead get together and share our inspiring stories, learn from one another and support one another to be and express the fullness of the glory that we each truly are.
The truth about any ‘of the year competitions’ is that there is no celebration of anyone except the ‘winner’. In this way we glorify one, over everyone… we diminish everyone who didn’t win, so one gets to feel great and the many, many, many, many, more get to feel like failures. We have set life up on this premise…. no equality, no equal-ness and no appreciation of the all.
If we took into account the whole picture of competitions, rather than just celebrating the winner we got to see the masses of those who didn’t make it. How the winner/s and those who didn’t win then go on to live and the longer term ill effects it brings that tiny moment of victory (or not) into a greater perspective to question “Why?”
They say we’re not very religious these days – but I disagree – and I’d say we worship a grand diety called ‘function’. If you can get the fix to solve everything then my friend you are ‘the man’. Just take pain away so I can get on with my day – this is what we pray. Yet function doesn’t truly function at all.
Yes Joseph , we are never not religious, the only question is to what deity we are connected to, are we connected to the deity of function or any other man made championed value, or are we connected to the universe, to God, our true origin that brings true quality and value to life.
Something that mothers are not particularly good at is appreciating themselves, appreciating the qualities we bring rather than focusing on what we have not done right. Guilt serves nobody, accepting, learning and moving on supports everybody in the family to grow.
How can we take care of other people when it comes from an attitude of permanent self-sacrifice? For a short time it may make sense but if there is no immediate need?
The true mother of the year being the women who embodies and lives for herself all the qualities spoken about here. There is no whiff of self-disregard, sacrifice or martyrdom in true mothering since we know that it is by reflection that we offer so much.
The competition is one thing, but the determinants of the winner is a whole different ball game of promoting unhealthy living.
It empowers me greatly to see clearly what is going on, the game that is being played and even championed to keep us women from who we truly are. I was born and am a woman first and foremost and this has to be honoured but I must remember if I do not choose to move in a way that confirms me I have invested in the picture of making myself less than who I truly am.
Getting caught up in the ideals and beliefs that a mother has to ‘sacrifice’ herself for the sake of her children and at the expense of her own health and well-being is not allowing our children to take any responsibility for themselves or showing them how to take loving care of themselves.
Yes, both parents and children get caught up. I remember reacting when my mother became less sacrificial when I was about 6.
It does seem a bit ludicrous to turn mothering into a competition when it is in fact an innate quality within every woman, regardless of whether she has born children or not. It just seems like another way to make one person feel amazing and hundreds of others to feel like losers, the very antithesis of mothering energy.
Yes, ludicrous also because being a mother is not WHO WE ARE, mothering is simply an innate quality that all women can access in their lives.
That we would consider that there is merit in never having seen our mothers break down and cry….what sort of unrealistic expectations are we placing on our selves and our mothers. It is not a weakness to express our vulnerability.
It is permission to express our feelings when our tears are without agenda just simply expressed.
So true Victoria, where have we gone so wrong as to not appreciate the power and delicateness that we all are, why is crying a bad thing? And how will that make the kids feel if they were to cry?
Why on earth do we have to make a competition out of everything, where there are winners there are also so called losers. Sometimes I wonder how some mothers do all that they do without dropping dead with exhaustion when they take little or no care of themselves, but I suppose it all catches up at some point in time.
I hated receiving prizes when I was young. Whenever I was celebrated for some ‘achievement’ it seemed to be yet another nail in the coffin in relation to my free expression. With any prize there came a label which I was expected to live to. There might have been a jubilation and a relief because the competition and scrutiny was over, but in reality a prize felt like a curse.
Even receiving a prize for the winner if we truly feel into it is not that great. Let alone the devastation of all those thinking they are less worthy because they did not win anything. The whole thing is damaging in more ways than we are willing to acknowledge.
In competition there is always a winner so therefore a so called ‘loser’ both labels that have nothing to do with the truth of who we are. Our value, recognition and acceptance is on very shaky ground if it is determined by what we achieve rather than who we are.
As women we each bring our own unique expressions, so I imagine the same would be true in the role of being a mother. It seems counter-intuitive to compare these different expressions when in essence our qualities are the same.
What a great point Jenny.
There is too much focus throughout society about laying down ideals and beliefs about how things ought to look. Instead we could be truly supporting each to connect with, understand and live our true unique expression of the oneness that we All are.
Calling someone ‘The World’s Best Mum’ is disrespecting all the other Mums in the world! There is no ‘best’, there are many amazing people, some of whom are Mums. We all have our unique expression and we all need to value ourselves and be valued for what we bring.
I am discovering these are just the beliefs that are obvious there are so many that are really subtle and sneaky like wanting the best for your child, that doesn’t seem an unreasonable desire but the fact it is not about the present moment, about realising they will grow through challenges etc puts all this pressure to give them an easy good life yet that has nothing to do with evolution.
And, albeit in a slightly different flavour, it is absolutely the same with Father’s Day. Being a Dad is one of the suits of armour that men wear – a suit or armour that crushes and hides the deeply and divinely sensitive man that resides within – again pure evil – because it is that sensitivity and tenderness that he most needs to tap into to find his true and magnificent expression and it is this sensitivity and tenderness that his children so desperately need to see, feel, hear and be amongst so that they too can be allowed to co-express the equal within themselves.
This is so brilliant to be exposing this..and so shocking to read the list that you wrote. This is nothing shorty of pure evil that is being peddled here – an evil that is ridding humanity of that claimed sacredness and deeply powerful divinity that only a woman can bring and that we so desperately, desperately need. This is so vile and so abusive and so insidious and so pervasive. Thank you for exposing the truth behind those seemingly innocuous pink cards and bunches of flowers.
As fathers day approaches in the UK, it is a great opportunity to reflect on how much these days can be laced with all our expectations about parenthood – where mothers day cards focus on the ‘pink, soft, loving and nurturing’ aspects of motherhood, fathers day cards are blue and focus on the more caring, protecting, providing aspects of being a father – the role model. But in my experience a father is all those things and so much more, they are equally soft and tender and loving and these qualities should be just as celebrated.
If the mother of the year awards tells me I am not a Living, breathing and feeling delicate human being, then what’s the value of winning a prize to be door mat?
‘Women are measured on their ability to do things, to achieve feats, to ‘make a difference’ on a grand scale. The last thing we need is to bring the role of motherhood into the mix, and yet we have now added mothering to this equation.’ – We are as women trapped in the hamster wheel of always needing to be better, yet the wheel will never stop turning as it is an impossible task we have set ourselves out to do.
How exhausting it is if we fall into the trap of trying to live up to societies ideas of a ‘good mum’….just reading that list of so called accolades, I am thinking what are we condoning here as women? What role models are we meeting for future generations? Time to reflect on the world we want to see flourishing for our sons and daughters and break free of these outdated and self harming behaviours of the ‘good mum’.
The pressures we put on ourselves as mothers to live up to ideals is so destructive as I understand now that living to ANY image is living in disconnection – pretty crazy when we think about it as all our children want is connection!!!
A strong level of self care is a much needed base to parent from, without this we are parenting from a place of exhaustion focusing on the doing.
Working with mothers I can often feel the tension of wanting to be the best and how this can make the ideals and beliefs more entrenched behaviours. When we give ourselves permission to be real and raw we offer an opportunity to break down the trenches that have been built over time.
What would ever have us take on a Mt Everest type adventure in our life and why would we be so isolated from others, along with the disregard, stress and strain that these type of miss-adventures place on our bodies?
Could it be we have become so disconnected to the truly tender, fragile, delicate and sensitive beings we are because we had to harden, tuff-en up and dis-connect from the true love that resides in our divine essence, inner-most and or esoteric all one in the same?
If true how do we start to return?
For most if not all the return starts with at-least being gentle as in the Gentle Breath Meditation for most if not all of us are too far away from love to simply jump in at that level.
For more on the Gentle Breath Meditation go to;
FREE GENTLE BREATH MEDITATION
http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=Free+Gentle+Breath+Meditation
The true values in our lives of being who we are is worth celebrating and not the doing and pushing ourselves so common in our upbringing and lives today. Deeply caring and honouring for ourselves and how we live first is the reflection and love we offer others and this is true parenting for ourselves first and our children and others everywhere. Competitions like this do not support the reality of the hugeness and love we truly are and are missing our connection and responsibility.
I love what you are offering here Suzanne, and yes lets put our oxygen masks on first and support each other in doing so by not judging but confirming instead how very important and self-honouring it is .
Exactly – can we put our own masks on first without being judged for it? Can we even let go of judging ourselves?
A valued and nurtured foundation of self-care, before any of the ‘doing’, is a great standard to afford ourselves the grace to live by.
Brilliant exposure Suzanne of the ideal and beliefs of what a mother ‘should’ be or is expected to be and the real value and gain for all, through what is offered when a woman mothers from her connection to who she knows she is first, without compromise. When a woman mothers from her connection to her essence, all that is shared in an inspiration, reminding, reflecting, fostering and holding true that this is the quality of connection we can all live with, nurture and honour for ourselves, regardless of whatever needs to be done.
Exhaustion is often worn as a badge of honour in mothering circles, and so often we hear “I do not have time for me” I am a busy woman and mother and if I did not make space for supporting me I would also be exhausted, but I am not. And when we make space it is not about hours at the spa, although that can be lovely, it is about how we are with ourselves, gentle, supportive, caring or disregarding, these moments of love make a difference to our day which offers us space to regenerate. We all wash our face and clean our teeth, we all need to sleep, let’s make it a nurturing moment that supports not undermines.
Beautiful practical examples of how quality can support us and I agree exhaustion is worn as a badge of honour.
Beautiful simplicity brought to a gigantic malaise in society. Thank you Samantha for mothering all of humanity.