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!
470 Comments
Competing is pure evil as it sets us against each other and invalidates the unique qualities we hold. The societal benchmark of being ‘a good mother’ is something that none of us should be seeking to achieve, let alone compete with other women for. It perpetuates the idea that women need to be self-sacrificing and that ‘doing’ for others is our greatest virtue, when really our greatest virtue is the beholding love and stillness that is naturally within us.
A great article Suzanne showing to us what is behind the mother of the year contest, so amazing how we champion self abuse as the way a good mother is portrayed, I lived like that always giving myself away for the supposed good of others, making myself as not important, so far from what it truly is to mother, which is innate in every woman but must start with the woman seeing and claiming herself as a woman, that is worthy of looking after herself first, before truly mothering another.
We need to accept that our awesomeness comes not from our deeds but from the qualitiy of divinity we naturally reflect. The more we understand this and let it out, the less stressed we will be with life’s events.
‘We all need to value how the connection we have with ourselves naturally leads to beautiful and true mothering.’ We have lost the art of connection and the naturalness, ease, simplicity and wisdom that comes from this. Without it we end up pushing, driving, achieving, straining and generally exhausting ourselves out.
Is it that society’s measure of motherhood is a reflection of how we have measured and limited ourselves in conforming to an ideal that does not allow the space to listen to our body or our innate nurturing ways and how we love ourselves to naturally be deeply felt and expressed?
“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.”
If this is the case then we are perpetuating a false role model of what it is to be a woman. And so is it any wonder that as women our health has suffered because we are trying to live up to other people’s values of what it is to be a mother.
The list of reasons for the nomination of ‘mums’ is a list of self-abuse.
Rather than mother of the year perhaps we could have the year of the mother and spend 12 months really examining whether the current model of mothering is actually working?
We demand a lot of our mothers and often mothers seek attention and recognition through these demands. You can get to the end of your life as a woman and still not know who you are because you have spent so much energy on those around you and neglected yourself. There is a difference between being selfish and living with self love. We as women can and need to embrace ourselves, live our potential and inspire others from this point.
Every woman is amazing, truly. And it is the amazing connection she has with herself that truly allows her to live this amazingness. This inner preciousness the connection with ourselves would never allow us to be treated or to treat ourselves like a doormat.
Adele fully agreed, its got nothing to do with a ‘suffering for another’ that these competitions tend to highlight.
There was a time when I would have completely fallen for and been taken by being the currently accepted version of ‘Mother of the Year’ – in fact I put a lot of effort into being recognised as a candidate for this accolade. All the while I was quietly dying inside, lost to a set of ideals that were always out of reach. Some years on, supported beyond appreciation by the work of Universal Medicine I am free of many of the barbs of this game and, getting to know myself better, accept and enjoy my strengths alongside others, realising that we are all learning together.
The fact that these competitions exist shows there are many mums who are prepared to be put forward to make themselves appear ‘better’. What if we all knew inside us that we are equally good with each other, and there are may be people who need a boost such as this to improve how they feel about themselves, but then only one person wins. The set-up is huge.
True mothering comes from our quality of being and the love and relationship we hold with ourself first and is a beholding energy we can all have. These competitions just serve to separate ourselves even more on a competitive level first built on the falsities of the role in the begining.
It ought to be the quality of the busy that is associated with being a mother that is championed and not the amount that is done or achieved because at the end of the day the greatest support for anyone including our children is not necessarily just what we do but how we go about doing it.
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 just had Father’s day here in the UK, and it reminded me of this blog, on the one hand its great to celebrate fathers and fathering energy but on the other surely that’s something we can do everyday and should not need a prompt about for one day a year?
‘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 phrases in italics show how we are noticed when as women , we take our role so seriously caring for others before ourselves, and this is deemed to be a good thing to be so selfless. But what about loving ourselves? We cannot love and care for another until we love ourselves to the bone first, what we bring otherwise is duty, and disregard.
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.
“World’s best mum’ is a world class lie.
It’s a huge game we have agreed to play and it hooks us into being what we are not and bury’s the truth that we are far grander that any game we could play. We are divine beings and divine equally, none better than another. As such we have work to do, not to sit and rest on our laurels but to show all the truth about parenting and love. We are here to be love, not get accolades for being better than another.
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.