🌷 Happy Mother's Day to the stepmoms!
CAUSE BOY DO YOU DESERVE IT!! xoxo
I remember when I was a kid, I didn't understand why I had to buy my grandma a Mother's Day card.
"Well, Grandma is a mom too," my parents would explain.
She's not my mom though, I'd think to myself. Nothing against Grandma or anything. But shouldn't Grandma's actual kids be wishing her a happy Mother's Day, not me?
I like to think it's this kind of naive, face-palming illogic that leads to the lack of stepmother recognition on Mother's Day. I mean, our partners on some level can surely acknowledge that, yeah, okay, we do do a bunch of stuff that moms would do. Mother-like things, you might say. But we're not our stepkids' moms though, right? So why would we expect them to wish us a happy Mother's Day? 🤷🏻♀️ 🤦🏻♀️
Apparently, this is one more form of emotional labor stepmoms need to carry for our stepfamilies: educating our partners that we'd like to be appreciated once in a while for this role we've taken on — this role that's equal parts exhausting, mystifying, frustrating, and sometimes unexpectedly rewarding at the weirdest times.
Stepmoms are not dumb. We know we're not the moms. At the same time, the role we play in our stepkids' lives is vital, meaningful, and transformative. Some of us are the only moms our stepkids know. Most of us spend waaaay more time trying to blend these families than we ever expected. All of us love our partners enough to put up with an awful lotta baggage that we didn't know was going to be part of this whole deal.
As sucky as it is on a daily basis for our efforts to go unrecognized as stepmoms, there's really no day that hits home more than Mother's Day, and no day when it feels like more of a slap across the face to end up forgotten and overlooked.
So to all you stepmamas out there on Mother's Day:
It's okay to feel sad today
It's okay to feel pissed today
It's okay to grieve today
It's okay to eye-roll your way through this made-up, commercialized construct of a Fakey McFakerton holiday
It's okay to not give a shit either way that today is Mother's Day
And, last but not least: it's also okay to actually enjoy Mother's Day! Which I definitely hope you do. I also hope your partners send some love your way today, and I hope the vast majority of them are not chuckleheads who fail to appreciate your awesomeness.
Thanks for all you do for your partners and your stepkids, today and every day.
🧡🧡
— Maarit.