Happy Mother’s Day everyone! 💜

It’s my 3rd year getting to be a part of this amazing club, and every year gets better and better. The greatest honor of my life is being Oakley’s mom. Holy moly does your world change when you become a mom. And even more so, your view of your mom or mother figures in your life changes as well. Moms are actual queens. They’re superheroes with invisible capes and the one person that will think about you every single day for the rest of their lives (don’t worry dads I know you’re probably doing that too). They’re your safe place and the one that makes everything better. Moms are just the best.

I’ve been thinking a lot the last few weeks how I would want to celebrate today. My husband says whatever I want to do is what I can do: spend a day with the family, do something with just our daughter, do something alone or with a friend, or just live a normal day where he does the heavy lifting so I can relax. I know, that’s a lot of options. I chose to have some family time with a combo of him doing majority of the “parent-y” stuff today. It was a nice slow morning, we went out for lunch, I got a few presents and then we’ll have a relaxing evening as a family. This is exactly what I wanted, and it means a lot to me that that was also important to my husband. Since my daughter just turned 3, her comprehension of Mother’s Day is still just screaming “HapPY MuveRs Day MaMA” several times throughout the day (lol) so the effort my husband puts in makes the day a little extra special.

Something my husband and I have been talking about a lot this week is “which moms should be celebrated on Mother’s Day.” Now, we didn’t pose this question (we celebrate all moms), but the internet did. We’ve seen a lot of Reels and TikTok’s talking about how Mother’s Day should be more for “moms in the trenches” or the ones who are “in the thick of it,” as opposed to seasoned moms, I think? It’s such an interesting topic because while we both think all moms deserve celebrating (esp. because we have great mother figures in our lives), it’s so millennial of our generation to bring up a topic like this- but I appreciate the conversation it’s created.

In my opinion, there’s a point here that I think some are trying to make, but the message of “we should only celebrate moms with younger-ish children” is what’s being shouted across the internet. I can only speak from my perspective and share what the conversations in my house have looked like, so I’d love to hear different thoughts and perspectives either in the comments or DM me on Instagram.

I think there is a part of newer-ish parents (like me and my husband), who are trying to establish our own family traditions, celebrate one another and in this specific instance, have a day to celebrate the immediate Mom in our family- me. AND we also want to celebrate our amazing moms, and the moms in our lives (like my sister and sister-in-law), but (I really didn’t want to use “but” here because I mean that last part fully), but we also don’t want to exhaust ourselves to please everyone around us on one day, while we get home with a cranky kid and my night is spent feeling run-down and trying to enjoy a few moments in a day meant for me, too. And we likely didn’t meet the expectations of everyone anyway, because there’s only so much time in a day (with a napping kid), where we can spend quality time. So even with trying to please everyone… you don’t.

And we really want to celebrate the amazing moms in our lives, because they’re awesome and incredible and deserve it!!! And we always will make time for that (shout out to the best moms everrrrr)! We also want to start and have our own traditions and quality time together as we build our own families and continue to expand our family trees.

I think there’s just a lot of people in the millennial generation that really want to just make their parents and family happy, and don’t know how to communicate what they want exactly and so it turns into- “well you shouldn’t really be celebrated anyway, you’re not in the trenches as a mom!” Does this make sense?

And it’s funny- being a mom, I can’t imagine not feeling in the trenches with my kid, but I also get what they are trying to say. “My wife is really going through it in these recent years and I want to make sure we make her feel extra special on Mother’s Day,” and then plans can either be joined if it works, or figured out for another time if not. If I thought my daughter didn’t want to celebrate me 40 years from now, it would probably crush my heart, but I don’t know if that’s exactly what the “trenches “people mean. I think it’s more of my generation not knowing how to communicate to the generation above us or to show and uphold healthy boundaries.

Allow me to repeat that:

I think it’s more of my generation not knowing how to communicate to the generation above us or to show and uphold healthy boundaries.

Am I off here? LoL… I hope this makes sense and resonates with someone and if not, that’s okay too.

If you are a mom, I wish you sincerely a beautiful Mother’s Day! You are the real MVP of your family, and never forget it!

To all of the amazing Moms in our lives,

Xo Aurora