Make mother’s day a year round pursuit

Today--Mother's Day--is a day we each relate to in different ways.

Mothers who have children at home have the opportunity of receiving special recognition at the very beginning of the day. Perhaps the child made a card or a gift at school, or perhaps the child picked or selected a flower for the occasion.

Mothers who have children away from home may receive a phone call, a special visit, or a letter which they will open today. Many of us recall special memories that we cherish and think of the many things our mothers mean to us.

• One of the special memories of Mother's Day in my childhood is the flower that I always wore on the lapel of my jacket when we went to church on Mother's Day. I grew up in a Texas town where roses were usually blooming by that time and we snipped a bud from one of our own bushes. Over the years I have continued this tradition and my children now follow it.

• My mother also wore a flower which changed from red to white after her own mother died.

• Mother never cooked dinner on Mother's Day. She picked her favorite restaurant and we celebrated by helping her get out of the kitchen.

• It always seemed to me that our minister had just the right message for my mom and we knew she felt, as we certainly did, that she was special. That feeling gave her a special radiance that carried through the whole day.

After completing my training in psychology and beginning my practice, I began to appreciate even more the many things that my mother accomplished during her many year of rearing three children, teaching school, giving piano lessons, playing the organ, and assisting my father in his business endeavors.

She became an expert on time management, parenting, dealing with stress, managing people, and counseling students and parents. In managing to juggle all these roles in her life, she made her children always feel very loved and nurtured.

When you stop and think about it, everyday should be Mother's Day. In today's society where many more mothers work outside the home, we see many mothers who are single parents or those who may have a spouse but have one who is not very supportive. In all cases, however, "motherhood sledding" can get pretty rough. Making appropriate decisions, dealing with the many stresses that they encounter, and trying to maintain their own sense of self-worth can be extremely difficult at times. However, I don't think many of them would change places with anyone else.

Fathers, let's help our children stretch Mother's Day into Mother's Week, Mother's Month, and Mother's Year. It's true that the calendar only marks one day as Mother's Day, but that's just a piece of paper and a date set many years ago to make moms feel special.

For those of us whose mothers have completed the years of child rearing, let us remember to make our mothers feel special by expressing our gratitude and appreciation for all the years that they toiled and sacrificed on our behalf.

"I love you Mother very much and you are special to me," is a good start. But let's move ahead from there and extend these feelings past today, into tomorrow, and the next day after that.

Copyright c 1997 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.