Moms deserve appreciation all year

Today is Mother’s Day, a time to tell our mothers how much we appreciate, love and honor them. For those whose mothers have died, this day offers an opportunity to remember them and to reflect on the many ways they helped out.

A mother’s role has changed greatly during the past several decades, at least in this country. Now many mothers work outside the home; quite few are single-parent bread-winners. I wonder if most men comprehend the tremendous physical and psychological accomplishments that occur with child-bearing.

I have had long and interesting discussions with my friends in medicine who specialize in the care of mothers-to-be and the delivery of their infants. They have shared their perceptions of the psychological processes that women go through during childbearing and childrearing. Ask one of these physicians to tell you about the tragedies and triumphs of their life’s work and you may get a different perspective on motherhood.

Ask schoolteachers which parent assumes most of the responsibility for a child’s education. Mothers are the answer. One recent evening I spoke to a PTA group about parenting. In the audience, no more than 20 percent were men.

Go to the children’s department at any large department store and count the number of men shopping for children’s clothing.

While attending a soccer game, I noticed that the majority of adult bystanders were mothers. Undoubtedly it was the mothers who also drove the players to the game and would deliver them to their homes when the game was over.

These observations are not meant to be hard on fathers. Rather, they are examples of the energy used in the myriad ways a mother must perform on any given day. Most mothers teach children to be honest, develop a moral character, use their talents and abilities, have spiritual values and “play by the rules.” They do all this while performing as nurses, chefs, laundresses, housekeepers, teachers, companions and spiritual advisers. We men simply do not give them enough credit, consideration or recognition.

Why is it that so many men only remember their mother with a flower, a phone call or a letter once a year? We should take the time to help our children understand the significance and importance of Mother’s Day by taking them out to shop for a small remembrance, or better yet, sit down and participate with them in drawing a greeting card, writing a letter or making some other token of appreciation.

A friend of mine takes time each year on this day to reminisce fondly about special times he had with his mother while she was alive. Another friend, an amateur poet, still writes his mother a poem each year, and is grateful that some of them were published before she died.

You can remember your mother in many ways: with flowers on the altar of your church, a gift to a charity or a visit to a nursing home to brighten the day of some mother who might have no other visitors. Any gift will be fine; it’s the message she really needs. If you can, call your own mother and tell her you don’t see how she did all the wonderful things she did. Of course, she probably will tell you she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. But tell her anyway. If you can’t call her, tell somebody else about her. Share her memory with someone. This is the day to make sure that all mothers are remembered.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1988