COMMENTARY: Mother’s Day resolutions

c. 1997 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of Religion News Service and the mother of two boys.) UNDATED _ Resolutions are most often made at the dawn of a new year. But that is a time when I am exhausted from the holiday rush and uninspired by short, cold days. I […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of Religion News Service and the mother of two boys.)

UNDATED _ Resolutions are most often made at the dawn of a new year. But that is a time when I am exhausted from the holiday rush and uninspired by short, cold days. I am more prone to burrow under covers than rise up and take on self-improvement.


It is spring that motivates me to believe rebirth is possible. As I watch the trees and flowers come back to life after the winter, I think that maybe I too can blossom again, stronger than before.

The fact that Mother’s Day falls during this blooming season has never seemed like an accident to me. And on this occasion, while many women are basking in appreciation, I am more inclined to introspection.

Mother’s Day inspires resolutions in me like New Year’s Day does for many. It is partially the season, but it is even more the sense I have that this is one thing in life I want desperately to get right.

Even if I never exercise again, or diet, or save money, or any of those things we all resolve to do, I always want to try harder to be a good mother.

I am not naive about my goal. I do not aim at perfection, or an image I carry in my mind. I am a gravely flawed human being who is entrusted with caring for two boys who deserve much better.

They are stuck with a mom who is more like Roseanne than Harriet Nelson. A woman who has never been called sweet or patient.”You’re not like the other moms at school,”my teenage son told me the other day.”You’re a rebel,”he teased. I took that as a compliment at first, but then I paused.

Is it a good thing for your children to think you’re a rebel?

I long ago gave up on the notion that I could completely remake myself. Instead, I try to concentrate on the basics, the things I can give to my boys that will help them go out into the world equipped to deal with whatever comes their way.


Every Mother’s Day I resolve to find new ways to show them that I love them. I want them to store up enough kisses and hugs and”I love you’s”to last the rest of their lives. I want them to always remember tht the woman who knew them best was crazy about them.

I want them to feel so loved it will be easy for them to love others. And I want them to be loving fathers some day who are never distant or slow to say”I love you”to their own children.

I resolve, too, to respect my children more. They are a captive audience and it is easy for me to dispense with courtesy in the interest of time. But they deserve to feel valued and honored by me.

I will work harder at respecting their belongings, even when they end up on my dining room table. I will try to respect their choices, even when they embarrass me. I will try to value them more for who they are than who I want them to be.

I want this year to give my children a more complete understanding of the world and the people in it. I will do a better job of showing them that the comfortable life we have is the exception, not the norm. I will help them understand they no more deserve to have so much than other children deserve to have so little.

As their mother, I will not try to shield them from reality, but give them a more complete sense of it. I will not let them grow up without understanding the inequities of the world.


This year, more than ever, I will pray for my children. I will pray for their physical safety and their spiritual growth. I will pray for the choices they will make and the choices made by others that will affect them.

I will pray, not because I believe I can control things, but because I know I can’t. I will pray because I am a mother who wants desperately to protect, and guide, and shield my children, but knows that doing so would keep them from growing up.

Mostly, I will pray because being a mother is a bigger job than I can handle on my own. I will pray that on Mother’s Days to come, the men who were once my boys will always remember they were loved by an imperfect woman who wanted more than anything to get this one thing right.

DEA END BOURKE

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