Post-Mother's Day Reflections on Gratitude

I brought them into this world. Shouldn't they be grateful?

Have you seen the birth-related memes about why you should be grateful to your mom on Mother’s Day?

Maybe your mom had an epidural for childbirth, but that doesn’t let you off the hook:

As a midwife who has participated in over 1000 births, it’s hard to put a finger on why these memes rub me the wrong way. I don’t disagree that birth is often painful, difficult or scary. I DO think moms are amazing, powerful and deserve praise for the achievement and sacrifice that is pregnancy and childbirth.

But here is something I’ve also noticed as both a child and a parent: the quickest way to make your family NOT appreciate you is to wallow in your sacrifices and demand gratitude because something was difficult for you. We all want our kids to recognize and appreciate the things we’ve done for them, but sometimes…they just don’t.

Of course, maybe they’ll grow up, reflect on everything we did for them and feel eternally grateful. But there’s a chance they’ll instead blame us for everything wrong in their lives, tracing it to some parenting mistake which they now consider the root of their unhappiness and lack of success. This may seem like a worst case scenario, but this article in the Atlantic about family estrangement, shows that it can happen to even to the most conscientious parents. 🤔

When I was a kid, my mom had this annoying habit. After spending the day doing something special for us — like driving to a skating rink in a town 45 minutes away — she’d pull into the garage, turn off the engine, and say, “Well, kids. What do you say?” If we weren’t quick to say “thank you,” a lecture would ensue. She’d remind us that she gave up her whole day for us. That the outing cost money. That she had a dozen other things she’d rather be doing than watching us skate in circles for hours.

What she really wanted was a simple thank you: a little recognition for her sacrifice, which, in hindsight, was totally reasonable! But at the time, it grated on me. There’s almost nothing more annoying than being told to feel grateful —especially when you were perfectly happy continuing to take your mom for granted.

Now that I’m a parent, I get it. After a long Saturday at a trampoline park—wedged into an uncomfortable plastic chair, fielding nonstop requests for overpriced ICEEs and arcade tokens (all for the chance of winning some cheap plastic junk)—I found myself grumbling to my husband on the way home, while the kids fought in the back seat of the car “Do they think this was fun for us? Do they think this is how we wanted to spend our weekend? Why can’t they just be GRATEFUL??” 😠

Fast forward to Mother’s Day, and thankfully the vibe was a little different. My 10-year-old got up early to help his dad make me breakfast. My 12-year-old came to church without a single complaint. And my 16-year-old agreed to go for a hike with her dad and me—with only minimal whining. Sure, there were a few grumbles here and there, but they all clearly tried to put me first. But the best part of my day was at dinner, when my 12-year-old son said, completely unprompted:

“We sometimes make fun of Mom for not understanding wrestling, but I really appreciate that she shows up for me anyway.”

His comment took my breath away. My family still teases me for once yelling, “Get the reversal!” when my son was clearly going for a takedown — a classic mom-who-doesn’t-know-wrestling moment caught on video. Wrestling is a complex sport I didn’t grow up with and barely understand. But I’ve shown up to meet after meet because I genuinely love watching him wrestle. I’m proud of him when he loses. I’m proud of him when he wins. I’m in awe of his strength, his grace, his courage to face kids who are clearly better than, and his humility and sportsmanship when he comes out on top.

This spontaneous bit of gratitude from my son brought tears to my eyes. My response was: “Even if I don’t always understand it, I love watching you wrestle.”

That line is something I first read in a parenting article years ago — a simple phrase that stuck with me: “I love watching you [fill in the blank].” It came from a piece on Cup of Jo, and the idea was that this quiet kind of affirmation — showing our kids that we simply enjoy being with them— can be more powerful and relationship-building than any kind of sacrifice we make on their behalf.

This is totally my experience: my kids seem to feel the most gratitude for me when they can tell I actually enjoy being with them, not when I’m ticking the box of responsibility or silently tallying sacrifices.

I brought my kids into this world, and that was difficult and messy. Raising them continues to be that way. Motherhood is full of invisible, exhausting, thankless work and there is really no way around that. But as my kids get older, I’ve started to notice the moments that feel really good to both of us, like showing up to a wrestling meet, cheering for the wrong move, and then having loud opinions on whether the ref was unfairly biased against my son. 🙂 My goal going forward is to have more of these moments, because they’re the moments my kids seem to remember—and the ones I feel most grateful for too.