Do you do Mother’s Day or not? Why?

amother

Green

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 5:59 pm

I celebrate Mother's day! I buy myself a gift, a massage, a necklace, maybe some flowers.

The Sunday just before mother's day I plant flowers on the porch. My mom did that every mother's day every year and I feel close to her when I do this. My family already knows that Mommy puts out all the planters for mother's day.

My kids make me home made cards/ pictures. My dh reminds them because he knows I like it.

I don't kid myself that I am appreciated. I did not appreciate my mother at all until I was about 36, the age she was when I was about 12 and started seeing her as a person, not just my mother. I loved and respected my mother every day of her life, I just didn't have the life experience to appreciate what she did for me until I was wearing her shoes.

amother

Ecru

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 6:59 pm

amother [ Aubergine ] wrote:

I don't. I celebrate Father's Day though but not necessarily because I feel like I "have" to, I just really love and admire my dad and will use any and every excuse to celebrate him. I've never felt a connection to Mother's Day, I find it uncomfortable asking my family to celebrate me just because I gave birth. If my kids decide they want to when they're older, that's their choice but we don't even acknowledge those type of holidays. Obviously Father's Day is the exception for me but even with that we don't make a big deal about it, I will send my dad a gift and card or buy him lunch or something but it's not something I advertise to the entire family just a quiet thing I do for my dad.

If your mom is alive, how can you celebrate Dad and not Mom? Talk about a slap in the face to Mom!

amother

Ecru

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 7:04 pm

cbsp wrote:

Even if not religious in nature one can run into issues of ubechukosayhem lo sailaichu when observing a day of significance to non Jews.

Rabbi Viener discusses it on a shiur in this series :

http://www.torahstream.org/shi....._5777

And to the excellent point above about celebrating your mother on a day, why does it have to be that specific day?

Because most people wouldn't think of it if they didn't have very public reminders. And that's when the mushy cards are in the stores.

amother

Aubergine

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 7:05 pm

amother [ Ecru ] wrote:

If your mom is alive, how can you celebrate Dad and not Mom? Talk about a slap in the face to Mom!

I don't have a relationship with her, unfortunately she has narcissistic personality disorder and was very physically and emotionally abusive to me and my siblings growing up so when I grew up and moved away I decided to distance myself from the abuse.

amother

Vermilion

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 8:11 pm

cbsp wrote:

And the posek of our city has paskened that it's not problematic, which is why the school prepares projects for the kids. There are obviously different opinions...

cbsp

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 8:51 pm

amother [ Vermilion ] wrote:

And the posek of our city has paskened that it's not problematic, which is why the school prepares projects for the kids. There are obviously different opinions...

Obviously not every posek rules like Rabbi Viener (actually I don't remember if Mother's Day was completely assured or just a "better not, why do it specifically that day" kind of thing.) I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

But to blithely say" it's not pagan or religious so therefore why not" misses the other criteria of bechukosaihem. That was the only perspective I wanted to point out. It's a fascinating topic and touches so many aspects of our integrated-into-secular-society lives that we don't realize when we're bumping into this issue.

And the comparison to celebrating Pesach (don't remember which imamother did that, but others agreed) just left me gobsmacked.

miami85

Sun, May 03 2020, 1:16 pm

cbsp wrote:

Pagan implies serving "a god" or spirits or demons that isn't Hashem like Halloween. Mother's Day has absolutely nothing to do with a religion like saying that Mother's Day was created to "celebrate Mary"--but IT IS NOT. It was created by Hallmark. It was to promote selling cards and flowers. I think I am quoting a rabbi but I don't recall who, "If every day is Mother's Day, then on Mothers' Day we shouldn't do something nice for our mothers?" It's one thing if people DID these things regularly, but sadly we don't. So we shouldn't' take one day out of the year to celebrate our mothers? At least do it once a year. Do it on September 25th for all I care, but at least do it.

cbsp

Sun, May 03 2020, 2:24 pm

miami85 wrote:

Again, you missed the point.

If it's only about avodah zora then we don't need a separate commandment about ubechukosayhem lo seileichu. Something could be completely non pagan or other religious based YET STILL BE ASSUR (I'm not shouting, just trying to make sure that this point isn't missed again).

I'm not saying observing mothers day is assur. I'm saying the topic is complex and can't be written off as "since we know it's invented of course it's ok"

As to your bolded might actually be a better suggestion halachically since it's clearly not tied to any other observance...

(FWIW it doesn't seem to be hallmark based either. But that's neither here nor there)

FranticFrummie

Sun, May 03 2020, 3:48 pm

I used to when my mom was alive.

My DD is adopted, and every year bio mom and I wish each other Happy Mother's Day. We don't exchange presents or anything.

She has been an amazing person to have in my life, both for me and for DD. Right now, DD is living with her in America, so she can finish high school in an English speaking environment. Sometimes it really does take a village to raise a child!

amother

Seashell

Mon, May 04 2020, 9:02 am

Every year I tell myself "absolutely not". My mom is a narc and emotionally tortures me and always had. When I was little, I would always get excited about a surprise project or card that I would work hard on putting together for her, and there was always a problem with it and nasty passive aggressive criticism. But every year, the optimist in me says "this time it'll be better!" and I fall into the same trap all over.
This year, I was planning on sending a really cute thing my kids made to her and to my MIL. I was all excited about it until yesterday when my mom was outright disgusting to me. Now I think I'm only sending my MIL's

amother

Ecru

Mon, May 04 2020, 12:20 pm

amother [ Seashell ] wrote:

That's so sad. You owe your mother the honor that's due to her for being a partner with Hashem in creating you, but you don't owe her recognition as a great mother when she isn't. When you're dealing with a narcissist, there's no point because no matter what you do it'll never satisfy her. All you're doing is setting yourself up for frustration or worse. Don't bother.