I’ll be honest: I don’t like Mother’s Day. It has always felt disappointing and performative. Maybe it’s because of that very first Mother’s Day when Rob gave me two tickets to go hot air ballooning and when we tried to book them a month later the company had gone out of business. 10 years later, I still haven’t been in a hot air balloon. Or maybe it’s because the way that mothers are celebrated on this day tends to have nothing to do with giving them what they truly need. Rest. Support. Advocacy. Policy. Ok maybe an eggs Benedict. Motherhood is sacred. And it is mundane. And if that particular intersection of the two is not where you find yourself drawn, there is nothing and nobody that should be allowed to say otherwise. I don’t say that in theory. I say this with the knowledge of what happens to the children of women who were not able, ready, or willing to walk this path. They are the babies left unbathed for months. They are the children left to sleep outside their trailer with only dog food to eat. They are the ones told they are the product of rape, and whose subsequent rage lands them in foster home after foster home because nobody wants them. These are the fates of real children. And yet there are human beings out there who think it is merciful or holy to force their mothers to bring them into this type of existence. So this year I’ll be sitting Mothers Day out. I mean I won’t, because my kid is vomiting. But don’t bring me a fucking card or flowers. I’ll take the eggs Benedict though.