Mothers wipe tears, kiss wounds, and calm fears.
Mothers love the most, understand the most, give the most, sacrifice the most, deal with the most, and hurt the most. Mothers are imperfect, selfless, and forever hold their children in their hearts.
On Mother’s Day, I was blessed to be with my own mother, my 97-year-old grandmother, and my granddaughter. I talked to my other grandmother who is 93. Can we say blessed?!
I also talked to my son who made me a mother, made me grow up, taught me so much, gave meaning to my entire life, and made me a Sunshine.
There are stories and feelings behind each of these relationships, even challenges and hurt. Each of these mothers has her own joy, pain, and survival stories too.
On Mother’s Day, many of us send blanket “Happy Mother’s Day” texts or make social media posts- with good intentions and true wishes that the day be “happy” for that mother. But for some mothers, those texts and even the celebratory posts bring more hurt than happy.
There are lots of reasons why this hurt happens, but here are four common reasons and why you may want to reconsider how you express your true wishes for a Happy Mother’s Day.
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Some mothers have lost a child.
Although the thought of a lost child probably hurts every day, it may be magnified on Mother’s Day. Receiving a “Happy Mother’s Day” text may cause pain.
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Many mothers have lost their mothers.
When we wish a mother a “Happy Mother’s Day”, she will likely be grateful for your acknowledgment of her as a mother. However, she may be hurt from a mother she can no longer hug.
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Strained or no relationship with their mother.
Sometimes we send Happy Mother’s day wishes and the recipient is hurt as they think about how they maybe physically can talk to their mother but emotionally cannot. The relationship may have been torn by an incident or never existed due to adoption, abandonment, divorce, or other reasons.
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Strained or no relationship with the child.
In many cases, the relationship between a mother and her own mother may be great. However, she may not hear from her own child. Or if she does, it’s painful for various reasons that you may or may not understand.
Mother’s Day has now passed, but as future traditionally celebratory days come, consider a person’s situation and not just if they a mother or not.
Before you send that thoughtful yet thoughtless text, think about the recipient’s feelings if you know them. Consider how you might say a bit more than Happy Mother’s Day if your true intent is for them to be happy.
Becoming a mother defined my entire life- even my career.
My journey as a mother began on my 15th birthday, May 22, 1994. Which means one week from today, I will be 40! For the next seven days, I’ll be reflecting on the past 40 years and sharing my thoughts, dreams, and more. Hope you’ll tune in, join in the conversation, and invite others in too!
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I’m Summer Owens, and my passion is helping youth and young adults realize success no matter what obstacles they face. As an international resilience and leadership keynote speaker, author, S.O. What! Success Coach, and creator of the S.O. What! Literacy, Life Skills, and Character Education curriculum, I empower people to say, “So what!” to even their greatest challenges. provide a framework to help people see past their challenges and focus on solutions using the S.O. What! Success System (Overcome Obstacles + Eliminate Excuses + Calculate Choices = S.O. What! Success). Through keynotes, workshops, books, online courses, and workbooks, I use life’s challenges and my own story of resilience as a rape survivor and teen mom success story to help others confidently pursue their dreams.
Looking for an inspiring college motivational speaker? A high school literacy curriculum? A middle school life skills workbook? A great example for teen mothers? A women’s empowerment or single mother’s conference speaker? I’m your girl and will help any audience say, “S.O. What!”.
