Almost as much as I hate Christmas (but that's for a different rant.)
Mother's Day is the one day a year when I am acutely aware of every short-coming I have as a Mom. I was 16 when I first became a mother, although I was 15 when I discovered I would become one. I was young enough to believe that I would be better at it than my mother. The mother who never let me forget she took me in and made me her own (I was adopted at age 2) when "no one else wanted me." The mother who affectionately explained to my 5 year old self how my brown eyes announced to everyone around me that I could not be my blue-eyed mother and my green-eyed father's "real" daughter. That they had been kind enough to take me in. The mother who, in a fit of anger because I had put my socks in the wrong drawer, nearly broke my nose when she struck me.
But I would be better than that mother. I would be better than the mother who, when confronted with the news of her husband's unwelcome attentions for their 13 year old daughter, asked why I would "make up such lies to hurt her?" Who told me I was a whore just like my biological mother because I secretly began shaving my legs my 8th grade year.
I swore I would love my children unconditionally and never make them feel less than worthy of my love. I would teach them the importance of family and the bond that can never be broken. The bond that thinned and stretched as my 18-19 year old self began to emotionally fall apart. As I suffered a nervous breakdown when my second child was born 10 weeks premature with underdeveloped lungs. Who's apnea monitor would alarm whenever he finally fell asleep because his breathing was so shallow.
I pretended not to be relieved when my sons went to live with their father and his family while I lived out of my car and finished falling apart. When it took me years to get myself back together, all the while they were growing up without me.
Twenty years after my incredible failure as a mother, I began that journey again. This time with a much clearer view of who I was, what it meant to truly sacrifice, and why it was so important to put my child's needs above my own. I had finally learned how to be happy with myself and not lose myself in my relationships. I was determined this child would be different. I would get it right.
Then, my step-children joined our family -- broken, damaged, hurting, wary, and oh-so-very angry. They needed a strong mother who knew the right answers, was willing to make the hard choices, and could weather the emotional storms created by their experiences. Someone who would love them while they shouted "I hate you!" at the top of their lungs. Who would get in their faces and tell them I wasn't going away, I wouldn't abandon them, and no matter what they did or said, I would stalk them to their graves because I loved them.
Somewhere during that 20 year break in motherhood, I had learned how. And it felt good to have my heart broken as we helped them through the hardest times.
Despite what I had learned, I still find it difficult to reach out to those first two children, those grown men and father's who have become amazing human beings through no fault of my own.
Despite the overwhelming amount of love I have for all my children, biological and chosen, I know I am never good enough by my own standards. Each phone call or email that goes un-returned, each off-handed comment that I'm not their "real" mom, each guilty memory of every time I didn't measure up.
All of this surfaces on this one day a year. The day when it seems the whole world is celebrating the wonderful mother each and every other woman is capable of being while I cower behind a smile and pretend to be just as good as they are.
So, yeah. I hate Mother's Day.
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