Happy Mother's Day to Actual Mothers

Dang, y'all don't let us have shit!

May 10, 2025

Why is it that every Mother’s Day, this quote blows up my feed? It’s insulting.

Listen. Women without children are valuable. Have done great things. Respect to you all. Truly.

But shouting this kinda shit from the rooftops every Mother’s Day weekend is like attending someone else’s birthday party and singing “Happy Birthday” to yourself.

“You do not need to push out a baby”—

Of course you know how demeaning that phrasing is, right?

Of course you do.

Animalistic. Dehumanizing.

It’s giving “breeder.”

As if “pushing out a baby” was all we did?

(Before you interrupt with stories of your terrible birth mom who did merely "push you out,” please consider for one minute that this holiday is not about you or your pain. Your pain is valid. But it is not what this holiday is about.)

And, might I add, that “pushing out a baby” was the most brutal and heroic act of my life, and every single one of y’all are here because people like me survived greater agony than most could imagine. And that—was just Day One.

I could have cut off my own arm and been in less pain. Have you ever felt your skeleton transform like a fuckin’ Voltron? Have you ever sincerely requested your husband to shoot you? A single tear rolled down his cheek while I pleaded for him to murder me. The baby coming out of my vagina was a relief compared to the labor the preceded it. I begged for death like a mortally-wounded soldier on a battlefield.

My first child, I conceived deliberately. The second was the unexpected result of the expected behavior of married people. I love them both. But do know:

To bring them into this world took me out of commission for months. Years. My body, not my own. My career, shattered.

And of course, in return, I received the greatest love and meaning of my life.

Yet, it was not without cost.

Becoming a mother was my choice.

But y’all better be glad some of us still say yes to those two pink lines, or else you wouldn’t have anyone to subscribe to your precious Substack.

On my deathbed, it will be my children whose faces I see. Not my book cover. Not my Instagram handle. Not the exotic locations I’ve vacationed.

My children. It will be their faces I see.

I do not mean to demean the value of the art and work that childless / child-free women have created.

However, on Mother’s Day, can we please honor the reason that every single one of you are here, reading these words, this moment?

So in case no one else told you, dear women who have sacrificed so very much so that we humans may continue to write, and sing, and love:

Happy Mother’s Day to the MOTHERS. The actual mothers.

The mothers who gave birth. The mothers who adopted. The step-mothers raising a child with their whole hearts—yes, Happy Mother’s Day to you, as well. The mothers who lost babies. The grandmothers.

To those who wish they could be mothers and cannot, I extend my sympathies. I am sorry for your pain. I am sorry for your loss. Life is unfair, and I’m sorry it was unfair to you.

To those who have lost children, I extend my deepest sympathies, and also, happy Mother’s Day to you.

But to the “plant moms?” To the deliberately-childFREE!!!!!!!! women who live to ridicule mothers with memes saying shit like, “while my mom friends are elbow deep in diapers, I’m on vacation in Italy?”

Enjoy Italy.

But don’t forget:

Mothers are holy.

Stop singing Happy Birthday to yourself at someone else’s party.