Is the Culture of Mother's Day Changing?

On Mother’s Day, a commercialised, saccharine day in which we are sold an image of maternal perfection, many people will feel less-than. There will be those whose mothers failed to live up to this idealistic image of selfless dedication, and mothers who violated it entirely. There will be mothers who won’t receive a card, gifts, or phone calls, just as there will be those who receive gestures that feel empty or rushed. Like many commercialised holidays, feelings of bitterness, resentment, and sadness can linger: It is all too easy to feel like everyone else is having a better, “normal” experience: that everyone else is having the kind of day you should be having.

And yet, Mother’s Day is changing too. There will be social media posts where people acknowledge those who don’t have active relationships with their mothers due to bereavement or estrangement. Companies will offer an “opt-out” option to stop receiving messages about Mother’s Day altogether. Even Disney films like Encanto encourage children to explore the cracks in their family relationships, rather than portray them to the outside world as being perfect. Are we edging closer to a time in which performances of perfection are out and authenticity is in? Can we finally tell the truth about our relationships with our mothers?

The images and messages we do not see

To this, I would argue: not yet. Not only are many kinds of motherhood side-lined (stepmothers, single mothers, adoptive mothers, foster mothers, birth mothers, etc.), many kinds of experiences are skirted over too. It is rare that we see depictions of those whose mothers have mental or physical health problems, those whose mothers require care; those whose mothers were abusive.

Another experience we see rarely is that of estrangement, which is a term increasingly used to refer to relationships characterised by negativity and distance. Even though the evidence suggests that this experience is a common one, affecting 9 percent of relationships (1), those who experience estrangement from a mother or a child typically feel alone in this experience. Mothers who do not have active relationships with one another share this fact with other people rarely, fearing and experiencing judgment when they do (2). Adult children who are estranged from their mothers likewise tell few people about their experiences and when they do, are often met with stigma, silence, and judgment (3).

The other kinds of experiences that are sidelined are those that are more mundane: those who fall in between the pillars of “perfect” and “estranged." One research team collected data from 633 middle-aged adults in North America (4). They asked them a series of questions about their relationship with their parents and their adult children, like, “How much do you think they understand you?” “How much do they make demands on you?”

They found that a third of the relationships were inactive: Levels of contact were low, and there was little in the way of exchanges of support. Despite the images we will be bombarded with on Mother’s Day, many parents and children do not have the active and engaged relationships that we often see depicted on our screens, characterized by daily phone calls, exchanges of money in times of need, or lifts to hospital appointments.

The remaining 70 percent of relationships were active but they differed in their quality. The most common kind of active relationship, making up 29 percent of the sample, were those in which there were high levels of both positive and negative emotions alongside one another.

The next most common kind of active relationship was one that some might think of as an ideal, in which positivity was high and negativity was low; these relationships made up 28 percent of the sample.

While there are parents and children who enjoy relationships that are high in positive emotions and low in negative emotions, they are not “the norm”; it is common for relationships to be characterized by positive and negative emotions alongside one another.

Mother’s Day is still a performance

Whilst we might be moving towards a culture in which authenticity is valued, Mother’s Day is still a performance. Mother’s Day is still a day in which assumptions reign free: that there is no love as strong as a mother’s love for a child, that motherhood is a role and identity that is unmatched and untouchable.

Whilst we might acknowledge that this isn’t a good day for all, we still assume it is good for most. And as long as we continue to do so, the more challenging experiences of family relationships will continue to be silenced, and the perfect, selfless, dedicated mother will continue to dominate our imaginations.

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But beneath these idealistic assumptions is a messy reality, and when we hide that reality, we all stand to lose. Although the endless onslaught of cards, gifts, and social media posts will suggest otherwise, idealized, elevated images of significant relationships do not come close to the beauty and the pain of those that are real (5).