How to Be Happy on Mother's Day

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If you’re like many mothers out there, you may have some pretty unpleasant feelings about Mother’s Day. It can seem impossible to be happy on Mother’s Day.

Some mothers dread, resent, and even hate Mother’s Day, others try to ignore it, while a few others actually seem to enjoy it.

Let’s look into how we can be happy on Mother’s Day…

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How do you feel about Mother’s Day?

When I was a fairly young mother I began to fall into the “dread” and “hate” categories. On Mother’s Day, all my faults, failings, and shortcomings seemed to parade in the forefront of my mind – mocking me, and consuming my thoughts. Sadness and discouragement would just flood through my heart, and I struggled to see much of anything good about myself as a mom.

I could look around me and see that so many other mothers had it all together. But me? Wow.

Tears would come easily and despite my sweet kids and my husband’s efforts to make it a nice and special day, I felt rotten and would go to bed that night feeling rather depressed.

Mother’s Day – that one day that was set aside to honor mothers actually made me feel pretty awful.

After a few years of this, I started to see a little more clearly what was happening.

I remember on one particular Mother’s Day I was coming out of church (you know, where the stories are about stellar mothers and mothers who never complained, etc) and I overheard a couple women talking. One was saying she hated Mother’s Day and the other was crying and nodding her head.

I thought to myself, “Why do so many women feel this way? Why have I felt this way? If motherhood is so wonderful, why do I not feel great about being a mother on Mother’s Day?”

Then the momma bear inside of me started paying attention and I thought,

“Why should I allow a holiday that comes around every second Sunday in May steal my happiness?”

“Why should this day cause me or any woman to feel horrible when at its core, it’s a day to show our appreciation and love for moms? Including ourselves!”

NO. I decided I wasn’t going to fall into that trap anymore.

I decided I wanted to be happy on Mother’s Day.

Did that mean that all of a sudden I didn’t have any failings, faults, or shortcomings? Ha. No way. Boy, did I still have them.

But when I decided I wanted to be happy on Mother’s Day I had to make myself SEE other things about myself and about Mother’s Day that I could be happy about.

Things like

I have great kids and I really love them!
I’m so grateful I get to be a mom!
Even though I do struggle a lot, I really am giving it my whole heart and that is awesome!

I decided I would focus on

The privilege of being a mom.
How grateful I was to be a mom.
That I had such rich opportunities to learn and grow and become a better person.

I would focus on all of the wonderful things I loved about my kids and the fact that I get to have front row seats to the adventure of their lives!

Besides, young eyes are watching you.

With this decision, I also became aware of the fact that I wanted my kids to know that the little cards they made me, or the ‘delicious’ breakfast in bed they made for me, or the Mother’s Day wishes they gave me really did make me happy!

This is the card my daughter made me for Mother’s Day 🙂

My dear mom friends, until we are perfected in Christ, we will always have faults and failings – every. last. one. of us. So what?!? Even in the midst of all the struggles, we are invited to have joy and to have it more abundantly. Each of us is invited to claim it.

This Mother’s Day, I encourage you to give yourself a break.

I encourage you to choose to see yourself and your life through positive lenses. Just throw those negative lenses away, alright?

Choose to LET yourself focus on the good and the beautiful.

Show your kids that being their mom really does make you happy.

Don’t let anyone or any particular day steal your happiness. You get to decide the focus of your mind and your heart. Sometimes it’s definitely a heated battle in the mind to see which view is going to win. But, we can be victorious.

You are a good mom.

You are a great mom!

You are wonderful, cherished, loved, and sooooooooo appreciated!

More than you can possibly even realize.