Psychology: Take your mother off the hook for Mother's Day

Mother's Day was first established in the United States in 1907 after a personal campaign by Julia Ward Howe. She conceptualized it as a day to unify mothers for peace after seeing the brutal toll that war had taken upon her own mother and other families.

The day took on national significance when President Woodrow Wilson declared it an official holiday in 1914. Wilson proclaimed that homes were to "display the flag" as an expression of "our love and reverence for the mothers of our country."

Of course, many cultures throughout history have honored mothers for their important role in life. The Greeks even celebrated a Mother's Day of sort. Greek mythology held that the mother of Zeus should be worshiped and celebrated since she birthed the "ruler of the gods." She was a hero because she saved Zeus from being eaten by his father, who was paranoid that his children were going to murder him.

According to the myth, the father ate his other five children before the mother tricked him in order to save Zeus. As a result, the Greeks lavished praise upon motherhood and celebrated with spectacular parties.

Spiritual views of the world have long lauded the important role that mothers have in keeping society alive and well. One Jewish proverb goes, "God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers."

Christianity views motherhood as sacred and essential to the theme of salvation offered through the birth and death of Christ. Oliver Wendell Holmes was quoted as saying, "The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls."

Mother's Day is significant in psychology because the mother-child relationship is recognized as one of the most powerful and meaningful bonds in our life experience. To recognize Mother's Day is to pay tribute to the role that mother's play in creating, birthing and developing the children of the world. More personally, it is to know our own mother and to recognize all that she did in providing life for us.

Our mother is the only person in our life who cared for us while we were in the womb for nine months. She is the one who went through the ring of fire - the pain and agony of childbirth to bring us into the world. She is the one who protected us during our infancy when we were so helpless and dependent. She is the person who nurtured us and helped us through childhood bumps and bruises and then nudged us on into adulthood - all the while standing by us.

No other person in life has as profound and meaningful an impact upon us as our mother.

Many accomplished people recognize that their mother's were critically important in shaping their lives. Abraham Lincoln stated, "I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. All that I am or ever hope to be I owe to my mother."

George Washington had similar sentiments in writing that, "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

There is little doubt that mothers have a profound impact on the psychological development of their children. Some recent research has even found that a mother's touch or smell can change the way a child develops and her own experiences can have biological consequences for her baby.

It is also clear that a mother teaches her children how to love others through their own love. Much research has been done on attachment and bonding and it is clear that the early love that a mother gives helps to form the basis for the child learning how to trust and love others.

In a way, mothers plant the seeds for the love that future generations will express.

Despite the slick and glossy images of motherhood that abound and are promoted for Mother's Day, being a mom is actually hard and dirty work. Just consider the projectile vomiting, fevers in the night and changing all of those poopy diapers over and over again.

Some mothers secretly feel like all the hoopla makes them into something they are not - dressed up, pristine and sacred. Like many heroes who don't feel like a hero, some mothers feel that they are just trying to get through and do what they are supposed to. Often just holding on against stress, anxiety, worry and fear, they try to balance taking care of another while struggling to meet some of their own human needs.

While it is true that mothers have a profound impact on the developing child, no mother is perfect - nor should she ever be expected to be perfect. Mothers are people too, with their own imperfections, thoughts, dreams, strengths and weaknesses. They have their own shortcomings and things that they do well and things they don't do as well - like all the rest of us.

Part of respecting motherhood is to be realistic about what it actually entails and how difficult it is to do the job.

Past theoretical psychologies have sometimes appropriately been interpreted as "blame the mother" treatises, but today's view seems more realistic. As "reality" psychologist Albert Ellis stated, "The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny." This viewpoint accurately ascribes the causes of our own shortcomings to be our own, as opposed to attributing them to our parent.

No one, particularly mothers with all they have to do, can stand under the weight of responsibility for every human difficulty and the happiness of the world.

One way to celebrate Mother's Day this year is to take them "off the hook" for all of our own imperfections as well as those in other people. Celebrate our collective mothers for all of their good but also for their human imperfections. Give them credit for doing the best that they could with limited resources and a very demanding and difficult job.

Focus on the good memories and express gratitude for the efforts put forth. Remember that in many ways, the very best of who we are and of what humanity has become can be traced back to them.(The Capital)