Happy Mother's Day to all the moms...and to all the childless aunts and friends who helped them

[highplainsdem]

I'm missing my mom today. I'm also missing her oldest sister, who never married, but who dropped her career in the city to move home and take care of her youngest siblings and the farmhouse after her mother died, too young, of cancer. For nearly half a century she hosted family gatherings of dozens of people, cooked for our mob, cared for the gardens and pets, and bought presents for her many nieces and nephews.

We were all so lucky she was there.

I have no kids of my own, but I have several nieces and a nephew. Some of them have kids now, from college kids to infants. And since my mom needed help because of health problems, I had to host a lot of family gatherings.

I babysat a lot of those kids, sometimes for days at a time. I got lists of the Christmas presents they hoped for. I paid for tack for a horse, paid part of college tuition, paid for travel. I got up early to fix breakfasts and keep the kiddies entertained so their parents could sleep late on holidays. I sewed a Halloween costume one year when I was babysitting even though I had a work deadline. I got a library card for one niece, at a sister-in-law's request, to try to make sure her daughter spent as much time reading as watching TV when the kid was here, which was often (only to find out that when my niece complained to her mom about that later, my sister-in-law - the same one who hadn't delivered the Halloween costume promised to her daughter - never admitted she'd asked me to do that).

I do have a lot of great memories from those years. Including of my favorite niece telling me I should have married, because I would have been a great mom. That sweet little kid is a mom herself now. I'm sure she's having a great Mother's Day, with her three beautiful kids.

I'm remembering my childless aunt, often sitting in the farmhouse kitchen, exhausted after a long day focused on doing everything for her siblings and their kids. She was often having a cigarette and a beer (German-American family). I don't smoke, thank God. But I think I'll have a beer tonight to toast Katie and all the childless women who helped raise the children who will be remembering their mothers on Mother's Day.

[lucca18]

1. What a lovely story, filled with wonderful memories.❤️

And, Happy Mother’s Day to you!😍

[highplainsdem]

5. Thank you! And the same to you!

[Bayard]

2. I don't have kids (except furry ones)

But I changed many diapers on various nephews.

Happy Mother's Day all!

[highplainsdem]

6. I've had beloved furkids, too. Happy Mother's Day, Bayard!

[mercuryblues]

3. And cat Moms

https://democraticunderground.com/10181820837

[highplainsdem]

7. Yes! Cat moms, too! Love that meme!

[mercuryblues]

9. Me too

It perfectly states what having a cat means.

[dlk]

4. To all the moms and those who cared for others as moms

This day is for you.

[highplainsdem]

8. Yes. Mothering is about caring. Gloria Steinem on "Mother as a Verb":

https://womensmediacenter.com/news-features/mother-as-a-verb

But when mother is a verb—as in to mother, to be mothered—then the best of human possibilities come into our imaginations.

To mother is to care about the welfare of another person as much as one’s own.

To mother depends on empathy and thoughtfulness, noticing and caring.

To mother is the only paradigm in which the strong and the weak are perfectly matched in mutual interest.

[dlk]

10. Yes