“It’s just another day for me,” my sister-in-law said casually at a family dinner last week. “I don’t really think about what I want, but as a Relief Society president, I do think about what the sisters in our ward want. I want them to have a wonderful Mother’s Day.”
That statement right there just goes to show how much she — and so many other amazing women I know — perfectly exemplify the word “mother.”
To me, being a mother is so much more than being a biological or legal guardian to children. It’s more than shouldering the heavy load of responsibility of rearing, nurturing, teaching and guiding them. Mothering is all about losing yourself in service. It is that selfless, constant, you-before-me love that makes mothers so incredible.
Before I had children, I’m embarrassed to admit, I would sometimes see an exhausted mother walking down the aisles of the grocery store in sweats and unkempt hair, her face still fresh and bare, and think to myself, “I don’t think I’ll ever go out without makeup and a proper, put-together outfit on.” After all, I could never let my husband think I’ve let myself go.
Now I’m going to be completely honest with you. I have been married for 10 years and have been pregnant or nursing for eight of those years. During those eight years, the times when I’ve showered and put on makeup for the grocery store have been significantly fewer than the times I’ve looked exactly like that exhausted sweatsuit-wearing woman. Except I’ve probably looked even more haggard. And with a tantrum-throwing 2-year-old always hanging off my cart.
I can imagine that woman is exhausted because she has been up all night with a sick baby. Her hair is pulled back in a messy pony because she chose to read her little boy a book instead of curl it. Her face is all natural because she spent the majority of the morning making oatmeal, finding homework, digging for socks and throwing together lunches.
Right around the time she thought about getting ready for the day, her baby needed to nurse and her toddler needed to nap. Maybe she was barely fitting in this grocery trip between after-school pickup and baseball games.
This has been my life for years, and I admit, sometimes during the day I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and wish I had more “me” time. On Sundays before church when I actually do take the time to get ready, all my boys notice and comment. “Mommy, you look so pwitty,” my 3-year-old says, running his tiny fingers over the hem of my skirt.
I do feel pretty when I get ready and take time to look “proper and put together.” But the days when I am the most worn out, the most exhausted, the most unkept are usually the days when I feel like my little heart has given the very most. The days when my shirts have wet spots on the shoulders from teething and tears, and my pants have flour and grease spattered up and down from hours spent making a meal for my family, are the days that I know that even if I didn’t look my best, I gave my best.
You don’t have to look worn out to be a fantastic mother — this is certainly not what I’m suggesting. But this Mother’s Day, I want to celebrate every woman who is in the trenches, trying her hardest, many times forgetting herself and forgoing the glamorous life for the glorious one.
“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails,” said Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley, the wife of late LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, in “Small and Simple Things.” “I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to Scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”
Carmen Rasmusen Herbert is a former "American Idol" contestant who writes about entertainment and family for the Deseret News.