May 11th is Mother’s Day, and there will be a special Mother’s Day altar at GGCSL that morning. I encourage you to bring photos of your own Mom, of yourself with your kids if you are a mom, and
photos of daughters and/or daughters-in-law with their kids. Every kind of motherhood is essential for children to develop healthy, well-balanced lives, and we celebrate them all.

So let’s fill the altar with Moms, Grandmothers, Step-Moms, Foster Moms, Adoptive Moms, Pet’s Moms, and maybe even animal mamas,if we have those in our lives. Mothering is deeply loving, support and encouragement, tempered with guidance and accountability. It’s nurturing, advising, disciplining and giving affection to a young one, in cooperation with other adults in lesser or equal roles.

It’s a huge job, even with just one child, because there are no breaks, sick leave, vacation, comp time or salary. It’s 24/7 every day from their birth until your child leaves home (and sometimes even after they have). We all survived into adulthood, and possibly navigated into parenting from the giving side ourselves.

So let’s honor the role and the women who take it on. No one does it perfectly. A few are stellar, some are dreadful, but most do their best with pretty good results. Thanks Moms! We’ll never really know how you did it!