Blessed Mother or Material Mom: Which Madonna Am I?

Abstract

I clear my throat nervously, gripping the lectern for support as I look out across the congregation on this bright Sunday morning. It’s Mother’s Day, and I’ve been asked to say a few words at the beginning of the service to commemorate the occasion, a task that I both welcome and fear. On the one hand, it is a happy day: I am holding my beautiful two-year-old daughter in my arms, and I welcome the chance to share my joy in mothering with the wider world. I appreciate the opportunity to celebrate the often invisible, undervalued care-giving work that mothers do. On the other hand, I desperately want to avoid the sappy clichés and romanticized versions of motherhood that often mark this day. I want to choose my words carefully, so as not to conflate womanhood with motherhood, or to reify yet again childbearing as the ultimate destiny and duty of a Christian woman. As I gaze across the room, I see a diverse audience of worshippers. There is a mother with a baby only a few weeks old cradled in her arms and several serene-looking grandmothers with white hair and sweet smiles. But I also see friends whose stories are more complicated, whose children have come to them via adoption from places far across the globe; a childless, middle-aged couple who are vital pillars of our church community; other families whose children have brought them deep heartache and tragedy, not just moments of joy; and people full of hurt and uneasiness this morning, remembering the imperfect and inadequate ways their own mothers loved them.