Mother's Day, Schmuther's Day

So. Tomorrow is mother's day. For all you mothers out there, I applaud you. Congratulations on doing the hard work of raising your children, day in and day out. Congratulations on doing it while working full time (or part-time or not at all), making a mere 70 cents of the dollar that a man would get paid to the do the same work (seven cents less, incidentally, than a childless woman makes for the same work). Congratulations on accomplishing all the little things that it takes to keep your household running, things most people (your husband's/life partners/boyfriends) included don't even notice. Congratulations on all that.

But, great as you are, why do we need a national holiday to celebrate you? Is procreation really that spectacular of an achievement that it deserves federal recognition? Really? On par with, say, single-handedly reinvigorating the struggle for civil rights (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) or - even better - rising from the dead (Easter)? Seriously, if any of you mothers out there manage to raise yourself from the dead, I'll single-handedly lead the charge to have you immortalized with your own national holiday. Otherwise, however, why can't we let this mother's day thing die?

I'm not just asking for myself. I'm asking for all those women who by choice or biological default can't become mothers themselves. Why must we celebrate the life choice of motherhood but brush aside the other possibilities as invalid? Why is it that, among women of a certain age, single and/or childless women are made into pariahs, their only worth seemingly entirely vested in their reproductive future?

We childless women, we never quibble. We bring a baby gift to celebrate the birth of your children whether or not they were planned or unplanned. And we honestly rejoice in the addition to your family. So why can't you do the same? Whether planned or unplanned, please respect our childless state. Don't rub your motherhood in our faces. And don't look down your noses if we celebrate your holiday the best way we can - by celebrating ourselves and the pets or the friend's children that hold the place in our hearts that our own children have not filled.

Thanks.