i hate mother's day.

and that's okay.

For me, it’s the marketing. And the toxic femininity. And the gender binary. It’s the paltry recognition of what it means to be a mother and what it means to mother as a verb and how society as a whole views and treats mothers. This year though, it’s the new surge of counterpoints to the still-very-recent recognition that mothering is hard and complicated and maybe not all sunshine and roses that’s getting under my skin. Some of these counterarguments seem to say that complaints about motherhood have gone too far and that complicating the conversation around motherhood has taken joy out of the conversation. Some say that that fear-mongering about the lack of structural support, or the sleepless nights, or the all-consuming, life-changing experience of motherhood has given motherhood a bad rap. Others strive to put motherhood back on its longtime and forever pedestal of being the most significant thing a person—a woman—can undertake.