Mother's Day is coming up. The kids at school are busy making Mother's Day cards and gifts. I love this holiday because I love my mother and I love myself being a mother. But Mother's Day always reminds me of Father's Day. I love my father, and I appreciate him very much. But it wasn't always so. When I was a child, I hated my father. He was mean, he was verbally and physically hurtful, he was terribly strict, and he wrote aweful letters to his children full of hate and threats. In all, he handled a bad situation which stemmed from tragedy in a bad and not very effective way. I have since forgiven him, we've all forgiven. But there was a time in my life when Father's Day filled me with dread and shame.
I remember one year when I was in Elementary school the teacher thought it would be nice to make a card for our dads on Father's Day. The card was shaped like a tie and inside it we were to write what we loved about our dads. I had absolutely nothing to say. I ended up writing something very generic; something like "I love you because you are smart and nice." When I got home, I promptly threw the card away, hiding it underneath other trash so that no one would see it. I knew that deep down I loved my dad, but it was deep deep down. I also didn't want to hurt his feelings by not saying anything to him on Father's Day, but I didn't want to lie about my feelings. So my siblings and I always just gave him some money or scratch lotto tickets for Father's Day. He was fine with that.
Now whenever my school does something to celebrate moms and dads, I always wonder about the kids who don't have good moms and dads. Then there are the kids who have no mom or dad. I would hate for one of my children (I think of the students at school as my children) to feel as if they had to lie to me about their relationships with their parents just so they wouldn't be left out or embarrassed. Then I wonder how I will approach these widely celebrated holidays when I have a classroom of my own. Will I bring it up? Will I ignore it? Will I be able to remain sensitive to those children who don't come from happy homes? I sure hope so. I don't know what I will do with my class when these holidays come up, but I hope to get some good ideas from this thoughtful cohort.
This is such a great question. I wonder, too, about students who have two moms or two dads.
ReplyDeleteCould we talk about Father's Day as a time when we honor the special men in our life? Then we could brainstorm who they might be together as a class (dad, stepdad, grandpa, coach, principal, neighbor, etc.)and give kids the choice of who to make the project for? Maybe also give them the option of making two?
I think you're right to wonder about this - it may seem small, but how we handle a holiday like Mother's Day shows kids what kinds of families we respect, so it's important to make it as inclusive as we can.