Weekend Wisdom: Happy Mother’s Day!

Quote of the Day:

She has to have four arms, four legs, four eyes, two hearts & double the love. There is nothing “single” about a single mom. ~Mandy Hale

The Single Woman Says:

Recently I took my nieces, ages three and seven, to a movie by myself. Since the closest I’ve come to being a mom is being a babysitter, I thought it would be a walk in the park. As it turns out, a three-hour adventure with two bouncy, energetic, hyper, sugar-infused, excitable, curly-haired little girls in ANYTHING but a walk in the park. More like a walk in the DARK of “I don’t know what I’m doing!” From wiping noses to wiping bottoms to making sure no one ate an entire box of Gummy Bears while I wasn’t looking to managing to hold two sticky and squirmy little hands while balancing sippie cups, backpacks, stuffed animals, and a giant bag of popcorn – flying solo with two little baby birds in the nest is no small feat. I walked away from that experience with a renewed respect for moms everywhere – in particular, single moms.

My sister is not a single mom and neither was my mom. They are blessed to have my dad and my brother-in-law around to help carry the load, and still at the end of the day, after a long day of cleaning and cooking and working and diffusing arguments and brushing hair and brushing teeth and bathing and disciplining and somehow finding five minutes a day to tend to their own needs, they are often physically and mentally drained. So I can’t imagine how much more of a burden single moms must carry around on a daily basis, with the livelihood and well-being and needs of one or more impressionable, innocent, trusting little people riding squarely on their shoulders.

This weekend, Moms, and in particular, my Single Moms, I salute you.

You are the silent heroes. You are on the front lines of a long and hard-fought battle to raise strong, intelligent, healthy, moral, productive children. You have likely never received a standing ovation…but you deserve one. You put your own needs second without even pausing to think about it and you take the small piece of cake (both literally and figuratively) so your little ones can have the bigger one, every time, without fail. You face a million different challenges every single day, and you don’t back down. You never even waver. You cry, but only when no one else can see. You hold the hardest and least-paid job there will ever be…and you do so without complaining. And when push came to shove, you became dads out of love.

You are a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a maid, a cook, a referee, a heroine, a provider, a defender, a protector, a true Superwoman.

This weekend and every day…wear your cape proudly.

Happy Mother’s Day.