Mothers' Day On Social Media

Mothers' Day a million years ago

Today is the American (some say Hallmark) holiday of Mothers' Day. Several of my friends on facebook felt the need to acknowledge that Mothers' Day can be a difficult day for many. The childless, those who have lost children, are estranged from their child, or estranged from their mother, those who have lost their mother...

I get it. It sometimes feels awkward to be happy in the face of others who are suffering over this very issue that we are celebrating. This is one of the reasons why Israel changed its Mothers Day
to Family Day. But this also isn't 100% comfortable. Why shouldn't mothers, in the one job with no days off during the year, have a special day to celebrate their unique role?

When we post photos of a fabulous wedding, do we feel the need to acknowledge singles who are lonely and desperately searching for their soul-mate or secretly wistful over the wedding they never had?

New baby photos, Bar and Bat Mitzva photos, wedding anniversaries. These are all events that will pass some people by and cause them pain.

I once wrote a blog post about how it took me time to work out how to live in my apartment and arrange it comfortably. I received a comment telling me not to be so spoilt as there are many people who would love to be home owners but can't see any way of making that ever happen. It was a fair point but does that mean I can never write anything about how I love my home? I don't believe this. I think I just caught her on a sensitive day.

However, during this lockdown I began to feel funny about people posting their children playing in their gardens or of taking walks in nearby country locations. Even a photo of us enjoying lunch on our balcony seemed like a poke in the eye to all the city folk in flats without any outside space.

I admitted a couple of times that I've enjoyed this time at home with DD. Woops. Sorry sorry sorry. I know there are whole large families in smaller apartments than ours. I know others have lost their jobs and are worried about paying the rent or mortgage, or cannot even pay for food. I know that more than a quarter of a million people have lost loved ones. I know all this. So should I just keep my mouth shut rather than admit that I've enjoyed this extreme slowness of pace?

When I wrote a blog post about amazing things people have done during lockdown, there was a reminder to spare a thought for those who couldn't. I was told that some people were struggling. Gosh it's exhausting to consider the whole of humanity every time you write a comment. And yet, I wasn't being asked to consider the whole of humanity, just those who started in similar situations to myself but are now struggling. But why only them?

In Israel we are in a transitional period in which immediate families are allowed to get together. It means that children and grandchildren can now go to Grandma's house. I saw photos of family gatherings with the grandparents, adult siblings, and cousins all having a whale of a time together. We have no immediate family in Israel and I felt it. For us there is no transitional period, either we can socialise with friends or we're in the same isolation as we've been in for the past two months.

Is it the responsibility of social media not to cause distress in these ways? Every time we post a comment from a position of happiness, good luck, thankfulness, or celebration, should we temper it with an acknowledgement that others don't have what we have? In some ways that's worse. Patronizing even. Should we not post happy things at all? That would make social media a pretty depressing place to be. Unless we took out the social bit altogether and just called it media for information and discussion. 

When we celebrated VE Day on Friday, there was a two minute silence for those who gave their lives to fight for our freedom and for those who lost their lives during that fight. Then we partied without guilt because it happened three generations ago. I wonder if everyone celebrated to the same extent on that first VE Day 75 years ago. I imagine not.

So it's not social media, it's the human experience. Or rather the human experiences. Everyone's experience is different. Some people have truly wretched lives. More often than not life's not fair. We know this and I have no empty platitudes to attempt making it seem otherwise.

I say celebrate at every opportunity. If your child pampers you on Mothers Day, enjoy it and thank him or her with a hug and a smile. If you do Mothers' Day (our family never has) call your mother and tell her personally. Does it mean more if you announce it to your 500 followers and friends on social media? Personally I think not, but if it does, then put it out there. I'm not the social media police, just offering some food for thought.

Mothering Sunday

Mum & DD, April 2012. I don't have a recent one #rubbishphotographer

Tomorrow is Mothering Sunday in the UK. Traditionally the second Sunday in Lent, it's about going home to pray at your mother church as well as visiting your mother and bringing her gifts. In the US it has turned into Mother's Day and is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. In Israel we celebrate Family Day (which used to be Mother's Day) on the Yahrzeit of Henrietta Szold who had no children of her own but saved 22,000 children from Hitler in Europe. This year it was on February 26th and I think I missed it.

Anyway, as I grew up in England's green and pleasant land, this post is honour of Mothering Sunday, even though I have no mother church to visit.

Six Things My Mother Did That I Don't Do:

1. Ironing. I don't buy thin cottons and I hang our clothes carefully on the line so that they dry smoothly. And if there are a few creases, body warmth soon deals with them. In fairness to my mother, she did have four of us wearing daily button-down shirts: my Dad, my brother, and even us two girls had to wear them for school uniform.

2. Make a three course dinner every night. You have to feel sorry for women in the 1970s as they were caught in the middle of old fashioned housewives on the one side and women's liberation and a severe economic depression, on the other. My mother went back to work full time when I was about 10 but she still felt that she needed to make a three course dinner every night. Sometimes we would be still eating at 9 pm. In hindsight, it was completely crazy.

3. Host Mid-Week Dinner Parties. Nowadays, especially in Israel, we entertain for one of the meals over Shabbat (Friday night or Saturday lunch). But I think that even in the UK, people tend to entertain mainly at the weekends. We go out to a film or a concert mid-week but having people over not so much. Our lives are too busy and we're too exhausted after a day's work, children's activities and homework, and preparing more work for the next day. If we do go round to friends mid-week it's called a light supper and usually comprises of soup, pasta and a salad.

4. Knitting. I can knit and crotchet but, as my mother herself pointed out, it's more expensive to buy the wool these days than it is to go out and buy a jumper or cardigan.

5. Wear make-up every day (including foundation) and go to the hairdresser once a week for a wash and blow dry. I just don't and my mother still does.

6. Make fabulous desserts - Lemon Cream Gateau, Black Forest Cherry Cake, Chestnut Pavlova, Eton Mess, Cheese Cake, Steamed Syrup Pudding, Lockshen Kugel, Bread Pudding, Cherry Shissel, Apple Strudel, homemade biscuits, and the list goes on. Well I'm doing Keto aren't I? But even before I discovered the keto diet, I was never a baker - too much like chemistry lessons if you ask me. My forte is pastry and salads. (Obviously the pastry is now off the menu.)

Four Things I Do That My Mother Didn't Do:

1. Take photos. This was Dad's job and the camera was his. My mother only got her own camera when her first grandchild came along. I'm a rubbish photographer and I often forget, but if I don't take the photos, there aren't any so I have to.

2. Write and publish.

3. Speak two languages. My Hebrew is rubbish but I can use it for everything I need. Mum told me that she once went on a French exchange and stayed with a family for a week. By the end she says she was pretty good at French. She'd forgotten it all by the time we used to go on holidays in France.

4. Wear leggings and ankle boots as part of my 'uniform'. Mum never wears anything less than proper clothes as opposed to what she describes as going out in pyjamas.

Four Things We Both Do:

1. Go to bed extremely late. We are both night owls and not larks.

2. Play cards and Scrabble. She plays Bridge. I'm a Kalooki girl - up to 150 points and you can come in twice. We're also both up for a game of Rummikub, which is a sort of card game with tiles.

3. Watch Escape To The Country and read The Daily Mail.

4. Love the social side of religious life but make up our own rules about the ritual.

DD Got Married!

Today we celebrated Family Day at DD's kindergarten - Israel's more sensitive and politically correct answer to Mothers' and Fathers' Days. All the girls were asked to come in white dresses as they would be dressing up as the brides, while the boys, in their white shirts, were the grooms.

They started off by filing in like a Chinese mass wedding. The couples walked under a large wedding canopy held up by four of the fathers and that was the ceremony over with. Then there was dancing of course. DD had a bit of trouble with her tiara but her betrothed - a real mensch - helped her fix it back in place. A better son-in-law I couldn't wish for. Having said that, I didn't think this would happen quite so soon.

Afterwards there was a slap up wedding breakfast that did us all proud. And finally, all the brides and grooms went home with their own Mummies and Daddies. The perfect wedding(s) wouldn't you say?



One sign of the times that always makes me laugh is how the parents no longer sit and and watch a performance of any sort. As soon as the music starts they all turn into paparazzi, jump up and view the whole thing through their tech devices - LOL.

Mazal Tov DD and DS-I-L

Family Day

It started off as Mother's Day, mainly the commercial aspect of it but also to honour the mothers. It was a funny custom for Israel to adopt as Mother's Day in the UK is definitely a Christian based celebration formerly known as Mothering Sunday. I was never entirely sure if it was referring to the young girls in service going back to visit their mothers (with gifts from the big house) or if the Mother referred to Mother Mary. Anyway, strangely enough, it took off in Israel. Or maybe not so strange as mothers tend to be worshipped here.

However, not all families have mothers and what about fathers? What about children living with other relatives for whatever reason? We're a sensitive lot when it comes to family and so Mother's Day evolved into Family Day. And it's sometime next week.

Word came from the nursery that DD was to bring in a photograph of her family. Well it's just the two of us so not difficult to round everyone up. You'd think. But if both of us are in the picture, who going to take it? So we sat together with my arm outstretched in front of us clicking away blindly in the hope of some decent results. This is what we got.