Mothers Day-What about guilt?

     As I ponder Sunday and the many ramifications from the East coast to the West coast and all of AMerica in between I am struck by the many levels of feelings mothers have.
    One of our biggest feelings is guilt, guilt, guilt.
     Yesterday Gigi fell off the bed and Jordan couldn't stop beating herself up.  She been up all night with both twins, working full time, and moved away from both twins on the bed for one second while she grabbed a toy.  Gigi rolled over and bam, off the bed.
    "I should have, I can't believe, why did I, what happened?"  The barrage wouldn't stop.  I told her to stop.  But then she said I do that to myself all the time!  I guess she's right.
     I became a mother at 20 and I've felt guilty for 47 years!
     Plus enter Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan and we have more guilt-work guilt, career guilt, body guilt, house guilt, what we said or did guilt.
    I will never forget the lesson of my dog Putty.  We had puppies with her and kept one of the dogs Patch.  She'd long since stopped nursing, but when Patch would get up in the morning he would bark at her and she would look around confused about what to do.  She was a mother, and he expected her to mother.
    But what about mothering?  Sunday is the mother's day where the family is supposed to love mom and prove it.  Thus the husband doesn't go play golf, or tennis, or surf, he goes to "brunch" with mom and the kids or makes breakfast and buys her flowers!
    Yet back to mothering.  Mothering is not just biological or adoption.  It is caring for, nuturing, teaching, helping someone else.  It is protecting the innocent, feeding the hungry, teaching a better way of life.  It is about the circle of love rather than the rocket of performance.  It is not about Wall Street and amassing hundreds of millions for oneself, no, it is about thinking of and caring for the least of our brethren.  It is about the fact that we are all one, one huge family.
   And then there is the final frontier of mothering...ourselves.  How do we parent and nurture ourselves in ways we were not parented.  How do we get out of the blame game and into self realization.  How do we love ourselves.  Are we good to ourselves.  If we were our baby, would we treat ourselves like that?
  This is the final and greatest frontier-ourselves.  For how we treat ourselves, is how we show others how to mother, father, and treat themselves.
  So Happy Mothers Day to yourself and all those around you!