To mothers serving our country overseas while their children remain at home.
To mothers with children in the military, who pray for their children’s safe return.
To mothers who labor each day at jobs requiring tremendous empathy and patience.
To the teachers, nurses, doctors, police officers, EMTs, and therapists, who come home each night to children who need help with homework, a shoulder to cry on, and someone to whom their feelings matter.
To mothers in prison, jail, and detention centers whose interactions are relegated to visiting day, visitors’ hours, visitation rules, and monitored phone calls.
To every mother who worries about the water her children drink, the air they breathe, the school they attend, and the neighborhood they live in.
To every mother who has endured the loss of a child.
To widowed mothers, divorcees, single moms, welfare recipients, and Medicaid participants.
To “super-moms,” “tiger moms,” working moms, stepmoms, and self-doubting moms.
To mothers estranged from their children and to mothers who talk to them all the time.
To new mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, happy and unhappy, perfectly content, and utterly exhausted.
To mothers rich and poor, straight, gay, bisexual, and trans, mothers of every religion and race.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you do, please remember this:
We wouldn’t be anything, anyone, or anywhere without you.
Happy Mother’s Day from All Your Children. And let us say:
Amen
