News & Politics   comments_image Comments  Beyond the Cards and
Candy of Mother's Day  'I have a feeling most mothers would like
some of the supports that would make it possible to keep on our
upward trajectory without boiling over. I know I would.'
Mothers are wonders! Or so said a Mother's Day card I recently
saw. One of many in the how-does-she-do-it? vein, this number
featured a drawing of a rose with "For All You Do" scrawled in
loopy red script. You get it: the recipient does a lot. In
exchange, she gets this solemn acknowledgment and maybe a gift.
More than anything else, the hushed awe that gets trotted out at
Mother's Day each year makes me remember how completely unmoored
our fantasies about mothers have become. Take the ridiculous
though widely embraced notion, implicit in this card, that
mothers give and give simply because they're generous and kind.
Ask most mothers and I think they'll tell you that they'd prefer
not to be giving quite so much.  The absurd corollary is that
this "generosity" is