What You Don’t Want for Mother’s Day

And what the semiotics of Mother’s Day says about motherhood today

When I think about the profound joys and pleasures of parenthood, they are all about the specifics and the resulting intimacy with my child. The way I know the precise number of freckles (five) on the bridge of her nose; the way she collects treasures—dandelions, rocks, acorns—in the pocket of her dress and cannot wait to show them to me; the way she uses both tried and original phrases to say “I love you.” (“I love you every time I see you, Mommy,” was a recent favorite.) I love remembering particular things we’ve done together—from the mundane to the striking—and the fact that her memory is so much better than mine is. The other day, we were talking about the white ibis who tried to steal her vanilla donut at a zoo in Sydney and I realized how she saw me: as her valiant protector, capable of warding off even the most determined pastry-thief.

All of this particularity makes for an especially stark mismatch with the semiotics of Mother’s Day.