I grew up in New England, in a state where birth control was illegal and the pill had not yet been invented.  My mother, my grandmothers, and my great grandmothers all accepted marriage and motherhood as their destiny. Not like many of our Catholic neighbors, though, they somehow managed to produce smaller families of two, three, or four. Birth control seemed to be highly correlated in my family with the departure of one spouse. My paternal grandparents divorced after four children, my maternal grandfather was killed in a motorcycle accident at age 36, leaving three children. My parents separated when their youngest child (me) was only three, and there was no child support.

My paternal grandfather got the children, promptly farming all four out, two to his mother, one to another family, one to an orphanage.  But my mother and maternal grandmother were on their own to provide for the children. Working outside the home became a resented necessity rather than a career, a vocation, a source of meaning and a chance to express their non-domestic gifts. From this distant perspective I understood my mother suggesting that I could be a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary until I got married. Post-Sputnik, I said, “I think I’ll be an engineer.”  My generation had choices. The pill, which came on the market in 1960. When I married in 1962, the main point of premarital counseling from my minister was that I should get on the pill.  It was an important part of ensuring those choices as we were able to exert some control over our fertility. 

There were also more role models and mentors.  I had one beloved childless aunt who introduced me to theater, music, and gardening, along with bemoaning her inability to produce children of her own. There were Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Friedan and Bette Middler and Gloria Steinem and Valentina Tereshkova. There were teachers and professors who encouraged me, and a woman I never met who left her estate to my family congregation to provide scholarships, which paid my way through college.

 Our three carefully planned daughters took for granted that they were expected to go to college and would have options about work, career, marriage, children, choices that I and many of my generation had to fight for. All three have professional careers, and two of them have children. Their expectations were reinforced by a feminist Dad who supported their choices as he had supported mine.

And now the fifth generation is at that point, all in their twenties. Two are in relationships and contemplating marriage but not children.  One is married, teaching school, and hoping to become a mother. The youngest is still in college, plans to go to graduate school, would consider marriage but is not interested in having children.  

I tell this story because it is an amazing transformation in the 114 years between the birth of my grandmothers in 1890 and the birth of my youngest grandchild in 2004, a common story (with maybe fewer single parents!).  Mothers’ Day was created in 1908 when they were both young women in their childbearing years. Traditionally, it is celebrated with gifts and flowers and praise for the wonderful mother that one was, even if one wasn’t.

In our later years the care of aging parents becomes a responsibility for all, but mostly daughters. My sister looked after our beloved aunt and I took care of my mother even as she had taken care of her mother as a young adult.  My generation fo working women is somewhat more self-sufficient, both financially and otherwise, but we do turn to our daughters (and sometimes sons) to help us through the end times. That is something to celebrate on Mothers’ Day!

I am glad I was able to choose to do it all.  Every Mothers’ Day, if I remember, I send a thank you note to my daughters for teaching me how to be a mother. That holiday is now important to the mothers of my grandchildren, since the responsibilities of parenthood weigh lightly on me now.  They are happy that at age 83 I still live by myself (a widow of ten years) and manage my own affairs, rarely asking anything more than taking care of my cat when I am out of town.

I know that some of my generational cohort feel deprived of a right to grandchildren or even great-grandchildren. I am grateful for those beloved four young women growing into adulthood, but  lay no expectation on them to satisfy any desire I might have for continuing the line.  These are their lives, and challenging times and an uncertain future.  Perhaps it should be a holiday to celebrate all women, mothers and not mothers, mentors, role models, cheerleaders. workers. Community builders. And to celebrate their right to choose, and work as hard as we can to keep those choices open tor them.