Not a Mother's Day Greeting - Millennial Women Inspirations

We can all agree our Mom’s the best Mom, the best cook, our best friend etc. We sometimes simply say they’re amazing as we can’t fathom how they can fit everything; from budgeting, chores needed to finish on time, even your clothes on luggage and you found yourself shying away cause yet again she proved you wrong. Some while juggling a job. Truth is it’s an everyday learning, those first-time moms hang in there, y’all doing great!

At this moment, I also wanted to bring to the limelight those women who experience loss, made sacrifices, and arrive at decisions of a lifetime. Those who gave their life to become breadwinners, those who dedicate their life to research and/or career, those who chose to take care of people they love due to illnesses and forgot to live their own, and those who chose not to create a family on their own instead took care of someone else’s family. We see you and we also celebrate you today.

The fact is every woman experience Mother Shame, even those young women with no child. Shame is a strong feeling of being unworthy of love and belonging. Have you even heard questions like, ‘Uyy, kelan ka magkakaanak?’, ‘Anong age ka ba bubukod?’, ‘Kelan ba masusundan?’ or ‘Ba’t wala pa kayong anak?’. These might not be harmful to you but they could be to some; worse they can be triggering. It might be brought by the culture that women are expected to take this lightly.

Based on research, there were 12 categories of Shame (according to Brene Brown). For women ‘motherhood’ is a close second to ‘appearance and body image’. Knowing this, I hope you take a second thought on questions you throw the next time. We can always ask how people are been and start there. And skip those unnecessary and unsolicited commentaries.

Not everyone is Shame Resilient, it might take time to build this up. So for once, I hope we choose to support, build them up instead of crumbling them to the ground. The times are changing.