Oh help it’s Mothers Day ! About Family Celebrations.

We seem to be almost overwhelmed with days designated for the celebration of one thing or another, last  week saw Mothers day and National Puppy Day. There may have been  more that I have missed if so I am rather pleased as I find them a little problematic. I expect part of my resistance is that they are now so focussed on the material symbolism of each occasion that the commercial opportunities  override the sentiment behind the day. Many have lost their roots in this commercialism Christmas being the main example. Mothers Day,though started in the USA in the early 20th century as a holiday celebration of motherhood ,has its roots here in the Christian tradition of returning to the mother church every year. While this was not a celebration directly related to motherhood it frequently meant that parents met up with their children who were away from home in apprenticeships or service and were released from work for that day.

But my main issue is with the fact that these days are mostly based on the family and its place as our most important institution. This is not the case for so many. In our society the family is seen as the place where we can find all the things we value most in life. It is the place where we find safety, security, love, support, peace from the trials of the rest of the world, rest from work and the pressures of making a living, a place to relax and enjoy the company of our nearest and dearest at the end of a day. It is seen a the most successful place to rear our children and to develop lifelong partnerships. It is with our family that we should celebrate the important stages of our lives, moments of great joy and find solace and support on times of difficulty and hardship. It is the place where we can flourish throughout our life and find the best of everything we value. There is an almost Victorian sentimentality about our attachment to the family which is certainly not based in historic fact. For Victorians and others the family was not as depicted on Christmas cards. Other celebratory days including Mothers Day have the same falseness for many, because families can be places of  profound unhappiness. They can be the place where a family member can be the most scared and unsafe, were relationships are fraught and difficult, were violence and abuse are the norm. Where being together for a celebration can be such an unhappy experience. I have removed many a young person from a greatly anticipated home visit over Christmas when after a few hours  the tension  and pain is too much for them all. So how can Mothers Day, Fathers day, Siblings Day etc be a good thing.

I am not saying that it should not be celebrated by those with reason to enjoy it. But imagine if you will the children and young people who cannot, for whatever reason, live with their family of origin who have each day to pass the shops and supermarkets full of prominently displayed Mothers Day cards and gifts . They are the children who at Christmas spend their time avoiding explaining why they will not be with their family  or making up stories to cover up the fact that they have not had a present from their Mum. I have known a child to resort to stealing and wrapping that present to prove to others that there is a caring parent remembering them. Each of these family based events is yet another challenge in the life of those who are already surrounded by trauma, sadness and loss not simply because they are not able to join in but because the inference is that they are somehow failing to meet the expected norm. They are failing to achieve the prefect image and many give up trying. And so might I ,it would seem impossible in the face of the many challenges of their life.

This , of course, applies  to the adults involved in these chaotic and disengaged families too. I wrote on Facebook on Sunday that I thought we should remember to the parents who cannot be with their children for whatever reason. Rarely have I met parents of children who have been adopted or who are being brought up in public care who do not miss them and still love them even though they may have been quite unable to provide for them or protect them. They cannot take part in these days, they have failed spectacularly in achieving the desired state of a happy safe family for their children. But we should not judge that they therefore have no feelings about their inability to be part of our family based society. For both parents and children I see these celebrations as further alienating an already disenfranchised and vulnerable minority.

As social workers we should at the very  least recognise these days and what they may mean to those we work with. When in a child is living away from home these may be days of opportunity to reopen or keep open lines of communication, to use the making and sending of a card as a way of helping keep contact even in difficult situations. There may not be a reciprocal action but we all need to learn that we can only be responsible for our own actions and intentions not for how those are received. And we should keep trying. We should not ignore the family days because they are fraught or assessed as somehow destructive and unsettling, they are probably that anyway. As good public parents we should help our children to be open about the things that upset them and help them to find ways to deal with them. These days are part of the detail in life which can be so important to us all. In 24 hour care it is possible to create new traditions for these occasions. Traditions that lend themselves , as the originals , to offering some security and ordinariness around these days.

So maybe these days can have a positive purpose for young people and families separated from each other as did the original Mothering Sunday. They can be used as a way in to other issues, to communication around difficult feelings, but mostly it may be a comfort to have them recognised as a days that can be stressful. Even National Puppy Day could result in a chat about that puppy they used to have and who was , of course, a family member.