Mother's Day- The Payback?

“What would it take to pay back Mom for all she does?” is the question that Annaliza Kraft- Linder asked in an article published by Bank of America. According to Insure.com's 2014 Mother's Day Salary Index, it would cost at least $62,985, (up from $59, 862 last year!), to replace all that she does. Broken down it looks like this:

• Cooking and cleaning, $12,230
• Child care, $21,736
• Homework help, $7,290
• Chauffeur, $5,672
• Shopping, yard work, party and activity planning, finances, etc., $15,019
• Finding out what the kids are up to (paid in the equivalent value of a private detective), $1,036.

Salary.com states that mothers are worth even more, in its 2014 Mother's Day salary survey stating that “stay-at-home moms were worth $118,905 and working moms worth $70,107 (this does not include any paid salary from their job), with both groups putting more than 56 hours of overtime at home. These numbers are all up from last year's survey.”

Ms. Kraft- Linder adds that there is also what economists call the “opportunity cost” where mothers often give up time to do other things in favor of mothering. “Decades of lost wages, lost contributions to Social Security, and missed chances at career advancement” are some examples. Americans spend about $168.94 per year on their mothers. Clearly there is no way to literally “pay her back” and mothers don't expect that. (Although, Salary.com does have a pretend check you can print out to give to your mom for all she has done!)

On top of the free labor she is providing, Rabbi Tzvi Gluckin unabashedly proclaims, “Your Mom should hate you!” in his article, “Why Your Mom Doesn't Hate You Even Though She Should.” “Your mom gives you everything. That is all she does. She gives and she gets nothing back. Not from you. You take. She's a giver. You're a taker.” He goes on to describe how even before you were born you lived in our mother's womb and fed, kept warm and yet all you did was kick. Then you were born in a painful childbirth. Even then you did not say, “Thank you!” All you did was keep her up all night, and cry a lot. As you grew you continued to be ungrateful, until the “moody teenage” years. “You were difficult. You were resentful. You had to be told to do things. Twice. More than twice. And, maybe mom found you frustrating or challenging or difficult to understand, but she loved you anyway, because, well, that's what moms do. Being a mom is a thankless job.” Rabbi Gluckin then continues to say when it was time for the older child to move out on his/her own, one would think that mom would be happy and relieved- she's “free”! Yet, she is devastated. That is what unconditional love is all about.

Unconditional love, stems from undconditional giving. The word for love in Hebrew is Ahava, the root of which is Hav which means to give. To love, is to give. And the more you give of yourself, the more you are "invested" in the other person, and the more you love that person.

So, what gifts can our children give us to make it all worthwhile? I don't know about you, but all I want is to enjoy my children more. We spend so much time doing all of the above “mothering” tasks that we don't simply take the time to enjoy our children. How do we make this happen? Do we just frankly say to our children, “Help me enjoy you- that's the payback!” Dr. Vincent Monastra writes that mothers, and fathers, need to think about how much time a we spend “saying something 'nice' with” our children. For at least fifteen minutes a day, he asks us to be in a room with each one of our children and interact with him/her without peppering them with questions or correcting them. In this way, we let our children know that we are not only interested in being around them when they are in trouble or need to do a chore, but rather we “actually enjoy being her or his parent, that you love and want to be with your child, and that your child is more than just a burden to you.” And, we need to do this quickly before they don't want us around!

 Sara Debbie Gutfreund asserts that there are four gifts she says children do naturally give to their parents, as we enjoy them: 1. The Gift of Play 2. The Gift of Stories 3. The Gift of Giving 4. The Gift of Growth, all of which we could not have imagined before we had children. Ms. Gutfruend ends, “Maybe we have this whole Mother's Day thing backwards. Perhaps it's a day for mothers to appreciate the gifts our children have already given us...And, I whisper my secret to my children as I watch them sleeping, a sliver of moonlight falling across the floor, 'I love being your mother. Thank you for the gift of your presence in my life. It's a blessing that I am going to keep just for me.'”