A few years ago a young man from South Africa stayed with us for a week. During the week he told me the story of how he came to be adopted by his mother and given his name. He was the product of an extra-marital affair and for the first few years he lived with his biological mother and an abusive step-father. The abuse became bad enough that one of his legs was permanently damaged. His biological father came and took him and brought him to live with him, his wife, and their children.

His wife, the woman on whom he had cheated, took in the child of his affair and renamed the child “Given,” because he was a gift to her.

The other day a young teen told me that they were happy because every year on Mother’s Day their family takes a three generation picture, child, mother, and grandparents. This year is the first year since the teen came out as non-binary and it will be the first year that they do not have to wear a dress for the photo.

The birth of my oldest child in late February was difficult and dangerous and left me with health issues that took almost a year to completely diagnose and solve. Mother’s Day was one of the first days that I felt strong enough to be up and out. We went out to lunch and to the outdoor mall. I remember the way waiters and shoppers congratulated me and cooed at my beautiful daughter. Everyone I saw smiled at me and wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. In some ways it felt like another birthday for my daughter and me. I felt loved and accepted, and seen, and I felt like I could in fact be a mother.

I know that Mother’s Day is not easy for everyone. For those of who have lost mothers or children, or are estranged from them, or are having trouble conceiving, it is especially difficult. But even for those with intact families, it can be hard. My Facebook feed is full of memes that are kind of funny and kind of bitter about Mother’s Day. Mainly they’re from moms hoping that they won’t spend Mother’s Day fighting with their families, pretending to like gifts, feeling subservient to mothers-in-law, or cleaning up the messes created by breakfast in bed.

As children we look to our mothers to tell us who we are, to tell us our place in the world, to make us feel loved and to make us feel that we are gifts. As teens, we look to our mothers to stop telling us who we are and start really seeing us as we are. Kids ask all the time why there’s Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and no Kid’s Day, and almost all parents answer “Because every day is Kid’s Day,” except it isn’t. Or maybe it is, after all, every day is a day we all go out into the world looking to be seen and loved.