If you’re not getting flowers, a handmade card, or a brunch booking this Mother’s Day, this is for you.
If your children are too young to recognize the day, too far away to celebrate with you, or simply part of a system that doesn’t acknowledge your role, this is for you.
If you’re scrolling past photos of perfect family brunches while eating cold cereal alone, this is especially for you.
The Unseen Work
There’s so much of motherhood that happens in the invisible spaces. The mental load of remembering vaccine schedules and growth spurts and emotional developments. The middle-of-the-night worries. The research into schools or therapists or developmental milestones that no one ever witnesses.
The decisions. The thinking. The emotional labor that no one claps for.
This invisible work intensifies when you’re co-parenting or doing it solo. You’re carrying complex calculations in your head: how to protect your children from adult tension, how to foster relationships with both parents despite complicated feelings, how to create stability when your own heart still feels unsteady.
No one is giving you awards for maintaining civil communication with someone who hurt you. No one is celebrating your restraint when you don’t say what you really think. No one witnesses the thousand tiny choices you make to prioritize peace over vindication.
When No One Celebrates You
Maybe your kids are too young to understand the day’s significance. Maybe your ex doesn’t model the respect that would teach your children to honor you. Maybe your own complicated feelings about motherhood make you uncertain if you even deserve recognition.
Maybe the absence of celebration is opening old wounds about your own worth, your own visibility, your own place in the family structure.
Here’s what I want you to know: The lack of external validation doesn’t diminish the reality of your mothering. The absence of recognition doesn’t erase the presence of your impact.
You still count.
Small Ways to Honor Yourself
Start by saying no to anything that feels performative. That brunch where you’ll feel lonely in a crowd? Skip it. The family gathering where you’ll be hyper-aware of being the “single mom”? Not this year.
Instead, do one thing that you like, not what mothers are “supposed” to enjoy. The pedicure or the hike or the uninterrupted afternoon with a novel might be more restorative than any traditional Mother’s Day activity.
Give yourself credit for surviving, not thriving. Some seasons of motherhood aren’t about excellence, they’re about endurance. Some days, getting everyone fed and reasonably clean counts as success. Acknowledge how much energy it takes to parent through transition. To mother through heartbreak. To show up when you’re running on empty.
Create a tiny ritual that honors the mother you are, not the mother you think you should be. Write yourself a letter. Buy yourself flowers. Take a photograph that captures this moment, not for social media, but for your own remembering.
You’re Allowed to Matter
Even if the day feels empty. Even if no one acknowledges your role. Even if your children are with someone else. Even if motherhood hasn’t matched your expectations.
You still count.
Your needs matter. Your heart matters. Your journey matters. Not despite the complexity, but because of it.
The version of motherhood you’re living might not match the greeting card image or the social media highlight reel. It might be messier, more nuanced, more challenging than what you see around you.
But it’s real. And the mother living it – you – deserves to be seen. Even if you’re the only one doing the seeing right now.
Celebrating Yourself Might Feel Weird at First. Do It Anyway.
There’s a particular vulnerability in celebrating yourself when you’re accustomed to external validation. It might feel awkward. Selfish. Somehow wrong.
Do it anyway.
Because the mother who can honor herself teaches her children something essential about self-worth. The mother who acknowledges her own value models healthy boundaries and self-respect. The mother who celebrates herself, even in quiet ways, creates space for a more authentic version of family, one that accommodates reality over fantasy, truth over performance, genuine connection over perfect appearances.
This Mother’s Day, I see you. And I hope, even if just for a moment, you’ll let yourself see you too.
If today feels tender, you’re not alone.
Whether you’re mothering, grieving, leaving, or simply trying to show up for yourself, I’ve written a few other pieces that might speak to you:
