Hey everybody. Since tomorrow is Mother's Day I wanted to quickly take an opportunity
to publicly declare my love for my momma. There was a while there when we were like,
who are you? Who are you? Are we related? We've really worked on us and I'm happy to
say that it has paid off.
On last week's Ask Cristen I asked for your Mother's Day related questions. One big theme
that came up was how to celebrate or just get through Mother's Day if you don't like
your mom or if your mom was just a straight up bad mom. Kary Gaul asked, 'What's the best
way to handle Mother's Day when you are estranged from your family and it's painful to remember
you don't have a mother worth celebrating? My birth mother abused me enough for me to
end up in foster care and the one woman that was my chosen mom died about a decade ago.'
TheGFeather asked, 'I know that the focus of Mother's Day is supposed to be moms being
amazing and stuff but for those of us with abusive and/or toxic parents, could you throw
us a bone?' First of all for people watching who can totally relate to getting real uncomfortable
around Mother's Day, you are not alone. Mother's day is inescapable, it's everywhere, it is
the most popular day of the year for people to go to a restaurant. It's similarly as inescapable
as the fact that we all have a mom. We all came out of someone. That particular relationship
can be very prone to--to it's difficulties. If there's one thing that I have learned from
working through painful and sometimes yes traumatic past relationships it's the power
of understanding that hose relationships and those people although it might feel like it
sometimes, they are not us. At the end of the day, the one person in this world that
I have control over for the most part is me. Those past relationships don't have to define
us because they are not all of us, because we are constantly changing and evolving is
one of the most liberating things. Another thing that jumped out to me is some of the
psychology pieces I was reading about these fraught maternal relationships particularly
when they are abusive, that kind of abuse that your mother might have inflicted upon
you was probably inflicted on her at some time. I'm not saying that that is an excuse.
That might be one way of really helping to solidify that not only in your head but also
in here that it is not your fault. But Cristen I have to go and actually see my mother and
she is horrible. In those times that is when it is paramount, remember that you are not
your mother and your mother is acting out of her own set of issues. At some point you
will get to leave, I know that that doesn't make it any easier. There's no quick fix,
there's no solution, you can't fix your mom, you know, relationship in general if they
are in any way broken they take time and work to fix and it takes all parties being fully
committed and invested to that. So with all this in mind, if you are one of those people
who hates Mother's Day and you dread it particularly because of your relationship with your mom,
maybe your Mother's Day present should be thinking about how to give yourself some healing
and clarity and release. Maybe you create a new tradition. Something that celebrates
what you love about yourself or something that celebrates other family and I'm not talking
about blood relatives necessarily, I'm talking about who have acted as family in your lives.
It's really hard to feel rotten when you're shining a light on somebody else. Or if Mother's
Day needs to be your annual Sunday in May when you stay in and watch 'Mommy Dearest'
back to back to back and eat Chinese food all day, that's fine too, I'm saying take
care of yourself in whatever way you think is healthiest. If you had a rad mom or even
just like an adequate mom consider giving her an extra hug because that's not always
the case. And for those of you who thought I was going to talk about hating Mother's
Day because you don't want to have kids and you get flack for that, well I already made
a video about that so after this you can go watch that. If you hate Mother's Day because
you'd really like to become a mother but can't for whatever reason I actually haven't made
a video about that and I should. But in the meantime if you especially have tips for how
to get through Mother's Day, how you cope with Mother's Day, if you have a not so motherly
relationship with you mom, please share in the comments below, let's help each other
out. As always ask me your questions so I can give you some answers. And thanks to everybody
who commented on last week's Ask Cristen video 'Does Diversity Matter?' Bruce Bartup said,
'Diversity: mind expanding, heart swelling, soul deepening, social ice cream. Or sorbet.
Or pie. An adornment, an all-purpose tool. A joy. Human Oxygen. I never knew that diversity
could sound quite so delicious. So thank you.