People who mother

[IamAporcupine]

It was mother's day at my home country yesterday.
A friend shared an IG post critisising how all the advertisement for presents was still around cooking/cleaning/household appliances (shocking, I know). It had a 'fuck off' caption, and then a blurb with a 'happy people who mother's day!'

So who the hell are we trying to include here?

It must be 'persons' who have children (biological or adoptive) but because they do not 'feel' they are women cannot be called mothers?!
But surely if they feel they are men/male, then they would be happy to celebrate father's day. So this is cattering only for those who do not feel either male/female, or that they change 'gender' every day, or any other combination, correct?

Allegedly, they are OK with using the word mother as a verb to describe their role, but not with the same word used to describe them?
Again, it's OK to use a 'gendered' verb but not the word itself?

I know we are bodies with vaginas / persons who menstruate / etc etc, not sure why this one upset me so much. I guess because I love being a mother.

Also, when I commented with a 'this is crap', my friend asked a desingenious 'why?' so I can see the argument comming...

that was to @ancientgran

I'm pretty sure that NO MOTHERS EVER ever would have a problem with kids thanking mother figures or dads on mother's day. My GCs mother would definitely not want me thanked, I think she'd quite like to see me rotting in hell.

People who mother = female people who parent. If they were male it would be called fathering. The jobs are the same (aside from the giving birth/inseminating part which most but not all mother's resp fathers do first). We use a different noun/verb based on sex. Some kids have two fathers, neither needs to "mother" because there's nothing specific to mothering that fathering can't also cover. Some kids have more than two adults taking parenting roles e.g. stepmother/father or other significant adults, or a birth mother and an adoptive mother.

I received the following answer:

"Not every person who mothers is a mother. It can be a father.
Now, finally, the filial bond can be thought of separately from the role"

Huh? Could you ask them what the role of mothering involves? It'd be good to find out if I'm mothering or fathering. Possible clues: DH does most of the cooking and laundry, I do most of the school runs and taxiing and remembering to pay for things.

Oh dear - my DP does nearly all the cooking/washing/cleaning, always picked DS up from school and went to way more sports days/parents evenings than me - because I was working long hours earning the money - have we been getting our cards on the wrong days?
To think I thought I'd claimed the mother role by pushing him out of my vagina and breastfeeding him for three years.

I don't really see the mothering I do as cooking/washing/cleaning, maybe it is because my GC has been through alot but I see the important mothering I do is more about spending time with them, talking to them (something that never happened at home) encouraging and supporting them with school and social situations.

I'd never have got much of a write up on the cooking/washing/cleaning front but I do think I was always a good mum.

Having said the above my DH does much the same.

Can what we don't do count as well? I don't shout, scream, swear or punch, again DH is the same.

I reckon I might be one of the people this sort of thing thinks it is trying to help.

As a mother who has her children by adoption can I just say:

That Mother's Day works just fine for me.

That 'people who mother' is fucking insulting and implies that I am not my children's mother and need to be included by managing language until it submits.

That I 100% am my children's mother (although they also have a birth mother).

And just a basic 'No thank you'.

*mangling language

@RainbowCrossing

I reckon I might be one of the people this sort of thing thinks it is trying to help.

As a mother who has her children by adoption can I just say:

That Mother's Day works just fine for me.

That 'people who mother' is fucking insulting and implies that I am not my children's mother and need to be included by managing language until it submits.

That I 100% am my children's mother (although they also have a birth mother).

And just a basic 'No thank you'.

I don't see it as being meant for adoptive mothers, as they are mothers, I think it is for people like me, in the "mother" role but not a mother. I think the OP is saying it is for men, or maybe that was someone else. Maybe we are all looking from our own experience.

Possibly.

I can just imagine that someone will be along in a moment to claim it is inclusive on my behalf. They do it all the fucking time with trans stuff. And they can fuck right off. I don't want it.

Having said the above my DH does much the same.

That's the point I was clumsily trying to make. A female person doing a nurturing parent type role is mothering. A male person doing the exact same thing is fathering. I don't know what they think the mothering role is that a man can do and not just be said to be being a good father, but I strongly suspect some good old fashioned sexism lies behind it.

If a father is doing it then it's fathering. Unless your friend is stuck in the 1950s when it would be inconceivable for a father to (eg) change a nappy so if he's doing that it must be mothering as only women do "women's work". I'd be tempted to point out to your friend how sexist she's being...

Surely all this crap is covered by "like a mother to me" cards and gifts alongside the usual tat?

@RainbowCrossing

Possibly.

I can just imagine that someone will be along in a moment to claim it is inclusive on my behalf. They do it all the fucking time with trans stuff. And they can fuck right off. I don't want it.

They are being ridiculous, you are a mother so they deserve to be ignored.

@thirdfiddle

Having said the above my DH does much the same.

That's the point I was clumsily trying to make. A female person doing a nurturing parent type role is mothering. A male person doing the exact same thing is fathering. I don't know what they think the mothering role is that a man can do and not just be said to be being a good father, but I strongly suspect some good old fashioned sexism lies behind it.

Maybe we should do away with Mothers Day and Fathers Day and just have parents day. I bet the card companies wouldn't like that. I remember a big push to have a grandparents day but I haven't seen or heard anything of that for a while maybe I'm just tuning it out as I'm not big on cards.

@HarebrightCedarmoon

I think that attitude is bigotted, and at best unimaginitive. I can think of several examples off the top of my head, where women are mothers without giving birth.

Absolutely

huh. Interesting.

I just thought: Mothering - is generally (or at least by me) thought of as looking after someone, raising them etc.

Fathering - providing the sperm to fertilize the egg.

Isn't that strange. You'd never say a woman was fathering a child, but you could say a man was mothering his child.

Yet another word that women have to share, because it's detached from the concept of Mother (female parent), into something we do for other people, as opposed to the male version which they get to keep for themselves because it's one specific act which doesn't involve ongoing effort.

And yes, that's overthinking, but it's also accurate.

I think that people who mother, tends to mean aunts, grandmothers or unrelated women who take on a very mothering role for a child. Either as a primary or secondary caregiver. And friend of mine lived with her niece for nearly all of her niece's childhood. Overall, she was the secondary parent of that child. In fact, at times in the early years, when her sister had pnd, she very much took on nearly all parenting responsibilities. She was her niece's aunt but she 100% mothered her, which her niece fully acknowledges.

I have a relative who was largely raised by his grandmother for the first 10 years of his life. He lives with his biological mother now but he absolutely looks to his grandmother as a mother figure because that's what she was. There are people who found a refuge from a difficult home life, or just something they were missing at home, with a female neighbour, relative or teacher. Even if they never lived with them, those women provided a sense of being mothered.

I really don't think, 'people who mother' is a gender ideology thing but a recognition that some women provide a feeling of being mothered for children who they are not the parent of.

Interesting to read the different thoughts.

I must admit that I was wrong - it seems that this was not related to gender ideology. My bad!

I think what confused me is that, as I said, the verb 'mother' is (or was!) very rarely used in my mother (!) tongue. And father does not even exist as a verb. 'People who mother' sounds fine in English, but in Spanish sounds cranky and made up.

There's definitely some gender something going on if they're saying a father can mother!

Maybe we should do away with Mothers Day and Fathers Day and just have parents day. I bet the card companies wouldn't like that.

Mothers Day was originally Mothering Sunday in the UK (4th Sunday in Lent), so it has its background in the nation's Christian heritage. Pleb workers were kindly allowed a Sunday off to visit their mother.

I like the days with a bit of history (Boxing Day, May Day); most are just invented for commercialism of course.

Yet another word that women have to share, because it's detached from the concept of Mother (female parent), into something we do for other people, as opposed to the male version which they get to keep for themselves because it's one specific act which doesn't involve ongoing effort.

I think @Kotatsu hit the nail on the head in picking out the gender issue here. You only have to go onto AIBU or Money Matters here to see the flip side of this coin. Plenty of fathers who walk away from their responsibilities either by "being good" with the baby but refusing to spend any time looking after it/giving up any of the hobby time for family time/doing all they can to dodge financial responsibility for their children.