Dear Mom/ Step Mom/ Grandmother/ Surrogate Mother
You know that thing you did last Tuesday? The thing that took about four minutes and that no one acknowledged, maybe no one even noticed? You tracked the unsigned permission slip with several phone calls to make sure your child got to go on the trip. You reschedule a doctor’s appointment so your child could go to the birthday party. You organized drivers for all your kids so all their activities could happen. You remembered that your child had been quieter than usual at breakfast and held that in the back of your mind all day. You rearranged a small part of your afternoon, without fanfare to check in.
You do dozens of these things every week—every day. Most of them will never be named. Many of them are things no one else would have thought to do at all, because you are the one whose mind is organized around the people in your family, constantly running a background check that keeps things from falling through the cracks.
Thank you! We see you. We know what you do and who you do it for. You didn’t sign up for recognition. You do what you do because you love your people and because someone has to keep it all moving, and usually that someone is you. But today, here, in this space, we want to name it. Because invisible work is work that doesn’t get seen, and you are still doing it.
You are not in the background of this family’s story. You are the connective tissue that holds the story together.
The Labor That Doesn’t Have a Name
There is a term, cognitive load, that is used to describe the invisible mental effort of tracking, planning, and anticipating. It is the work of remembering that the dentist appointment needs to be scheduled, that one child is going through something and needs a little more gentleness right now, that the running shoes are too small and that’s why the mornings have been harder than usual.
Most of us carry this cognitive load without being asked to do so. It is woven into ordinary life so thoroughly that even you may not fully see how much of it you’re holding. We feel the weight of it — in the tiredness that doesn’t ever go away, in the slight pause before you let yourself rest because you’re running through the list of things still undone. But the weight rarely gets acknowledged as the real, significant thing that it is.
So let’s acknowledge it now: what you hold in your mind and in your heart for your family is not nothing. It is something. It is a great deal, in fact.
What Our Sisterhood Sees In You
If you are here we know that you already strive toward empathy-led parenting. And in many homes, you are this guiding light that teaches empathy as a life skill rather than an emotional variation. You read the room. You notice when someone is off. You adjust. You stay curious about what’s underneath your children’s, and your partner’s, behavior instead of just responding to the surface of it. You intervene in your children’s battles. You endure being the punching bag because you are the safe space. You take it. You do all of this while being a full human person with your own needs, your own exhaustion, your own things you’re trying to figure out. We want to acknowledge the whole person under the strain of needs being met.
Here is something worth saying plainly: you cannot pour from empty. The empathy and attentiveness that make you such a grounding presence for your family need a source that needs to be replenished. Resting is not a reward for finishing everything. It is part of the work, because a depleted parent cannot connect in the ways that matter most. Let me repeat that more boldly. Replenishment is part of the work of remaining empathetic and attentive.
Taking care of yourself, (napping, showering, social connections, time by yourself) is not selfish indulgence. It is how you stay in the game emotionally, relationally, sustainably for the people in your life. We often forget this, or tie our value to what we do for others. One of Connective Parenting’s guiding principles is that the parent’s needs are just as important as the child’s needs.
We mean exactly that. Let that sit for just a minute.
To the Part of You That Worries You’re Not Enough
There is probably a voice, quiet or not so quiet, that measures what you give against what your children need and finds a gap. That wonders if you’re too impatient, too distracted, too tired, not present enough, not fun enough, not calm enough. I get it. I do that too. Late at night or just after a rushed drop off. Was I patient enough? Did I really listen? Was I too harsh in my response?
That voice is not telling you the truth of the situation. And it is not an accurate measure of what you actually are to your children.
What you actually are: the person they look for in a crowd. The voice they want when they’re scared. The arms that still mean safety even to the ones who are almost as tall as you. The one who noticed, even last Tuesday, when no one else did.
You are doing something real and lasting and irreplaceable, whether you are blood related or not. It may not look like what you imagined parenthood would look like. But it is yours, and it and you, are enough.
For Today
You don’t need to earn rest or recognition today by doing everything first. You can simply receive it. You can let yourself be celebrated without immediately deflecting to what still needs to be done.
Let the people who you love love you back today. And if the day is quieter than you’d like, if the recognition doesn’t quite match the effort, know that what you have given your family has taken root in places you may not fully see yet.
It is growing and will keep growing, long after you’ve forgotten last Tuesday.
Happy Mother’s Day,
Bonnie and Shannon
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